computer securiy
Computer security compromised by hardware failure is a branch of computer security applied to hardware. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to remain accessible and productive to its intended users.[1] Such secret information could be retrieved by different ways. Sony VAIO VGN-NW320F/T Keyboard
This article focus on the retrieval of data thanks to misused hardware or hardware failure. Hardware could be misused or exploited to get secret data. This article collects main types of attack that can be lead in a data thief.
Computer security can be comprised by devices, such as keyboards, monitors or printers (thanks to electromagnetic or acoustic emanation for example) or by components of the computer, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
such as the memory, the network card or the processor (thanks to time or temperature analysis for example).
Contents [hide]
1 Devices
1.1 Monitor
1.1.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.1.2 Compromising reflections
1.2 Keyboard
1.2.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.2.1.1 The Falling Edge Transition Technique
1.2.1.2 The Generalized Transition Technique
1.2.1.3 The Modulation Technique
1.2.1.4 The Matrix Scan Technique
1.2.1.5 SummaryAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
1.2.2 Acoustic emanations
1.2.3 Video Eavesdropping on Keyboard
1.3 Printer
1.3.1 Acoustic emanations
2 Computer components
2.1 Network Interface Card
2.1.1 Timing attack
2.2 Memory
2.2.1 Physical chemistry
2.2.2 Temperature
2.2.3 Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWireSony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
2.3 Processor
2.3.1 Cache attack
2.3.2 Timing attack
2.3.3 Privilege escalation
3 References
4 Bibliography
4.1 Acoustic
4.2 Cache attack
4.3 Chemical
4.4 Electromagnetic
4.5 FireWire
4.6 Processor bug and backdoorsAcer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
4.7 Temperature
4.8 Timing attacks
4.9 Other
[edit]Devices
[edit]Monitor
The monitor, main device of the computer, can be used to retrieve data. Even if monitors seem harmless, they radiate or reflect data on their environment; this lets attackers know useful data about the content displayed on the monitor.
[edit]Electromagnetic emanationsIdeapad U550
As previously said, video display units radiate :
narrowband harmonics of the digital clock signals ;
broadband harmonics of the various 'random' digital signals such as the video signal.[2]
Known as compromising emanations or TEMPEST radiation, a code word for a U.S. government programme aimed at attacking the problem, the electromagnetic broadcast of data has been a significant concern in sensitive computer applications. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
Eavesdroppers can reconstruct video screen content from radio frequency emanations.[3] Each (radiated) harmonic of the video signal shows a remarkable resemblance to a broadcast TV signal. It is therefore possible to reconstruct the picture displayed on the video display unit from the radiated emission by means of a normal television receiver.[2] If no preventive measures are taken, eavesdropping on a video display unit is possible at several hundreds of metres distance, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
using only a normal black-and-white TV receiver, a directional antenna and an antenna amplifier. It is even possible to pick up information from some types of video display units at a distance of over 1 kilometre If more sophisticated receiving and decoding equipment is used, the maximum distance can be much greater.[4]
[edit]Compromising reflectionsHP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
What is displayed by the monitor is reflected on the environment. The time-varying diffuse reflections of the light emitted by a CRT monitor can be exploited to recover the original monitor image.[5] This is a eavesdropping technique for spying at a distance on data that is displayed on an arbitrary computer screen, including the currently prevalent LCD monitors. Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
The technique exploits reflections of the screen’s optical emanations in various objects that one commonly finds in close proximity to the screen and uses those reflections to recover the original screen content. Such objects include eyeglasses, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
tea pots, spoons, plastic bottles, and even the eye of the user. This attack can be successfully mounted to spy on even small fonts using inexpensive, off-the-shelf equipment (less than 1500 dollars) from a distance of up to 10 meters. Relying on more expensive equipment allowed to conduct this attack from over 30 meters away, demonstrating that similar attacks are feasible from the other side of the street or from a close-by building.[6]
Many objects that may be found at a usual workplace can be exploited to retrieve information on a computer’s display by an outsider. SamsungR19 Keyboard
[7] Particularly good results were obtained from reflections in a user’s eyeglasses or a tea pot located on the desk next to the screen. Reflections that stem from the eye of the user also provide good results. However, eyes are harder to spy on at a distance because they are fast-moving objects and require high exposure times. Using more expensive equipment with lower exposure times helps to remedy this problem.[8] Compaq 6720 Keyboard
The reflections gathered from curved surfaces on close-by objects indeed pose a substantial threat to the confidentiality of data displayed on the screen. Fully invalidating this threat without at the same time hiding the screen from the legitimate user seems difficult, without using curtains on the windows or similar forms of strong optical shielding. Most users, however, will not be aware of this risk and may not be willing to close the curtains on a nice day. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
[9] The reflection of an object, a computer display, in a curved mirror creates a virtual image that is located behind the reflecting surface. For a flat mirror this virtual image has the same size and is located behind the mirror at the same distance as the original object. For curved mirrors, however, the situation is more complex.[10]
[edit]Keyboard
[edit]Electromagnetic emanations
Computer keyboards are often used to transmit confidential data such as passwords. Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
Since they contain electronic components, keyboards emit electromagnetic waves. These emanations could reveal sensitive information such as keystrokes.[11] Electromagnetic emanations have turned out to constitute a security threat to computer equipment.[9] The figure below presents how a keystroke is retrieved and what material is necessary.
Diagram presenting all material necessary to detect keystrokes
The approach is to acquire the raw signal directly from the antenna and to process the entire captured electromagnetic spectrum. Thanks to this method, four different kinds of compromising electromagnetic emanations have been detected, generated by wired and wireless keyboards. These emissions lead to a full or a partial recovery of the keystrokes. HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
The best practical attack fully recovered 95% of the keystrokes of a PS/2 keyboard at a distance up to 20 meters, even through walls.[11] Because each keyboard has a specific fingerprint based on the clock frequency inconsistencies, it can determine the source keyboard of a compromising emanation, even if multiple keyboards from the same model are used at the same time. Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
[12]
The four different kinds way of compromising electromagnetic emanations are described below.
[edit]The Falling Edge Transition Technique
When a key is pressed, released or held down, the keyboard sends a packet of information known as a scan code to the computer.[13] The protocol used to transmit these scan codes is a bidirectional serial communication, based on four wires: Vcc (5 volts), ground, data and clock.[13] Clock and data signals are identically generated. Hence, the compromising emanation detected is the combination of both signals. However, the edges of the data and the clock lines are not superposed. Thus, they can be easily separated to obtain independent signals.[14]
[edit]The Generalized Transition TechniqueDell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
The Falling Edge Transition attack is limited to a partial recovery of the keystrokes. This is a significant limitation.[15] The GTT is a falling edge transition attack improved, which recover almost all keystrokes. Indeed, between two traces, there is exactly one data rising edge. If attackers are able to detect this transition, they can fully recover the keystrokes.[15]
[edit]The Modulation Technique
Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
Harmonics compromising electromagnetic emissions come from unintentional emanations such as radiations emitted by the clock, non-linear elements, crosstalk, ground pollution, etc. Determining theoretically the reasons of these compromising radiations is a very complex task.[16] These harmonics correspond to a carrier of approximately 4 MHz which is very likely the internal clock of the micro-controller inside the keyboard. Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
These harmonics are correlated with both clock and data signals, which describe modulated signals (in amplitude and frequency) and the full state of both clock and data signals. This means that the scan code can be completely recovered from these harmonics.[16]
[edit]The Matrix Scan Technique
Keyboard manufacturers arrange the keys in a matrix. Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
The keyboard controller, often a 8-bit processor, parses columns one-by-one and recovers the state of 8 keys at once. This matrix scan process can be described as 192 keys (some keys may not be used, for instance modern keyboards use 104/105 keys) arranged in 24 columns and 8 rows.[17] These columns are continuously pulsed one-by-one for at least 3μs. Thus, Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
these leads may act as an antenna and generate electromagnetic emanations. If an attacker is able to capture these emanations, he can easily recover the column of the pressed key. Even if this signal does not fully describe the pressed key, it still gives partial information on the transmitted scan code, i.e. the column number.[17]
Note that the matrix scan routine loops continuously. Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
When no key is pressed, we still have a signal composed of multiple equidistant peaks. These emanations may be used to remotely detect the presence of powered computers. Concerning wireless keyboards, the wireless data burst transmission can be used as an electromagnetic trigger to detect exactly when a key is pressed, while the matrix scan emanations are used to determine the column it belongs to.[17]
[edit]SummaryAcer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Some techniques can only target some keyboards. This table sums up which technique could be used to find keystroke for different kind of keyboard.
Technique name Wired Keyboard Laptop Keyboard Wireless Keyboard
Falling Edge Transition Technique Yes Yes
Generalized Transition Technique Yes Yes
Modulation Technique Yes Yes HP 608558-001 Keyboard
Matrix Scan Technique Yes Yes Yes
In their paper called "Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired and Wireless Keyboards", Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini tested 12 different keyboard models, with PS/2, USB connectors and wireless communication in different setups: a semi-anechoic chamber, a small office, an adjacent office and a flat in a building. The table below presents their results.
Type of keyboard Number of tested keyboard FETT GTT MT MST
PS/2 7 7/7 6/7 4/7 5/7
USB 2 0/2 0/2 0/2 2/2
Laptop 2 1/2 1/2 0/2 2/2
Wireless 1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1
[edit]Acoustic emanationsAsus F80L Keyboard
Attacks against emanations caused by human typing have attracted interest in recent years. In particular, works showed that keyboard acoustic emanations do leak information that can be exploited to reconstruct the typed text.[18]
PC keyboards, notebook keyboards are vulnerable to attacks based on differentiating the sound emanated by different keys.[19] This attack takes as input an audio signal containing a recording of a single word typed by a single person on a keyboard, and a dictionary of words. It is assume that the typed word is present in the dictionary. The aim of the attack is to reconstruct the original word from the signal.[20] This attack, Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
taking as input a 10-minute sound recording of a user typing English text using a keyboard, and then recovering up to 96% of typed characters.[21] This attack is inexpensive because the other hardware required is a parabolic microphone and non-invasive because it does not require physical intrusion into the system. The attack employsSony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
a neural network to recognize the key being pressed.[19] It combines signal processing and efficient data structures and algorithms, to successfully reconstruct single words of 7-13 characters from a recording of the clicks made when typing them on a keyboard.[18] The sound of clicks can differ slightly from key to key, because the keys are positioned at different positions on the keyboard plate, although the clicks of different keys sound similar to the human ear. Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
[19]
On average, there were only 0.5 incorrect recognitions per 20 clicks, which shows the exposure of keyboard to the eavesdropping using this attack.[22] The attack is very efficient, taking under 20 seconds per word on a standard PC. A 90% or better success rate of finding the correct word for words of 10 or more characters, and a success rate of 73% over all the words tested.[18] In practice, a human attacker can typically determine if text is random. Asus A9Rp Keyboard
An attacker can also identify occasions when the user types user names and passwords.[23] Short audio signals containing a single word, with seven or more characters long was considered. This means that the signal is only a few seconds long. Such short words are often chosen as a password.[18] The dominant factors affecting the attack's success are the word length, and more importantly, the number of repeated characters within the word.[18] Toshiba Satellite 1870 Keyboard
This is a procedure that makes it possible to efficiently uncover a word out of audio recordings of keyboard click sounds.[24] More recently, extracting information out of an other type of emanations was demonstrated: acoustic emanations from mechanical devices such as dot-matrix printers.[18]
[edit]Video Eavesdropping on KeyboardThinkPad Edge E125
While extracting private information by watching somebody typing on a keyboard might seem to be an easy task, it becomes extremely challenging if it has to be automated. However, an automated tool is needed in the case of long-lasting surveillance procedures or long user activity, as a human being is able to reconstruct only a few characters per minute. The paper "ClearShot: Eavesdropping on Keyboard Input from Video" presents a novel approach to automatically recovering the text being typed on a keyboard, based solely on a video of the user typing.[25] Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
Automatically recognizing the keys being pressed by a user is a hard problem that requires sophisticated motion analysis. Experiments show that, for a human, reconstructing a few sentences requires lengthy hours of slow-motion analysis of the video. Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
[26] The attacker might install a surveillance device in the room of the victim, might take control of an existing camera by exploiting a vulnerability in the camera’s control software, or might simply point a mobile phone with an integrated camera at the laptop’s keyboard when the victim is working in a public space.[26]
Balzarotti's analysis is divided into two main phases (figure below). The first phase analyzes the video recorded by the camera using computer vision techniques. For each frame of the video, the computer vision analysis computes the set of keys that were likely pressed, Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
the set of keys that were certainly not pressed, and the position of space characters. Because the results of this phase of the analysis are noisy, a second phase, called the text analysis, is required. The goal of this phase is to remove errors using both language and context-sensitive techniques. The result of this phase is the reconstructed text, where each word is represented by a list of possible candidates, ranked by likelihood.[26]
Diagram presenting steps to go through when detecting keystroke with video inputToshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
[edit]Printer
[edit]Acoustic emanations
With acoustic emanations, an attack that recovers what a dot-matrix printer processing English text is printing is possible. It is based on a record of the sound the printer makes, if the microphone is close enough to it. This attack recovers up to 72 % of printed words, and up to 95 % if knowledge about the text are done, with a microphone at a distance of 10 cm from the printer.[5] Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
After an upfront training phase ("a" in the picture below), the attack ("b" in the picture below) is fully automated and uses a combination of machine learning, audio processing, and speech recognition techniques, including spectrum features, Hidden Markov Models and linear classification.[9] The fundamental reason why the reconstruction of the printed text works is that, the emitted sound becomes louder if more needles strike the paper at a given time.[9] There is a correlation between the number of needles and the intensity of the acoustic emanation.[9] Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
A training phase was conducted where words from a dictionary are printed and characteristic sound features of these words are extracted and stored in a database. The trained characteristic features was used to recognize the printed English text.[9] But, this task is not trivial. Major challenges include :
Identifying and extracting sound features that suitably capture the acoustic emanation of dot-matrix printers;
Compensating for the blurred and overlapping features that are induced by the substantial decay time of the emanations; HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
Identifying and eliminating wrongly recognized words to increase the overall percentage of correctly identified words (recognition rate).[9]
Diagram presenting phases when retrieving data from a printer
[edit]Computer componentsSony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
[edit]Network Interface Card
[edit]Timing attack
Timing attacks enable an attacker to extract secrets maintained in a security system by observing the time it takes the system to respond to various queries.[27]
SSH is designed to provide a secure channel between two hosts. Despite the encryption and authentication mechanisms it uses, SSH has weaknesses. In interactive mode, every individual keystroke that a user types is sent to the remote machine in a separate IP packet immediately after the key is pressed, which leaks the inter-keystroke timing information of users’ typing. Below, the picture represents the command su processed through a SSH connection. ThinkPad Edge E520
Network messages sent between the host and the client for the command 'su' - numbers are size of network packet in byte
A very simple statistical techniques suffice to reveal sensitive information such as the length of users’ passwords or even root passwords. By using advanced statistical techniques on timing information collected from the network, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
the eavesdropper can learn significant information about what users type in SSH sessions.[28] Because the time it takes the operating system to send out the packet after the keypress is in general negligible comparing to the interkeystroke timing, this also enables an eavesdropper to learn the precise interkeystroke timings of users’ typing from the arrival times of packets.[29]
[edit]Memory
[edit]Physical chemistryAcer eMachines G640 Keyboard
Data remanence problems not only affect obvious areas such as RAM and non-volatile memory cells but can also occur in other areas of the device through hot-carrier effects (which change the characteristics of the semiconductors in the device) and various other effects which are examined alongside the more obvious memory-cell remanence problems.[30] It is possible to analyse and recover data from these cells and from semiconductor devices in general long after it should (in theory) have vanished.[31] Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
Electromigration, which means to physically move the atom to new locations (to physically alter the device itself) is another type of attack.[30] It involves the relocation of metal atoms due to high current densities, a phenomenon in which atoms are carried along by an “electron wind” in the opposite direction to the conventional current, producing voids at the negative electrode and hillocks and whiskers at the positive electrode. Acer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
Void formation leads to a local increase in current density and Joule heating (the interaction of electrons and metal ions to produce thermal energy), producing further electromigration effects. When the external stress is removed, the disturbed system tends to relax back to its original equilibrium state, resulting in a backflow which heals some of the electromigration damage. In the long term though, this can cause device failure, but in less extreme cases it simply serves to alter a device’s operating characteristics in noticeable ways. HP 491274-031 Keyboard
For example, the excavations of voids leads to increased wiring resistance and the growth of whiskers leads to contact formation and current leakage.[30] An example of a conductor which exhibits whisker growth due to electromigration is shown in the figure below:
Whisker growth due to electromigration
One example which exhibits void formation (in this case severe enough to have led to complete failure) is shown in this figure:
Void formation due to electromigration
[edit]TemperatureHP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for several seconds after power is lost, even at room temperature and even if removed from a motherboard.[32]
Many products do cryptographic and other security-related computations using secret keys or other variables that the equipment’s operator must not be HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
able to read out or alter. The usual solution is for the secret data to be kept in volatile memory inside a tamper-sensing enclosure. Security processors typically store secret key material in static RAM, from which power is removed if the device is tampered with. At temperatures below −20°C, the contents of SRAM can be ‘frozen’. It is interesting to know the Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
period of time for which a static RAM device will retain data once the power has been removed. Low temperatures can increase the data retention time of SRAM to many seconds or even minutes.[33]
[edit]Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWire
Maximillian Dornseif presented a technique in these slides, HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
which let him take the control of a Apple computer thanks to an iPod. The attacks needed a first generic phase where the iPod software was modified so that it behave as master on the FireWire bus. Then the iPod had full read/write access on the Apple Computer when the iPod was plugged.[34] FireWire is used by : audio devices, printers, scanners, cameras, gps, etc. Generally, a device connected by FireWire has full access (read/write). Indeed, OHCI Standard (FireWire standard) reads : HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
“ Physical requests, including physical read, physical write and lock requests to some CSR registers (section 5.5), are handled directly by the Host Controller without assistance by system software. ”
—OHCI Standard
So, any device connected by FireWire can read and write data on the computer memory. For example, a device can : HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
Grab the screen contents ;
Just search the memory for strings such as login, passwords ;
Scan for possible key material ;
Search cryptographic keys stored in RAM ;
Parse the whole physical memory to understand logical memory layout.
Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
or
Mess up the memory ;
Change screen content ;
Change UID/GID of a certain process ;
Inject code into a process ;
Inject an additional process.
[edit]Processor
[edit]Cache attackToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
To increase the computational power, processors are generally equipped with a cache memory which decreases the memory access latency. Below, the figure shows the hierarchy between the processor and the memory. First the processor looks for data in the cache L1, then L2, then in the memory.
Processor cache hierarchyAcer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
When the data is not where the processor is looking for, it is called a cache-miss. Below, pictures show how the processor fetch data when there are two cache levels.
Data A is in the L1-Cache
Data A is in the L2-Cache
Data A is in the memoryToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
Unfortunately caches contain only a small portion of the application data and can introduce additional latency to the memory transaction in the case of a miss. This involves also additional power consumption which is due to the activation of memory devices down in the memory hierarchy. The miss penalty has been already used to attack symmetric encryption algorithms, like DES.[35] The basic idea proposed in this paper is to force a cache miss while the processor is executing the AES encryption algorithm on a known plain text.[ HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
36] The attacks allow an unprivileged process to attack other process running in parallel on the same processor, despite partitioning methods such as memory protection, sandboxing and virtualization.[37]
[edit]Timing attack
By carefully measuring the amount of time required to perform private key operations, attackers may be able to find fixed Diffie-Hellman exponents, factor RSA keys, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
and break other cryptosystems. Against a vulnerable system, the attack is computationally inexpensive and often requires only known ciphertext.[38] The attack can be treated as a signal detection problem. The signal consists of the timing variation due to the target exponent bit, and noise results from measurement inaccuracies and timing variations due to unknown exponent bits. The properties of the signal and noise determineAcer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
the number of timing measurements required to for the attack. Timing attacks can potentially be used against other cryptosystems, including symmetric functions.[39]
[edit]Privilege escalation
A simple and generic processor backdoor can be used by attackers as a means to privilege escalation to get to privileges equivalent to those of any given running operating system. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
[40] Also, a non-privileged process of one of the non-privileged invited domain running on top of a virtual machine monitor can get to privileges equivalent to those of the virtual machine monitor.[40]
Loïc Duflot studied Intel processors in the paper "CPU bugs, CPU backdoors and consequences on security" ; he explains that the processor defines four different privilege rings numbered from 0 (most privileged) to 3 (least privileged). HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
Kernel code is usually running in ring 0, whereas user-space code is generally running in ring 3. The use of some security-critical assembly language instructions is restricted to ring 0 code. In order to escalate privilege through the backdoor, the attacker must :[41]
activate the backdoor by placing the CPU in the desired state HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
;
inject code and run it in ring 0 ;
get back to ring 3 in order to return the system to a stable state. Indeed, when code is running in ring 0, system calls do not work : Leaving the system in ring 0 and running a random system call (exit() typically) is likely to crash the system. Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
The backdoors Loïc Duflot presents are simple as they only modify the behavior of three assembly language instructions and have very simple and specific activation conditions, so that they are very unlikely to be accidentally activated. HP 633736-001 Keyboard
This article focus on the retrieval of data thanks to misused hardware or hardware failure. Hardware could be misused or exploited to get secret data. This article collects main types of attack that can be lead in a data thief.
Computer security can be comprised by devices, such as keyboards, monitors or printers (thanks to electromagnetic or acoustic emanation for example) or by components of the computer, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
such as the memory, the network card or the processor (thanks to time or temperature analysis for example).
Contents [hide]
1 Devices
1.1 Monitor
1.1.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.1.2 Compromising reflections
1.2 Keyboard
1.2.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.2.1.1 The Falling Edge Transition Technique
1.2.1.2 The Generalized Transition Technique
1.2.1.3 The Modulation Technique
1.2.1.4 The Matrix Scan Technique
1.2.1.5 SummaryAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
1.2.2 Acoustic emanations
1.2.3 Video Eavesdropping on Keyboard
1.3 Printer
1.3.1 Acoustic emanations
2 Computer components
2.1 Network Interface Card
2.1.1 Timing attack
2.2 Memory
2.2.1 Physical chemistry
2.2.2 Temperature
2.2.3 Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWireSony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
2.3 Processor
2.3.1 Cache attack
2.3.2 Timing attack
2.3.3 Privilege escalation
3 References
4 Bibliography
4.1 Acoustic
4.2 Cache attack
4.3 Chemical
4.4 Electromagnetic
4.5 FireWire
4.6 Processor bug and backdoorsAcer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
4.7 Temperature
4.8 Timing attacks
4.9 Other
[edit]Devices
[edit]Monitor
The monitor, main device of the computer, can be used to retrieve data. Even if monitors seem harmless, they radiate or reflect data on their environment; this lets attackers know useful data about the content displayed on the monitor.
[edit]Electromagnetic emanationsIdeapad U550
As previously said, video display units radiate :
narrowband harmonics of the digital clock signals ;
broadband harmonics of the various 'random' digital signals such as the video signal.[2]
Known as compromising emanations or TEMPEST radiation, a code word for a U.S. government programme aimed at attacking the problem, the electromagnetic broadcast of data has been a significant concern in sensitive computer applications. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
Eavesdroppers can reconstruct video screen content from radio frequency emanations.[3] Each (radiated) harmonic of the video signal shows a remarkable resemblance to a broadcast TV signal. It is therefore possible to reconstruct the picture displayed on the video display unit from the radiated emission by means of a normal television receiver.[2] If no preventive measures are taken, eavesdropping on a video display unit is possible at several hundreds of metres distance, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
using only a normal black-and-white TV receiver, a directional antenna and an antenna amplifier. It is even possible to pick up information from some types of video display units at a distance of over 1 kilometre If more sophisticated receiving and decoding equipment is used, the maximum distance can be much greater.[4]
[edit]Compromising reflectionsHP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
What is displayed by the monitor is reflected on the environment. The time-varying diffuse reflections of the light emitted by a CRT monitor can be exploited to recover the original monitor image.[5] This is a eavesdropping technique for spying at a distance on data that is displayed on an arbitrary computer screen, including the currently prevalent LCD monitors. Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
The technique exploits reflections of the screen’s optical emanations in various objects that one commonly finds in close proximity to the screen and uses those reflections to recover the original screen content. Such objects include eyeglasses, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
tea pots, spoons, plastic bottles, and even the eye of the user. This attack can be successfully mounted to spy on even small fonts using inexpensive, off-the-shelf equipment (less than 1500 dollars) from a distance of up to 10 meters. Relying on more expensive equipment allowed to conduct this attack from over 30 meters away, demonstrating that similar attacks are feasible from the other side of the street or from a close-by building.[6]
Many objects that may be found at a usual workplace can be exploited to retrieve information on a computer’s display by an outsider. SamsungR19 Keyboard
[7] Particularly good results were obtained from reflections in a user’s eyeglasses or a tea pot located on the desk next to the screen. Reflections that stem from the eye of the user also provide good results. However, eyes are harder to spy on at a distance because they are fast-moving objects and require high exposure times. Using more expensive equipment with lower exposure times helps to remedy this problem.[8] Compaq 6720 Keyboard
The reflections gathered from curved surfaces on close-by objects indeed pose a substantial threat to the confidentiality of data displayed on the screen. Fully invalidating this threat without at the same time hiding the screen from the legitimate user seems difficult, without using curtains on the windows or similar forms of strong optical shielding. Most users, however, will not be aware of this risk and may not be willing to close the curtains on a nice day. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
[9] The reflection of an object, a computer display, in a curved mirror creates a virtual image that is located behind the reflecting surface. For a flat mirror this virtual image has the same size and is located behind the mirror at the same distance as the original object. For curved mirrors, however, the situation is more complex.[10]
[edit]Keyboard
[edit]Electromagnetic emanations
Computer keyboards are often used to transmit confidential data such as passwords. Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
Since they contain electronic components, keyboards emit electromagnetic waves. These emanations could reveal sensitive information such as keystrokes.[11] Electromagnetic emanations have turned out to constitute a security threat to computer equipment.[9] The figure below presents how a keystroke is retrieved and what material is necessary.
Diagram presenting all material necessary to detect keystrokes
The approach is to acquire the raw signal directly from the antenna and to process the entire captured electromagnetic spectrum. Thanks to this method, four different kinds of compromising electromagnetic emanations have been detected, generated by wired and wireless keyboards. These emissions lead to a full or a partial recovery of the keystrokes. HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
The best practical attack fully recovered 95% of the keystrokes of a PS/2 keyboard at a distance up to 20 meters, even through walls.[11] Because each keyboard has a specific fingerprint based on the clock frequency inconsistencies, it can determine the source keyboard of a compromising emanation, even if multiple keyboards from the same model are used at the same time. Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
[12]
The four different kinds way of compromising electromagnetic emanations are described below.
[edit]The Falling Edge Transition Technique
When a key is pressed, released or held down, the keyboard sends a packet of information known as a scan code to the computer.[13] The protocol used to transmit these scan codes is a bidirectional serial communication, based on four wires: Vcc (5 volts), ground, data and clock.[13] Clock and data signals are identically generated. Hence, the compromising emanation detected is the combination of both signals. However, the edges of the data and the clock lines are not superposed. Thus, they can be easily separated to obtain independent signals.[14]
[edit]The Generalized Transition TechniqueDell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
The Falling Edge Transition attack is limited to a partial recovery of the keystrokes. This is a significant limitation.[15] The GTT is a falling edge transition attack improved, which recover almost all keystrokes. Indeed, between two traces, there is exactly one data rising edge. If attackers are able to detect this transition, they can fully recover the keystrokes.[15]
[edit]The Modulation Technique
Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
Harmonics compromising electromagnetic emissions come from unintentional emanations such as radiations emitted by the clock, non-linear elements, crosstalk, ground pollution, etc. Determining theoretically the reasons of these compromising radiations is a very complex task.[16] These harmonics correspond to a carrier of approximately 4 MHz which is very likely the internal clock of the micro-controller inside the keyboard. Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
These harmonics are correlated with both clock and data signals, which describe modulated signals (in amplitude and frequency) and the full state of both clock and data signals. This means that the scan code can be completely recovered from these harmonics.[16]
[edit]The Matrix Scan Technique
Keyboard manufacturers arrange the keys in a matrix. Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
The keyboard controller, often a 8-bit processor, parses columns one-by-one and recovers the state of 8 keys at once. This matrix scan process can be described as 192 keys (some keys may not be used, for instance modern keyboards use 104/105 keys) arranged in 24 columns and 8 rows.[17] These columns are continuously pulsed one-by-one for at least 3μs. Thus, Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
these leads may act as an antenna and generate electromagnetic emanations. If an attacker is able to capture these emanations, he can easily recover the column of the pressed key. Even if this signal does not fully describe the pressed key, it still gives partial information on the transmitted scan code, i.e. the column number.[17]
Note that the matrix scan routine loops continuously. Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
When no key is pressed, we still have a signal composed of multiple equidistant peaks. These emanations may be used to remotely detect the presence of powered computers. Concerning wireless keyboards, the wireless data burst transmission can be used as an electromagnetic trigger to detect exactly when a key is pressed, while the matrix scan emanations are used to determine the column it belongs to.[17]
[edit]SummaryAcer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Some techniques can only target some keyboards. This table sums up which technique could be used to find keystroke for different kind of keyboard.
Technique name Wired Keyboard Laptop Keyboard Wireless Keyboard
Falling Edge Transition Technique Yes Yes
Generalized Transition Technique Yes Yes
Modulation Technique Yes Yes HP 608558-001 Keyboard
Matrix Scan Technique Yes Yes Yes
In their paper called "Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired and Wireless Keyboards", Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini tested 12 different keyboard models, with PS/2, USB connectors and wireless communication in different setups: a semi-anechoic chamber, a small office, an adjacent office and a flat in a building. The table below presents their results.
Type of keyboard Number of tested keyboard FETT GTT MT MST
PS/2 7 7/7 6/7 4/7 5/7
USB 2 0/2 0/2 0/2 2/2
Laptop 2 1/2 1/2 0/2 2/2
Wireless 1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1
[edit]Acoustic emanationsAsus F80L Keyboard
Attacks against emanations caused by human typing have attracted interest in recent years. In particular, works showed that keyboard acoustic emanations do leak information that can be exploited to reconstruct the typed text.[18]
PC keyboards, notebook keyboards are vulnerable to attacks based on differentiating the sound emanated by different keys.[19] This attack takes as input an audio signal containing a recording of a single word typed by a single person on a keyboard, and a dictionary of words. It is assume that the typed word is present in the dictionary. The aim of the attack is to reconstruct the original word from the signal.[20] This attack, Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
taking as input a 10-minute sound recording of a user typing English text using a keyboard, and then recovering up to 96% of typed characters.[21] This attack is inexpensive because the other hardware required is a parabolic microphone and non-invasive because it does not require physical intrusion into the system. The attack employsSony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
a neural network to recognize the key being pressed.[19] It combines signal processing and efficient data structures and algorithms, to successfully reconstruct single words of 7-13 characters from a recording of the clicks made when typing them on a keyboard.[18] The sound of clicks can differ slightly from key to key, because the keys are positioned at different positions on the keyboard plate, although the clicks of different keys sound similar to the human ear. Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
[19]
On average, there were only 0.5 incorrect recognitions per 20 clicks, which shows the exposure of keyboard to the eavesdropping using this attack.[22] The attack is very efficient, taking under 20 seconds per word on a standard PC. A 90% or better success rate of finding the correct word for words of 10 or more characters, and a success rate of 73% over all the words tested.[18] In practice, a human attacker can typically determine if text is random. Asus A9Rp Keyboard
An attacker can also identify occasions when the user types user names and passwords.[23] Short audio signals containing a single word, with seven or more characters long was considered. This means that the signal is only a few seconds long. Such short words are often chosen as a password.[18] The dominant factors affecting the attack's success are the word length, and more importantly, the number of repeated characters within the word.[18] Toshiba Satellite 1870 Keyboard
This is a procedure that makes it possible to efficiently uncover a word out of audio recordings of keyboard click sounds.[24] More recently, extracting information out of an other type of emanations was demonstrated: acoustic emanations from mechanical devices such as dot-matrix printers.[18]
[edit]Video Eavesdropping on KeyboardThinkPad Edge E125
While extracting private information by watching somebody typing on a keyboard might seem to be an easy task, it becomes extremely challenging if it has to be automated. However, an automated tool is needed in the case of long-lasting surveillance procedures or long user activity, as a human being is able to reconstruct only a few characters per minute. The paper "ClearShot: Eavesdropping on Keyboard Input from Video" presents a novel approach to automatically recovering the text being typed on a keyboard, based solely on a video of the user typing.[25] Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
Automatically recognizing the keys being pressed by a user is a hard problem that requires sophisticated motion analysis. Experiments show that, for a human, reconstructing a few sentences requires lengthy hours of slow-motion analysis of the video. Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
[26] The attacker might install a surveillance device in the room of the victim, might take control of an existing camera by exploiting a vulnerability in the camera’s control software, or might simply point a mobile phone with an integrated camera at the laptop’s keyboard when the victim is working in a public space.[26]
Balzarotti's analysis is divided into two main phases (figure below). The first phase analyzes the video recorded by the camera using computer vision techniques. For each frame of the video, the computer vision analysis computes the set of keys that were likely pressed, Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
the set of keys that were certainly not pressed, and the position of space characters. Because the results of this phase of the analysis are noisy, a second phase, called the text analysis, is required. The goal of this phase is to remove errors using both language and context-sensitive techniques. The result of this phase is the reconstructed text, where each word is represented by a list of possible candidates, ranked by likelihood.[26]
Diagram presenting steps to go through when detecting keystroke with video inputToshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
[edit]Printer
[edit]Acoustic emanations
With acoustic emanations, an attack that recovers what a dot-matrix printer processing English text is printing is possible. It is based on a record of the sound the printer makes, if the microphone is close enough to it. This attack recovers up to 72 % of printed words, and up to 95 % if knowledge about the text are done, with a microphone at a distance of 10 cm from the printer.[5] Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
After an upfront training phase ("a" in the picture below), the attack ("b" in the picture below) is fully automated and uses a combination of machine learning, audio processing, and speech recognition techniques, including spectrum features, Hidden Markov Models and linear classification.[9] The fundamental reason why the reconstruction of the printed text works is that, the emitted sound becomes louder if more needles strike the paper at a given time.[9] There is a correlation between the number of needles and the intensity of the acoustic emanation.[9] Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
A training phase was conducted where words from a dictionary are printed and characteristic sound features of these words are extracted and stored in a database. The trained characteristic features was used to recognize the printed English text.[9] But, this task is not trivial. Major challenges include :
Identifying and extracting sound features that suitably capture the acoustic emanation of dot-matrix printers;
Compensating for the blurred and overlapping features that are induced by the substantial decay time of the emanations; HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
Identifying and eliminating wrongly recognized words to increase the overall percentage of correctly identified words (recognition rate).[9]
Diagram presenting phases when retrieving data from a printer
[edit]Computer componentsSony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
[edit]Network Interface Card
[edit]Timing attack
Timing attacks enable an attacker to extract secrets maintained in a security system by observing the time it takes the system to respond to various queries.[27]
SSH is designed to provide a secure channel between two hosts. Despite the encryption and authentication mechanisms it uses, SSH has weaknesses. In interactive mode, every individual keystroke that a user types is sent to the remote machine in a separate IP packet immediately after the key is pressed, which leaks the inter-keystroke timing information of users’ typing. Below, the picture represents the command su processed through a SSH connection. ThinkPad Edge E520
Network messages sent between the host and the client for the command 'su' - numbers are size of network packet in byte
A very simple statistical techniques suffice to reveal sensitive information such as the length of users’ passwords or even root passwords. By using advanced statistical techniques on timing information collected from the network, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
the eavesdropper can learn significant information about what users type in SSH sessions.[28] Because the time it takes the operating system to send out the packet after the keypress is in general negligible comparing to the interkeystroke timing, this also enables an eavesdropper to learn the precise interkeystroke timings of users’ typing from the arrival times of packets.[29]
[edit]Memory
[edit]Physical chemistryAcer eMachines G640 Keyboard
Data remanence problems not only affect obvious areas such as RAM and non-volatile memory cells but can also occur in other areas of the device through hot-carrier effects (which change the characteristics of the semiconductors in the device) and various other effects which are examined alongside the more obvious memory-cell remanence problems.[30] It is possible to analyse and recover data from these cells and from semiconductor devices in general long after it should (in theory) have vanished.[31] Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
Electromigration, which means to physically move the atom to new locations (to physically alter the device itself) is another type of attack.[30] It involves the relocation of metal atoms due to high current densities, a phenomenon in which atoms are carried along by an “electron wind” in the opposite direction to the conventional current, producing voids at the negative electrode and hillocks and whiskers at the positive electrode. Acer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
Void formation leads to a local increase in current density and Joule heating (the interaction of electrons and metal ions to produce thermal energy), producing further electromigration effects. When the external stress is removed, the disturbed system tends to relax back to its original equilibrium state, resulting in a backflow which heals some of the electromigration damage. In the long term though, this can cause device failure, but in less extreme cases it simply serves to alter a device’s operating characteristics in noticeable ways. HP 491274-031 Keyboard
For example, the excavations of voids leads to increased wiring resistance and the growth of whiskers leads to contact formation and current leakage.[30] An example of a conductor which exhibits whisker growth due to electromigration is shown in the figure below:
Whisker growth due to electromigration
One example which exhibits void formation (in this case severe enough to have led to complete failure) is shown in this figure:
Void formation due to electromigration
[edit]TemperatureHP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for several seconds after power is lost, even at room temperature and even if removed from a motherboard.[32]
Many products do cryptographic and other security-related computations using secret keys or other variables that the equipment’s operator must not be HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
able to read out or alter. The usual solution is for the secret data to be kept in volatile memory inside a tamper-sensing enclosure. Security processors typically store secret key material in static RAM, from which power is removed if the device is tampered with. At temperatures below −20°C, the contents of SRAM can be ‘frozen’. It is interesting to know the Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
period of time for which a static RAM device will retain data once the power has been removed. Low temperatures can increase the data retention time of SRAM to many seconds or even minutes.[33]
[edit]Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWire
Maximillian Dornseif presented a technique in these slides, HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
which let him take the control of a Apple computer thanks to an iPod. The attacks needed a first generic phase where the iPod software was modified so that it behave as master on the FireWire bus. Then the iPod had full read/write access on the Apple Computer when the iPod was plugged.[34] FireWire is used by : audio devices, printers, scanners, cameras, gps, etc. Generally, a device connected by FireWire has full access (read/write). Indeed, OHCI Standard (FireWire standard) reads : HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
“ Physical requests, including physical read, physical write and lock requests to some CSR registers (section 5.5), are handled directly by the Host Controller without assistance by system software. ”
—OHCI Standard
So, any device connected by FireWire can read and write data on the computer memory. For example, a device can : HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
Grab the screen contents ;
Just search the memory for strings such as login, passwords ;
Scan for possible key material ;
Search cryptographic keys stored in RAM ;
Parse the whole physical memory to understand logical memory layout.
Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
or
Mess up the memory ;
Change screen content ;
Change UID/GID of a certain process ;
Inject code into a process ;
Inject an additional process.
[edit]Processor
[edit]Cache attackToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
To increase the computational power, processors are generally equipped with a cache memory which decreases the memory access latency. Below, the figure shows the hierarchy between the processor and the memory. First the processor looks for data in the cache L1, then L2, then in the memory.
Processor cache hierarchyAcer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
When the data is not where the processor is looking for, it is called a cache-miss. Below, pictures show how the processor fetch data when there are two cache levels.
Data A is in the L1-Cache
Data A is in the L2-Cache
Data A is in the memoryToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
Unfortunately caches contain only a small portion of the application data and can introduce additional latency to the memory transaction in the case of a miss. This involves also additional power consumption which is due to the activation of memory devices down in the memory hierarchy. The miss penalty has been already used to attack symmetric encryption algorithms, like DES.[35] The basic idea proposed in this paper is to force a cache miss while the processor is executing the AES encryption algorithm on a known plain text.[ HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
36] The attacks allow an unprivileged process to attack other process running in parallel on the same processor, despite partitioning methods such as memory protection, sandboxing and virtualization.[37]
[edit]Timing attack
By carefully measuring the amount of time required to perform private key operations, attackers may be able to find fixed Diffie-Hellman exponents, factor RSA keys, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
and break other cryptosystems. Against a vulnerable system, the attack is computationally inexpensive and often requires only known ciphertext.[38] The attack can be treated as a signal detection problem. The signal consists of the timing variation due to the target exponent bit, and noise results from measurement inaccuracies and timing variations due to unknown exponent bits. The properties of the signal and noise determineAcer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
the number of timing measurements required to for the attack. Timing attacks can potentially be used against other cryptosystems, including symmetric functions.[39]
[edit]Privilege escalation
A simple and generic processor backdoor can be used by attackers as a means to privilege escalation to get to privileges equivalent to those of any given running operating system. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
[40] Also, a non-privileged process of one of the non-privileged invited domain running on top of a virtual machine monitor can get to privileges equivalent to those of the virtual machine monitor.[40]
Loïc Duflot studied Intel processors in the paper "CPU bugs, CPU backdoors and consequences on security" ; he explains that the processor defines four different privilege rings numbered from 0 (most privileged) to 3 (least privileged). HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
Kernel code is usually running in ring 0, whereas user-space code is generally running in ring 3. The use of some security-critical assembly language instructions is restricted to ring 0 code. In order to escalate privilege through the backdoor, the attacker must :[41]
activate the backdoor by placing the CPU in the desired state HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
;
inject code and run it in ring 0 ;
get back to ring 3 in order to return the system to a stable state. Indeed, when code is running in ring 0, system calls do not work : Leaving the system in ring 0 and running a random system call (exit() typically) is likely to crash the system. Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
The backdoors Loïc Duflot presents are simple as they only modify the behavior of three assembly language instructions and have very simple and specific activation conditions, so that they are very unlikely to be accidentally activated. HP 633736-001 Keyboard
The Osiris myth
The Osiris myth is the most elaborate and influential story in ancient Egyptian mythology. It concerns the murder of the god Osiris, a primeval king of Egypt, and its consequences. Osiris' murderer, his brother Set, usurps his throne, while Osiris' wife Isis restores her husband's body and posthumously conceives a son by him. The remainder of the story focuses on Horus, the product of the union of Isis and Osiris, who is first a vulnerable child protected by his mother and then becomes Set's rival for the throne. Their often violent conflict ends with Horus' triumph, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1848 Keyboard
which restores order to Egypt after Set's unrighteous reign and completes the process of Osiris' resurrection. The myth is integral to the Egyptian conceptions of kingship and succession, conflict between order and disorder, and especially, death and the afterlife. It also expresses the essential character of each of the four deities at its center, and many elements of their worship in ancient Egyptian religion were derived from the myth.
The Osiris myth reached its essential form in or before the 25th century BC. Most of its elements Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
originated in religious ideas, but the conflict between Horus and Set may have been partly inspired by a regional struggle in Egypt's early history or prehistory. Scholars have tried to discern the exact nature of the events that gave rise to the story, but they have reached no definitive conclusions.
Parts of the myth appear in a wide variety of Egyptian texts, from funerary texts and magical spells to short stories. The story is, therefore, more detailed and more cohesive than any other Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
ancient Egyptian myth. Yet no Egyptian source gives a full account of the myth, and the sources vary widely in their versions of events. Greek and Roman writings, particularly De Iside et Osiride by Plutarch, provide more information but may not always accurately reflect Egyptian beliefs. Through these writings, the Osiris myth persisted after knowledge of most ancient Egyptian beliefs was lost, and it is still well known today.
Contents [hide]
Sony VAIO VPCF12AFM/H Keyboard
1 Sources
2 Synopsis
2.1 Death and resurrection of Osiris
2.2 Birth and childhood of Horus
2.3 Conflict of Horus and Set
2.4 Resolution
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3 Origins
4 Influence
5 Citations
6 Works cited
7 Further reading
8 External links
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[edit]Sources
The myth of Osiris was very important in ancient Egyptian religion and was popular among ordinary people.[1] One reason for this popularity is the myth's primary religious meaning, which implies that any dead person can reach a pleasant afterlife.[2] Another reason is that the characters and their emotions are more reminiscent of the lives of real people than those in most EHP 317443-001 Keyboard
gyptian myths, making the story more appealing to the general populace.[3] With this widespread appeal, the myth appears in more ancient texts than any other myth and in an exceptionally broad range of Egyptian literary styles.[1] These sources also provide an unusual amount of detail.[2] Other ancient Egyptian myths are fragmentary and vague. Although the Osiris myth also is fragmentary to an extent, it bears a greater resemblance to a cohesive story.[4]
Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
The Pyramid Texts in the Pyramid of Teti
The earliest mentions of the Osiris myth are in the Pyramid Texts, the first Egyptian funerary texts, which appeared on the walls of burial chambers in pyramids at the end of the Fifth Dynasty, during the 25th century BC. These texts, made up of disparate spells or "utterances", contain ideas that are presumed to date from still earlier times.[5] The texts are concerned with the Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
afterlife of the king buried in the pyramid, so they frequently refer to the Osiris myth, which is deeply involved with kingship and the afterlife.[6] Major elements of the story, such as the death and restoration of Osiris and the strife between Horus and Set, appear in the utterances of the Pyramid Texts.[7]
The same elements from the myth that appear in the Pyramid Texts recur in funerary texts written in later times, such as the Coffin Texts from the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC) and IBM ThinkPad T40 2668 Keyboard
the Book of the Dead from the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC). Most of these writings were made for the general populace, so the association made in these texts, between Osiris and the dead, is no longer restricted to royalty.[8]
The most complete ancient Egyptian account of the myth is the Great Hymn to Osiris, an inscription from the Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1550–1292 BC) that gives the general outline of the entire story but includes little detail.[9] Another important source is the Memphite Theology, a HP Pavilion G6-1139TX Keyboard
religious narrative that includes an account of Osiris' death as well as the resolution of the dispute between Horus and Set. This narrative associates the kingship that Osiris and Horus represent with Ptah, the creator deity of Memphis.[10] The text was long thought to date back to the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC) and was treated as a source for information about the early stages in the development of the myth. Since the 1970s, however, Egyptologists have concluded that the text dates from the New Kingdom at the earliest.[11]
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Texts related to Osirian rituals come from the walls of Egyptian temples that date from the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic era of 323–30 BC. Such ritual texts are another major source of information about the myth.[12]
Magical healing spells, which were used by Egyptians of all classes, are the source for an important portion of the myth, in which Horus is poisoned or otherwise sickened, and Isis heals him. The spells identify a sick person with Horus so that he or she can benefit from the goddess' Asus F80L Keyboard
efforts. The spells are known from papyrus copies, which serve as instructions for healing rituals, and from a specialized type of inscribed stone stela called a cippus. People seeking healing poured water over these cippi, an act that was believed to imbue the water with the healing power contained in the text, and then drank the water in hope of curing their ailments. The theme of an endangered child protected by magic also appears on inscribed ritual wands from the Middle Kingdom, which were made centuries before the more detailed healing spells that Acer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
specifically connect this theme with the Osiris myth.[13]
Episodes from the myth were also recorded in writings intended as entertainment. Prominent among these texts is "The Contendings of Horus and Set", a humorous retelling of several episodes of the struggle between the two deities, which dates to the Twentieth Dynasty (c. 1190–1070 BC).[14] It vividly characterizes the deities involved; as the Egyptologist Donald B. Redford says, "Horus appears as a physically weak but clever Puck-like figure, Seth [Set] as a Sony VAIO VGN-CR320D Keyboard
strong-man buffoon of limited intelligence, Re-Horakhty [Ra] as a prejudiced, sulky judge, and Osiris as an articulate curmudgeon with an acid tongue."[15] Despite its atypical nature, "Contendings" includes many of the oldest episodes in the divine conflict, and many events appear in the same order as in much later accounts, suggesting that a traditional sequence of events was forming at the time that the story was written.[16]
Ancient Greek and Roman writers, who described Egyptian religion late in its history, recorded IBM ThinkPad T40 2679 Keyboard
much of the Osiris myth. Herodotus, in the 5th century BC, mentioned parts of the myth in his description of Egypt in The Histories, and four centuries later, Diodorus Siculus provided a summary of the myth in his Bibliotheca historica.[17] In the early 2nd century AD,[18] Plutarch wrote the most complete ancient account of the myth in De Iside et Osiride, an analysis of Egyptian religious beliefs.[19] Plutarch's account of the myth is the version that modern popular writings most frequently retell.[20] The writings of these classical authors may not always reflect Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
Egyptian beliefs accurately.[19] For instance, De Iside et Osiride includes many interpretations of Egyptian belief that are influenced by various Greek philosophies, and its account of the myth contains portions with no known parallel in Egyptian tradition. The Egyptologist J. Gwyn Griffiths concluded that several elements of this account were taken from Greek mythology, and that the work as a whole was not based directly on Egyptian sources.[21] His colleague John Baines, on the other hand, says that temples may have kept written accounts of myths, which later were lost, Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
and that Plutarch could have drawn on such sources to write his narrative.[22]
[edit]Synopsis
[edit]Death and resurrection of Osiris
At the start of the story, Osiris rules Egypt, having inherited the kingship from his ancestors in a lineage stretching back to the creator of the world, Ra or Atum. His queen is Isis, who, along with HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
Osiris and his murderer Set, is one of the children of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Little information about the reign of Osiris appears in Egyptian sources; the focus is on his death and the events that follow.[23] Osiris is connected with life-giving power, righteous kingship, and the rule of maat, the ideal natural order whose maintenance was a fundamental goal in ancient Egyptian culture.[24] Set is closely associated with violence and chaos. Therefore, the slaying of Osiris represents the struggle between order and disorder, and the disruption of life by IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201s Keyboard
death.[25]
Some versions of the myth provide Set's motive for killing Osiris. According to a spell in the Pyramid Texts, Set is taking revenge for a kick Osiris gave him,[26] whereas in a Late Period text, Set's grievance is that Osiris had sex with Nephthys, who is Set's consort and the fourth child of Geb and Nut.[2] The murder itself is frequently alluded to, but never clearly described. The Egyptians believed that written words had the power to affect reality, so they avoided writing IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 2748 Keyboard
directly about profoundly negative events such as Osiris' death.[27] Sometimes they denied his death altogether, even though the bulk of the traditions about him make it clear that he has been murdered.[28] In some cases the texts suggest that Set takes the form of a wild animal, such as a crocodile or bull, to slay Osiris; in others they imply that Osiris' corpse is thrown in the water or that he is drowned. This latter tradition is the origin of the Egyptian belief that people who had drowned in the Nile were sacred.[29] Even the identity of the victim is changeable in texts, as it is HP Pavilion DV7-3164cl Keyboard
sometimes the god Haroeris, an elder form of Horus, who is murdered by Set and then avenged by another form of Horus, who is Haroeris' son by Isis.[30]
By the end of the New Kingdom, a tradition had developed that Set had cut Osiris' body into pieces and scattered them across Egypt. Cult centers of Osiris all over the country claimed that the corpse, or particular pieces of it, were found near them. The dismembered parts could be said to number as many as forty-two, each piece being equated with one of the forty-two nomes, HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
or provinces, in Egypt.[31] Thus, the god of kingship becomes the embodiment of his kingdom.[29]
Isis, in the form of a bird, copulates with the deceased Osiris. At either side are Horus, although he is as yet unborn, and Isis in human form.[32]
IBM ThinkPad T40p 2375 Keyboard
Osiris' death is followed either by an interregnum or by a period in which Set assumes the kingship. Meanwhile, Isis searches for her husband's body with the aid of Nephthys.[33] When searching for or mourning Osiris, the two goddesses are often likened to falcons or kites,[34] possibly because kites travel far in search of carrion,[35] because the Egyptians associated their plaintive calls with mourning, or because of the goddesses' connection with Horus, who is often represented as a falcon.[34] In the New Kingdom, when Osiris' death and renewal came to be HP 640208-001 Keyboard
associated with the annual flooding of the Nile that fertilized Egypt, the waters of the Nile were equated with Isis' tears of mourning,[36] or with Osiris' bodily fluids.[37]
The goddesses find and restore Osiris' body, often with the help of other deities, including Thoth, a deity credited with great magical and healing powers, and Anubis, the god of embalming and funerary rites. Their efforts are the mythological basis for Egyptian embalming practices, which, by mummifying the body, sought to prevent and reverse the decay that follows death. This part IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
of the story is often extended with episodes in which Set or his followers try to damage the corpse, and Isis and her allies must protect it. Once Osiris is made whole, Isis, still in bird form, fans breath and life into his body with her wings and copulates with him.[33] Osiris' revival is apparently not permanent, and after this point in the story he is only mentioned as the ruler of the Duat, the distant and mysterious realm of the dead. Yet in his brief contact with Isis, he has conceived his son and rightful heir, Horus. Although Osiris himself lives on only in the Duat, he IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 2749 Keyboard
and the kingship he stands for will, in a sense, be reborn in his son.[38]
The cohesive account by Plutarch, which deals mainly with this portion of the myth, differs in many respects from the known Egyptian sources. Set—whom Plutarch, using Greek names for many of the Egyptian deities, refers to as "Typhon"—conspires against Osiris with seventy-three other people. Set has an elaborate chest made to fit Osiris' exact measurements and then, at a banquet, declares that he will give the chest as a gift to whoever fits inside it. The guests, in turn, HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
lie inside the coffin, but none fit inside except Osiris. When he lies down in the chest, Set and his accomplices slam the cover shut, seal it, and throw it into the Nile. With Osiris' corpse inside, the chest floats out into the sea, arriving at the city of Byblos, where a tree grows around it. The king of Byblos has the tree cut down and made into a pillar for his palace, still with the chest inside. Isis must remove the chest from within the tree in order to retrieve her husband's body. Having taken the chest, she leaves the tree in Byblos, where it becomes an object of worship for the IBM ThinkPad T40 2686 Keyboard
locals. This episode, which is not known from Egyptian sources, gives an etiological explanation for a cult of Isis and Osiris that existed in Byblos in Plutarch's time and possibly as early as the New Kingdom.[39]
Plutarch also states that Set steals and dismembers the corpse only after Isis has retrieved it. Isis then finds and buries each piece of her husband's body, with the exception of the penis, which she has to reconstruct with magic, because the original was eaten by fish in the river. According Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Keyboard
to Plutarch, this is the reason the Egyptians had a taboo against eating fish. In Egyptian accounts, however, the penis of Osiris is found intact, and the only close parallel with this part of Plutarch's story is in "The Tale of Two Brothers", a folk tale from the New Kingdom with similarities to the Osiris myth.[40]
A final difference in Plutarch's account is Horus' birth. The form of Horus that avenges his father has been conceived and born before Osiris' death. It is a premature and weak second child, HP G72-110EL Keyboard
Harpocrates, who is born from Osiris' posthumous union with Isis. Here, two of the separate forms of Horus that exist in Egyptian tradition have been given distinct positions within Plutarch's version of the myth.[41]
[edit]Birth and childhood of Horus
IBM ThinkPad T40 2376 Keyboard
Isis nursing Horus
In Egyptian accounts, the pregnant Isis hides from Set, to whom the unborn child is a threat, in a thicket of papyrus in the Nile Delta. This place is called Akh-bity, meaning "papyrus thicket of the king of Lower Egypt" in Egyptian.[42] Greek writers call this place Khemmis and indicate that it is near the city of Buto,[43] but in the myth, the physical location is unimportant compared with its nature as an iconic place of seclusion and safety.[44] The thicket's special status is indicated by its HP AESP7U00110 Keyboard
frequent depiction in Egyptian art; for most events in Egyptian mythology, the backdrop is minimally described or illustrated. In this thicket, Isis gives birth to Horus and raises him, and hence it is also called the "nest of Horus".[33] The image of Isis nursing her child is a very common motif in Egyptian art.[42]
There are texts in which Isis travels in the wider world. She moves among ordinary humans who are unaware of her identity, and she even appeals to these people for help. This is another Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
unusual circumstance, for in Egyptian myth, gods and humans are normally separate.[45] As in the first phase of the myth, she often has the aid of other deities, who protect her son in her absence.[33] According to one magical spell, seven minor scorpion deities travel with and guard Isis as she seeks help for Horus. They even take revenge on a wealthy woman who has refused to help Isis by stinging the woman's son, making it necessary for Isis to heal the blameless child.[45]
In this stage of the myth, Horus is a vulnerable child beset by dangers. The magical texts that use IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X41 Tablet Keyboard
Horus' childhood as the basis for their healing spells give him different ailments, from scorpion stings to simple stomachaches,[46] adapting the tradition to fit the malady that each spell was intended to treat.[47] Most commonly, the child god has been bitten by a snake, reflecting the Egyptians' fear of snakebite and the resulting poison.[33] Some texts indicate that these hostile creatures are agents of Set.[48] Isis may use her own magical powers to save her child, or she may plead with or threaten deities such as Ra or Geb, so they will cure him. As she is the Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
archetypal mourner in the first portion of the story, so during Horus' childhood she is the ideal devoted mother.[49] Through the magical healing texts, her efforts to heal her son are extended to cure any patient.[44]
[edit]Conflict of Horus and Set
The next phase of the myth begins when the adult Horus challenges Set for the throne of Egypt. The contest between them is often violent but is also described as a legal judgment before the Toshiba Satellite 1800-614 Keyboard
Ennead, an assembled group of Egyptian deities, to decide who should inherit the kingship. The judge in this trial may be Geb, who, as the father of Osiris and Set, held the throne before they did, or it may be the creator gods Ra or Atum, the originators of kingship.[50] Other deities also take important roles: Thoth frequently acts as a conciliator in the dispute[51] or as an assistant to the divine judge, and in "Contendings", Isis uses her cunning and magical power to aid her son.[52]
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The rivalry of Horus and Set is portrayed in two contrasting ways. Both perspectives appear as early as the Pyramid Texts, the earliest source of the myth. In some spells from these texts, Horus is the son of Osiris and nephew of Set, and the murder of Osiris is the major impetus for the conflict. The other tradition depicts Horus and Set as brothers.[53] This incongruity persists in many of the subsequent sources, where the two gods may be called brothers or uncle and nephew at different points in the same document.[54]
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Horus spears Set, who appears in the form of a hippopotamus, as Isis looks on
The divine struggle involves many episodes. "Contendings" describes the two gods appealing to various other deities to arbitrate the dispute and competing in different types of contests, such as racing in boats or fighting each other in the form of hippopotami, to determine a victor. In this IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 Keyboard
account, Horus repeatedly defeats Set and is supported by most of the other deities.[55] Yet the dispute drags on for eighty years, largely because the judge, the creator god, favors Set.[56] In late ritual texts, the conflict is characterized as a great battle involving the two deities' assembled followers.[57] The strife in the divine realm extends beyond the two combatants. At one point Isis attempts to harpoon Set as he is locked in combat with her son, but she strikes Horus instead, who then cuts off her head in a fit of rage.[58] Thoth replaces Isis' head with that of a cow; the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1846 Keyboard
story gives a mythical origin for the cow-horn headdress that Isis commonly wears.[59] In some sources, Set justifies further attacks on Horus as punishment for the young god's violence against his mother.[60]
In a key episode in the conflict, Set sexually abuses Horus. Set's violation is partly meant to degrade his rival, but it also involves homosexual desire, in keeping with one of Set's major characteristics, his forceful and indiscriminate sexuality.[61] In the earliest account of this episode, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
in a fragmentary Middle Kingdom papyrus, the sexual encounter begins when Set asks to have sex with Horus, who agrees on the condition that Set will give Horus some of his strength.[62] The encounter puts Horus in danger, because in Egyptian tradition semen is a potent and dangerous substance, akin to poison. According to some texts, Set's semen enters Horus' body and makes him ill, but in "Contendings", Horus thwarts Set by catching Set's semen in his hands. Isis retaliates by putting Horus' semen on lettuces that Set eats. Set's defeat becomes apparent Sony VAIO VGN-NW20EF Keyboard
when this semen appears on his forehead as a golden disk. He has been impregnated with his rival's seed and as a result "gives birth" to the disk. In "Contendings", Thoth takes the disk and places it on his own head; in earlier accounts, it is Thoth who is produced by this anomalous birth.[63]
Another important episode concerns mutilations that the combatants inflict upon each other: Horus injures or steals Set's testicles and Set damages or tears out one, or occasionally both, of IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2779 Keyboard
Horus' eyes. Sometimes the eye is torn into pieces.[64] Set's mutilation signifies a loss of virility and strength.[65] The removal of Horus' eye is even more important, for this stolen Eye of Horus represents a wide variety of concepts in Egyptian religion. One of Horus' major roles is as a sky deity, and for this reason his right eye was said to be the sun and his left eye the moon. The theft or destruction of the Eye of Horus is therefore equated with the darkening of the moon in the course of its cycle of phases, or during eclipses. Horus may take back the lost eye, or other deities, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200T Keyboard
including Isis, Thoth, and Hathor, may retrieve or heal it for him.[64] The Egyptologist Herman te Velde argues that the tradition about the lost testicles is a late variation on Set's loss of semen to Horus, and that the moon-like disk that emerges from Set's head after his impregnation is the Eye of Horus. If so, the episodes of mutilation and sexual abuse would form a single story, in which Set assaults Horus and loses semen to him, Horus retaliates and impregnates Set, and Set comes into possession of Horus' Eye when it appears on Set's head. Because Thoth is a moon deity in IBM Thinkpad R60i Keyboard
addition to his other functions, it would make sense, according to te Velde, for Thoth to emerge in the form of the Eye and step in to mediate between the feuding deities.[66]
In any case, the restoration of the Eye of Horus to wholeness represents the return of the moon to full brightness,[67] the return of the kingship to Horus,[68] and many other aspects of maat.[69] Sometimes the restoration of Horus' eye is accompanied by the restoration of Set's testicles, so that both gods are made whole near the conclusion of their feud.[70]
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[edit]Resolution
As with so many other parts of the myth, the resolution is complex and varied. Often, Horus and Set divide the realm between them. This division can be equated with any of several fundamental dualities that the Egyptians saw in their world. Horus may receive the fertile lands around the Nile, the core of Egyptian civilization, in which case Set takes the barren desert or the foreign lands that are associated with it; Horus may rule the earth while Set dwells in the sky; and each gIBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201 Keyboard
od may take one of the two traditional halves of the country, Upper and Lower Egypt, in which case either god may be connected with either region. Yet in the Memphite Theology, Geb, as judge, first apportions the realm between the claimants and then reverses himself, awarding sole control to Horus. In this peaceable union, Horus and Set are reconciled, and the dualities that they represent have been resolved into a united whole. Through this resolution, order is restored after the tumultuous conflict.[71]
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A different view of the myth's end focuses on Horus' sole triumph.[72] In this version, Set is not reconciled with his rival, but utterly defeated,[73] and sometimes he is exiled from Egypt or even destroyed.[74] His defeat and humiliation is more pronounced in sources from later periods of Egyptian history, when he was increasingly equated with disorder and evil, and the Egyptians no longer saw him as an integral part of natural order.[73]
With great celebration among the gods, Horus takes the throne, and Egypt at last has a rightful Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
king.[75] The divine decision that Set is in the wrong corrects the injustice created by Osiris' murder and completes the process of his restoration after death.[76] Sometimes Set is made to carry Osiris' body to its tomb as part of his punishment.[77] The new king performs funerary rites for his father and gives food offerings to sustain him—often including the Eye of Horus, which in this instance represents life and plenty.[78] According to some sources, only through these acts can Osiris be fully enlivened in the afterlife and take his place as king of the dead, paralleling his Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
son's role as king of the living. Thereafter, Osiris is deeply involved with natural cycles of death and renewal, such as the annual growth of crops, that parallel his own resurrection.[79]
[edit]Origins
As the Osiris myth first appears in the Pyramid Texts, most of its essential features must have taken shape sometime before the texts were written. The distinct segments of the story—Osiris' Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
death and restoration, Horus' childhood, and Horus' conflict with Set—may originally have been independent mythic episodes. If so, they must have begun to coalesce into a single story by the time of the Pyramid Texts, which loosely connect those segments. In any case, the myth was inspired by a variety of influences.[3] Much of the story is based in religious ideas[80] and the general nature of Egyptian society: the divine nature of kingship, the succession from one king to another,[81] the struggle to maintain maat,[82] and the effort to overcome death.[3] For instance, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 6478 Keyboard
Isis and Nephthys' lamentations for their dead brother may represent an early tradition of ritualized mourning.[83]
There are, however, important points of disagreement. The origins of Osiris are much debated,[37] and the basis for the myth of his death is also somewhat uncertain.[84] One influential hypothesis was given by the anthropologist James Frazer, who in 1906 said that Osiris, like other "dying and rising gods" across the ancient Near East, began as a personification of IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Keyboard
vegetation. His death and restoration, therefore, were based on the yearly death and re-growth of plants.[85] Many Egyptologists adopted this explanation. But in the late 20th century, J. Gwyn Griffiths, who extensively studied Osiris and his mythology, argued that Osiris originated as a divine ruler of the dead, and his connection with vegetation was a secondary development.[86] Meanwhile, scholars of comparative religion have increasingly criticized Frazer's overarching concept of "dying and rising gods".[85] More recently, the Egyptologist Rosalie David maintains IBM ThinkPad T40 2678 Keyboard
that Osiris originally "personified the annual rebirth of the trees and plants after the [Nile] inundation."[87]
Horus and Set as supporters of the king
Another continuing debate concerns the opposition of Horus and Set, which Egyptologists have Asus A9Rp Keyboard
often tried to connect with political events early in Egypt's history or prehistory. The cases in which the combatants divide the kingdom, and the frequent association of the paired Horus and Set with the union of Upper and Lower Egypt, suggest that the two deities represent some kind of division within the country. Egyptian tradition and archaeological evidence indicate that Egypt was united at the beginning of its history when an Upper Egyptian kingdom, in the south, conquered Lower Egypt in the north. The Upper Egyptian rulers called themselves "followers of HP 505999-001 Keyboard
Horus", and Horus became the patron god of the unified nation and its kings. Yet Horus and Set cannot be easily equated with the two halves of the country. Both deities had several cult centers in each region, and Horus is often associated with Lower Egypt and Set with Upper Egypt.[30] One of the better-known explanations for these discrepancies was proposed by Kurt Sethe in 1930. He argued that Osiris was originally the human ruler of a unified Egypt in prehistoric times, before a rebellion of Upper Egyptian Set-worshippers. The Lower Egyptian followers of Horus Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
then forcibly reunified the land, inspiring the myth of Horus' triumph, before Upper Egypt, now led by Horus worshippers, became prominent again at the start of the Early Dynastic Period.[88]
In the late 20th century, Griffiths focused on the inconsistent portrayal of Horus and Set as brothers and as uncle and nephew. He argued that, in the early stages of Egyptian mythology, the struggle between Horus and Set as siblings and equals was originally separate from the murder of Osiris. The two stories were joined into the single Osiris myth sometime before the writing of the HP Pavilion dm1-1028tu Keyboard
Pyramid Texts. With this merging, the genealogy of the deities involved and the characterization of the Horus–Set conflict were altered so that Horus is the son and heir avenging Osiris' death. Traces of the independent traditions remained, in the conflicting characterizations of the combatants' relationship and in texts unrelated to the Osiris myth, which make Horus the son of the goddess Nut or the goddess Hathor rather than of Isis and Osiris. Griffiths therefore rejected the possibility that Osiris' murder was rooted in historical events.[89] This hypothesis has been IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 4057 Keyboard
accepted by more recent scholars such as Jan Assmann[54] and George Hart.[90]
Griffiths sought a historical origin for the Horus–Set rivalry, and he posited two distinct predynastic unifications of Egypt by Horus worshippers, similar to Sethe's theory, to account for it.[91] Yet the issue remains unresolved, partly because other political associations for Horus and Set complicate the picture further.[92] Before even Upper Egypt had a single ruler, two of its major cities were Nekhen, in the far south, and Naqada, many miles to the north. The rulers of FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
Nekhen, where Horus was the patron deity, are generally believed to have unified Upper Egypt, including Naqada, under their sway. Set was associated with Naqada, so it is possible that the divine conflict dimly reflects an enmity between the cities in the distant past. Much later, at the end of the Second Dynasty (c. 2890–2686 BC), King Peribsen used the Set animal in writing his serekh-name, in place of the traditional falcon hieroglyph representing Horus. His successor Khasekhemwy used both Horus and Set in the writing of his serekh. This evidence has prompted Dell Inspiron N4020 Keyboard
conjecture that the Second Dynasty saw a clash between the followers of the Horus-king and the worshippers of Set led by Peribsen. Khasekhemwy's use of the two animal symbols would then represent the reconciliation of the two factions, as does the resolution of the myth.[30]
Noting the uncertainties surrounding events so far back in time, Herman te Velde argues that the historical roots of the conflict are too obscure to be very useful in understanding the myth and are not as significant as its religious meaning. He says that "the origin of the myth of Horus and Sony V072078BS1 Keyboard
Seth is lost in the mists of the religious traditions of prehistory."[93]
[edit]Influence
The effect of the Osiris myth on Egyptian culture was greater and more widespread than that of any other myth.[1] In literature, the myth was not only the basis for a retelling such as "Contendings"; it also provided the basis for more distantly related stories. "The Tale of Two HP Pavilion dv2-1008ax Keyboard
Brothers", a folk tale with human protagonists, includes elements similar to the myth of Osiris.[94] One character's penis is eaten by a fish, and he later dies and is resurrected.[95] Another story, "The Tale of Truth and Falsehood", adapts the conflict of Horus and Set into an allegory, in which the characters are direct personifications of truth and lies rather than deities associated with those concepts.[94]
IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
The opening of the mouth ceremony, a key funerary ritual, performed for Tutankhamun by his successor Ay. The deceased king takes on the role of Osiris, upon whom Horus was supposed to have performed the ceremony.[96]
From at least the time of the Pyramid Texts, kings hoped that after their deaths they could emulate Osiris' restoration to life and his rule over the realm of the dead. By the early Middle HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC), non-royal Egyptians believed that they, too, could overcome death as Osiris had, by worshipping him and receiving the funerary rites that were partly based on his myth. Osiris thus became Egypt's most important afterlife deity.[97] The myth also influenced the notion, which grew prominent in the New Kingdom, that only virtuous people could reach the afterlife. As the assembled deities judged Osiris and Horus to be righteous, undoing the injustice of Osiris' death, so a deceased soul had to be judged righteous in order for his or her death to be Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
undone.[76]
As the importance of Osiris grew, so did his popularity. By late in the Middle Kingdom, the centuries-old tomb of the First Dynasty ruler Djer, near Osiris' main center of worship in the city of Abydos, was seen as Osiris' tomb. Accordingly, it became a major focus of Osiris worship. For the next 1,500 years, an annual festival procession traveled from Osiris' main temple to the tomb site. This procession made reference to, and may have ritually reenacted, Isis and Nephthys' IBM Thinkpad T61 Keyboard
mourning, restoration, and revival of their murdered brother.[98] Kings and commoners from across Egypt built chapels, which served as cenotaphs, near the processional route. In doing so they sought to strengthen their connection with Osiris in the afterlife.[99] Another major funerary festival, a national event spread over several days in the month of Khoiak in the Egyptian calendar, became linked with Osiris during the Middle Kingdom.[100] During Khoiak the djed pillar, an emblem of Osiris, was ritually raised into an upright position, symbolizing Osiris' IBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
restoration. By Ptolemaic times (305–30 BC), Khoiak also included the planting of seeds in an "Osiris bed", a mummy-shaped bed of soil, connecting the resurrection of Osiris with the seasonal growth of plants.[101]
The myth's religious importance extended beyond the funerary sphere. Mortuary offerings, in which family members or hired priests presented food to the deceased, were logically linked with the mythological offering of the Eye of Horus to Osiris. By analogy, this episode of the myth was IBM ThinkPad T40-2374 Keyboard
eventually equated with other interactions between a human and a being in the divine realm. In temple offering rituals, the officiating priest took on the role of Horus, the gifts to the deity became the Eye of Horus, and whichever deity received these gifts was momentarily equated with Osiris.[102]
The ideology surrounding the living king was also affected by the Osiris myth. The Egyptians envisioned the events of the Osiris myth as taking place sometime in Egypt's dim prehistory, so IBM ThinkPad T40p 2373 Keyboard
that Horus, as the king, was regarded as the predecessor and exemplar for all Egyptian rulers. His assumption of his predecessor's throne and pious actions to sustain that spirit in the afterlife were the model for all pharaonic successions to emulate.[103] Each new king was believed to renew maat after the death of the preceding king, just as Horus had done. In royal coronations, rituals alluded to Osiris' burial, and hymns celebrated the new king's accession as the equivalent of Horus' own.[75]
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The myth influenced popular religion as well. One example is the magical healing spells based on Horus' childhood. Another is the use of the Eye of Horus as a protective emblem in personal apotropaic amulets. Its mythological restoration made it appropriate for this purpose, as a general symbol of well-being.[30]
As the antagonist of the myth, Set did not enjoy increased popularity. Although he was credited with positive traits in the Osiris myth, the sinister aspects of his character predominate. Overall Toshiba Satellite L355-S7837 Keyboard
he was viewed with ambivalence until, during the first millennium BC, he came to be seen as a totally malevolent deity. This transformation was prompted more by his association with foreign lands than by the Osiris myth.[104] Nevertheless, in these late times, the widespread temple rituals involving the ceremonial annihilation of Set were often connected with the myth.[105]
Both Isis and Nephthys were seen as protectors of the dead in the afterlife because of their protection and restoration of Osiris' body.[106] Isis, as Horus' mother, was also the mother of Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
every king according to royal ideology, and kings were said to have nursed at her breast as a sign of their divine legitimacy.[107] Her appeal to the general populace was based in her protective character, as exemplified by the magical healing spells. In the Late Period, she was credited with ever greater magical power, and her maternal devotion was believed to extend to everyone. By Roman times she was the most important goddess in Egypt.[108]
In the late centuries BC, the worship of Isis spread from Egypt across the Mediterranean world. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2776 Keyboard
Until Christianity became dominant in the fourth century, Isis was one of the most popular deities in the whole region. Although this new, multicultural form of Isis absorbed characteristics from many other deities, her original mythological nature as a wife and mother was key to her appeal. Horus and Osiris, being central figures in her story, spread along with her.[109] It was to a Greek priestess of Isis that Plutarch wrote his account of the myth of Osiris.[110]
Through the work of classical writers such as Plutarch, knowledge of the Osiris myth was IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2778 Keyboard
preserved even after the middle of the first millennium AD, when Egyptian religion ceased to exist and knowledge of the writing systems that were originally used to record the myth were lost. The myth remained a major part of Western impressions of ancient Egypt. In modern times, when understanding of Egyptian beliefs is informed by the original Egyptian sources, the story continues to influence and inspire new ideas, from works of fiction to scholarly speculation and Sony VAIO VGN-SZ680N Keyboard
new religious movements.[111]
which restores order to Egypt after Set's unrighteous reign and completes the process of Osiris' resurrection. The myth is integral to the Egyptian conceptions of kingship and succession, conflict between order and disorder, and especially, death and the afterlife. It also expresses the essential character of each of the four deities at its center, and many elements of their worship in ancient Egyptian religion were derived from the myth.
The Osiris myth reached its essential form in or before the 25th century BC. Most of its elements Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
originated in religious ideas, but the conflict between Horus and Set may have been partly inspired by a regional struggle in Egypt's early history or prehistory. Scholars have tried to discern the exact nature of the events that gave rise to the story, but they have reached no definitive conclusions.
Parts of the myth appear in a wide variety of Egyptian texts, from funerary texts and magical spells to short stories. The story is, therefore, more detailed and more cohesive than any other Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
ancient Egyptian myth. Yet no Egyptian source gives a full account of the myth, and the sources vary widely in their versions of events. Greek and Roman writings, particularly De Iside et Osiride by Plutarch, provide more information but may not always accurately reflect Egyptian beliefs. Through these writings, the Osiris myth persisted after knowledge of most ancient Egyptian beliefs was lost, and it is still well known today.
Contents [hide]
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1 Sources
2 Synopsis
2.1 Death and resurrection of Osiris
2.2 Birth and childhood of Horus
2.3 Conflict of Horus and Set
2.4 Resolution
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3 Origins
4 Influence
5 Citations
6 Works cited
7 Further reading
8 External links
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[edit]Sources
The myth of Osiris was very important in ancient Egyptian religion and was popular among ordinary people.[1] One reason for this popularity is the myth's primary religious meaning, which implies that any dead person can reach a pleasant afterlife.[2] Another reason is that the characters and their emotions are more reminiscent of the lives of real people than those in most EHP 317443-001 Keyboard
gyptian myths, making the story more appealing to the general populace.[3] With this widespread appeal, the myth appears in more ancient texts than any other myth and in an exceptionally broad range of Egyptian literary styles.[1] These sources also provide an unusual amount of detail.[2] Other ancient Egyptian myths are fragmentary and vague. Although the Osiris myth also is fragmentary to an extent, it bears a greater resemblance to a cohesive story.[4]
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The Pyramid Texts in the Pyramid of Teti
The earliest mentions of the Osiris myth are in the Pyramid Texts, the first Egyptian funerary texts, which appeared on the walls of burial chambers in pyramids at the end of the Fifth Dynasty, during the 25th century BC. These texts, made up of disparate spells or "utterances", contain ideas that are presumed to date from still earlier times.[5] The texts are concerned with the Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
afterlife of the king buried in the pyramid, so they frequently refer to the Osiris myth, which is deeply involved with kingship and the afterlife.[6] Major elements of the story, such as the death and restoration of Osiris and the strife between Horus and Set, appear in the utterances of the Pyramid Texts.[7]
The same elements from the myth that appear in the Pyramid Texts recur in funerary texts written in later times, such as the Coffin Texts from the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC) and IBM ThinkPad T40 2668 Keyboard
the Book of the Dead from the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC). Most of these writings were made for the general populace, so the association made in these texts, between Osiris and the dead, is no longer restricted to royalty.[8]
The most complete ancient Egyptian account of the myth is the Great Hymn to Osiris, an inscription from the Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1550–1292 BC) that gives the general outline of the entire story but includes little detail.[9] Another important source is the Memphite Theology, a HP Pavilion G6-1139TX Keyboard
religious narrative that includes an account of Osiris' death as well as the resolution of the dispute between Horus and Set. This narrative associates the kingship that Osiris and Horus represent with Ptah, the creator deity of Memphis.[10] The text was long thought to date back to the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC) and was treated as a source for information about the early stages in the development of the myth. Since the 1970s, however, Egyptologists have concluded that the text dates from the New Kingdom at the earliest.[11]
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Texts related to Osirian rituals come from the walls of Egyptian temples that date from the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic era of 323–30 BC. Such ritual texts are another major source of information about the myth.[12]
Magical healing spells, which were used by Egyptians of all classes, are the source for an important portion of the myth, in which Horus is poisoned or otherwise sickened, and Isis heals him. The spells identify a sick person with Horus so that he or she can benefit from the goddess' Asus F80L Keyboard
efforts. The spells are known from papyrus copies, which serve as instructions for healing rituals, and from a specialized type of inscribed stone stela called a cippus. People seeking healing poured water over these cippi, an act that was believed to imbue the water with the healing power contained in the text, and then drank the water in hope of curing their ailments. The theme of an endangered child protected by magic also appears on inscribed ritual wands from the Middle Kingdom, which were made centuries before the more detailed healing spells that Acer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
specifically connect this theme with the Osiris myth.[13]
Episodes from the myth were also recorded in writings intended as entertainment. Prominent among these texts is "The Contendings of Horus and Set", a humorous retelling of several episodes of the struggle between the two deities, which dates to the Twentieth Dynasty (c. 1190–1070 BC).[14] It vividly characterizes the deities involved; as the Egyptologist Donald B. Redford says, "Horus appears as a physically weak but clever Puck-like figure, Seth [Set] as a Sony VAIO VGN-CR320D Keyboard
strong-man buffoon of limited intelligence, Re-Horakhty [Ra] as a prejudiced, sulky judge, and Osiris as an articulate curmudgeon with an acid tongue."[15] Despite its atypical nature, "Contendings" includes many of the oldest episodes in the divine conflict, and many events appear in the same order as in much later accounts, suggesting that a traditional sequence of events was forming at the time that the story was written.[16]
Ancient Greek and Roman writers, who described Egyptian religion late in its history, recorded IBM ThinkPad T40 2679 Keyboard
much of the Osiris myth. Herodotus, in the 5th century BC, mentioned parts of the myth in his description of Egypt in The Histories, and four centuries later, Diodorus Siculus provided a summary of the myth in his Bibliotheca historica.[17] In the early 2nd century AD,[18] Plutarch wrote the most complete ancient account of the myth in De Iside et Osiride, an analysis of Egyptian religious beliefs.[19] Plutarch's account of the myth is the version that modern popular writings most frequently retell.[20] The writings of these classical authors may not always reflect Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
Egyptian beliefs accurately.[19] For instance, De Iside et Osiride includes many interpretations of Egyptian belief that are influenced by various Greek philosophies, and its account of the myth contains portions with no known parallel in Egyptian tradition. The Egyptologist J. Gwyn Griffiths concluded that several elements of this account were taken from Greek mythology, and that the work as a whole was not based directly on Egyptian sources.[21] His colleague John Baines, on the other hand, says that temples may have kept written accounts of myths, which later were lost, Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
and that Plutarch could have drawn on such sources to write his narrative.[22]
[edit]Synopsis
[edit]Death and resurrection of Osiris
At the start of the story, Osiris rules Egypt, having inherited the kingship from his ancestors in a lineage stretching back to the creator of the world, Ra or Atum. His queen is Isis, who, along with HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
Osiris and his murderer Set, is one of the children of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Little information about the reign of Osiris appears in Egyptian sources; the focus is on his death and the events that follow.[23] Osiris is connected with life-giving power, righteous kingship, and the rule of maat, the ideal natural order whose maintenance was a fundamental goal in ancient Egyptian culture.[24] Set is closely associated with violence and chaos. Therefore, the slaying of Osiris represents the struggle between order and disorder, and the disruption of life by IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201s Keyboard
death.[25]
Some versions of the myth provide Set's motive for killing Osiris. According to a spell in the Pyramid Texts, Set is taking revenge for a kick Osiris gave him,[26] whereas in a Late Period text, Set's grievance is that Osiris had sex with Nephthys, who is Set's consort and the fourth child of Geb and Nut.[2] The murder itself is frequently alluded to, but never clearly described. The Egyptians believed that written words had the power to affect reality, so they avoided writing IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 2748 Keyboard
directly about profoundly negative events such as Osiris' death.[27] Sometimes they denied his death altogether, even though the bulk of the traditions about him make it clear that he has been murdered.[28] In some cases the texts suggest that Set takes the form of a wild animal, such as a crocodile or bull, to slay Osiris; in others they imply that Osiris' corpse is thrown in the water or that he is drowned. This latter tradition is the origin of the Egyptian belief that people who had drowned in the Nile were sacred.[29] Even the identity of the victim is changeable in texts, as it is HP Pavilion DV7-3164cl Keyboard
sometimes the god Haroeris, an elder form of Horus, who is murdered by Set and then avenged by another form of Horus, who is Haroeris' son by Isis.[30]
By the end of the New Kingdom, a tradition had developed that Set had cut Osiris' body into pieces and scattered them across Egypt. Cult centers of Osiris all over the country claimed that the corpse, or particular pieces of it, were found near them. The dismembered parts could be said to number as many as forty-two, each piece being equated with one of the forty-two nomes, HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
or provinces, in Egypt.[31] Thus, the god of kingship becomes the embodiment of his kingdom.[29]
Isis, in the form of a bird, copulates with the deceased Osiris. At either side are Horus, although he is as yet unborn, and Isis in human form.[32]
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Osiris' death is followed either by an interregnum or by a period in which Set assumes the kingship. Meanwhile, Isis searches for her husband's body with the aid of Nephthys.[33] When searching for or mourning Osiris, the two goddesses are often likened to falcons or kites,[34] possibly because kites travel far in search of carrion,[35] because the Egyptians associated their plaintive calls with mourning, or because of the goddesses' connection with Horus, who is often represented as a falcon.[34] In the New Kingdom, when Osiris' death and renewal came to be HP 640208-001 Keyboard
associated with the annual flooding of the Nile that fertilized Egypt, the waters of the Nile were equated with Isis' tears of mourning,[36] or with Osiris' bodily fluids.[37]
The goddesses find and restore Osiris' body, often with the help of other deities, including Thoth, a deity credited with great magical and healing powers, and Anubis, the god of embalming and funerary rites. Their efforts are the mythological basis for Egyptian embalming practices, which, by mummifying the body, sought to prevent and reverse the decay that follows death. This part IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
of the story is often extended with episodes in which Set or his followers try to damage the corpse, and Isis and her allies must protect it. Once Osiris is made whole, Isis, still in bird form, fans breath and life into his body with her wings and copulates with him.[33] Osiris' revival is apparently not permanent, and after this point in the story he is only mentioned as the ruler of the Duat, the distant and mysterious realm of the dead. Yet in his brief contact with Isis, he has conceived his son and rightful heir, Horus. Although Osiris himself lives on only in the Duat, he IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 2749 Keyboard
and the kingship he stands for will, in a sense, be reborn in his son.[38]
The cohesive account by Plutarch, which deals mainly with this portion of the myth, differs in many respects from the known Egyptian sources. Set—whom Plutarch, using Greek names for many of the Egyptian deities, refers to as "Typhon"—conspires against Osiris with seventy-three other people. Set has an elaborate chest made to fit Osiris' exact measurements and then, at a banquet, declares that he will give the chest as a gift to whoever fits inside it. The guests, in turn, HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
lie inside the coffin, but none fit inside except Osiris. When he lies down in the chest, Set and his accomplices slam the cover shut, seal it, and throw it into the Nile. With Osiris' corpse inside, the chest floats out into the sea, arriving at the city of Byblos, where a tree grows around it. The king of Byblos has the tree cut down and made into a pillar for his palace, still with the chest inside. Isis must remove the chest from within the tree in order to retrieve her husband's body. Having taken the chest, she leaves the tree in Byblos, where it becomes an object of worship for the IBM ThinkPad T40 2686 Keyboard
locals. This episode, which is not known from Egyptian sources, gives an etiological explanation for a cult of Isis and Osiris that existed in Byblos in Plutarch's time and possibly as early as the New Kingdom.[39]
Plutarch also states that Set steals and dismembers the corpse only after Isis has retrieved it. Isis then finds and buries each piece of her husband's body, with the exception of the penis, which she has to reconstruct with magic, because the original was eaten by fish in the river. According Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Keyboard
to Plutarch, this is the reason the Egyptians had a taboo against eating fish. In Egyptian accounts, however, the penis of Osiris is found intact, and the only close parallel with this part of Plutarch's story is in "The Tale of Two Brothers", a folk tale from the New Kingdom with similarities to the Osiris myth.[40]
A final difference in Plutarch's account is Horus' birth. The form of Horus that avenges his father has been conceived and born before Osiris' death. It is a premature and weak second child, HP G72-110EL Keyboard
Harpocrates, who is born from Osiris' posthumous union with Isis. Here, two of the separate forms of Horus that exist in Egyptian tradition have been given distinct positions within Plutarch's version of the myth.[41]
[edit]Birth and childhood of Horus
IBM ThinkPad T40 2376 Keyboard
Isis nursing Horus
In Egyptian accounts, the pregnant Isis hides from Set, to whom the unborn child is a threat, in a thicket of papyrus in the Nile Delta. This place is called Akh-bity, meaning "papyrus thicket of the king of Lower Egypt" in Egyptian.[42] Greek writers call this place Khemmis and indicate that it is near the city of Buto,[43] but in the myth, the physical location is unimportant compared with its nature as an iconic place of seclusion and safety.[44] The thicket's special status is indicated by its HP AESP7U00110 Keyboard
frequent depiction in Egyptian art; for most events in Egyptian mythology, the backdrop is minimally described or illustrated. In this thicket, Isis gives birth to Horus and raises him, and hence it is also called the "nest of Horus".[33] The image of Isis nursing her child is a very common motif in Egyptian art.[42]
There are texts in which Isis travels in the wider world. She moves among ordinary humans who are unaware of her identity, and she even appeals to these people for help. This is another Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
unusual circumstance, for in Egyptian myth, gods and humans are normally separate.[45] As in the first phase of the myth, she often has the aid of other deities, who protect her son in her absence.[33] According to one magical spell, seven minor scorpion deities travel with and guard Isis as she seeks help for Horus. They even take revenge on a wealthy woman who has refused to help Isis by stinging the woman's son, making it necessary for Isis to heal the blameless child.[45]
In this stage of the myth, Horus is a vulnerable child beset by dangers. The magical texts that use IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X41 Tablet Keyboard
Horus' childhood as the basis for their healing spells give him different ailments, from scorpion stings to simple stomachaches,[46] adapting the tradition to fit the malady that each spell was intended to treat.[47] Most commonly, the child god has been bitten by a snake, reflecting the Egyptians' fear of snakebite and the resulting poison.[33] Some texts indicate that these hostile creatures are agents of Set.[48] Isis may use her own magical powers to save her child, or she may plead with or threaten deities such as Ra or Geb, so they will cure him. As she is the Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
archetypal mourner in the first portion of the story, so during Horus' childhood she is the ideal devoted mother.[49] Through the magical healing texts, her efforts to heal her son are extended to cure any patient.[44]
[edit]Conflict of Horus and Set
The next phase of the myth begins when the adult Horus challenges Set for the throne of Egypt. The contest between them is often violent but is also described as a legal judgment before the Toshiba Satellite 1800-614 Keyboard
Ennead, an assembled group of Egyptian deities, to decide who should inherit the kingship. The judge in this trial may be Geb, who, as the father of Osiris and Set, held the throne before they did, or it may be the creator gods Ra or Atum, the originators of kingship.[50] Other deities also take important roles: Thoth frequently acts as a conciliator in the dispute[51] or as an assistant to the divine judge, and in "Contendings", Isis uses her cunning and magical power to aid her son.[52]
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The rivalry of Horus and Set is portrayed in two contrasting ways. Both perspectives appear as early as the Pyramid Texts, the earliest source of the myth. In some spells from these texts, Horus is the son of Osiris and nephew of Set, and the murder of Osiris is the major impetus for the conflict. The other tradition depicts Horus and Set as brothers.[53] This incongruity persists in many of the subsequent sources, where the two gods may be called brothers or uncle and nephew at different points in the same document.[54]
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Horus spears Set, who appears in the form of a hippopotamus, as Isis looks on
The divine struggle involves many episodes. "Contendings" describes the two gods appealing to various other deities to arbitrate the dispute and competing in different types of contests, such as racing in boats or fighting each other in the form of hippopotami, to determine a victor. In this IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 Keyboard
account, Horus repeatedly defeats Set and is supported by most of the other deities.[55] Yet the dispute drags on for eighty years, largely because the judge, the creator god, favors Set.[56] In late ritual texts, the conflict is characterized as a great battle involving the two deities' assembled followers.[57] The strife in the divine realm extends beyond the two combatants. At one point Isis attempts to harpoon Set as he is locked in combat with her son, but she strikes Horus instead, who then cuts off her head in a fit of rage.[58] Thoth replaces Isis' head with that of a cow; the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1846 Keyboard
story gives a mythical origin for the cow-horn headdress that Isis commonly wears.[59] In some sources, Set justifies further attacks on Horus as punishment for the young god's violence against his mother.[60]
In a key episode in the conflict, Set sexually abuses Horus. Set's violation is partly meant to degrade his rival, but it also involves homosexual desire, in keeping with one of Set's major characteristics, his forceful and indiscriminate sexuality.[61] In the earliest account of this episode, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
in a fragmentary Middle Kingdom papyrus, the sexual encounter begins when Set asks to have sex with Horus, who agrees on the condition that Set will give Horus some of his strength.[62] The encounter puts Horus in danger, because in Egyptian tradition semen is a potent and dangerous substance, akin to poison. According to some texts, Set's semen enters Horus' body and makes him ill, but in "Contendings", Horus thwarts Set by catching Set's semen in his hands. Isis retaliates by putting Horus' semen on lettuces that Set eats. Set's defeat becomes apparent Sony VAIO VGN-NW20EF Keyboard
when this semen appears on his forehead as a golden disk. He has been impregnated with his rival's seed and as a result "gives birth" to the disk. In "Contendings", Thoth takes the disk and places it on his own head; in earlier accounts, it is Thoth who is produced by this anomalous birth.[63]
Another important episode concerns mutilations that the combatants inflict upon each other: Horus injures or steals Set's testicles and Set damages or tears out one, or occasionally both, of IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2779 Keyboard
Horus' eyes. Sometimes the eye is torn into pieces.[64] Set's mutilation signifies a loss of virility and strength.[65] The removal of Horus' eye is even more important, for this stolen Eye of Horus represents a wide variety of concepts in Egyptian religion. One of Horus' major roles is as a sky deity, and for this reason his right eye was said to be the sun and his left eye the moon. The theft or destruction of the Eye of Horus is therefore equated with the darkening of the moon in the course of its cycle of phases, or during eclipses. Horus may take back the lost eye, or other deities, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200T Keyboard
including Isis, Thoth, and Hathor, may retrieve or heal it for him.[64] The Egyptologist Herman te Velde argues that the tradition about the lost testicles is a late variation on Set's loss of semen to Horus, and that the moon-like disk that emerges from Set's head after his impregnation is the Eye of Horus. If so, the episodes of mutilation and sexual abuse would form a single story, in which Set assaults Horus and loses semen to him, Horus retaliates and impregnates Set, and Set comes into possession of Horus' Eye when it appears on Set's head. Because Thoth is a moon deity in IBM Thinkpad R60i Keyboard
addition to his other functions, it would make sense, according to te Velde, for Thoth to emerge in the form of the Eye and step in to mediate between the feuding deities.[66]
In any case, the restoration of the Eye of Horus to wholeness represents the return of the moon to full brightness,[67] the return of the kingship to Horus,[68] and many other aspects of maat.[69] Sometimes the restoration of Horus' eye is accompanied by the restoration of Set's testicles, so that both gods are made whole near the conclusion of their feud.[70]
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[edit]Resolution
As with so many other parts of the myth, the resolution is complex and varied. Often, Horus and Set divide the realm between them. This division can be equated with any of several fundamental dualities that the Egyptians saw in their world. Horus may receive the fertile lands around the Nile, the core of Egyptian civilization, in which case Set takes the barren desert or the foreign lands that are associated with it; Horus may rule the earth while Set dwells in the sky; and each gIBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201 Keyboard
od may take one of the two traditional halves of the country, Upper and Lower Egypt, in which case either god may be connected with either region. Yet in the Memphite Theology, Geb, as judge, first apportions the realm between the claimants and then reverses himself, awarding sole control to Horus. In this peaceable union, Horus and Set are reconciled, and the dualities that they represent have been resolved into a united whole. Through this resolution, order is restored after the tumultuous conflict.[71]
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A different view of the myth's end focuses on Horus' sole triumph.[72] In this version, Set is not reconciled with his rival, but utterly defeated,[73] and sometimes he is exiled from Egypt or even destroyed.[74] His defeat and humiliation is more pronounced in sources from later periods of Egyptian history, when he was increasingly equated with disorder and evil, and the Egyptians no longer saw him as an integral part of natural order.[73]
With great celebration among the gods, Horus takes the throne, and Egypt at last has a rightful Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
king.[75] The divine decision that Set is in the wrong corrects the injustice created by Osiris' murder and completes the process of his restoration after death.[76] Sometimes Set is made to carry Osiris' body to its tomb as part of his punishment.[77] The new king performs funerary rites for his father and gives food offerings to sustain him—often including the Eye of Horus, which in this instance represents life and plenty.[78] According to some sources, only through these acts can Osiris be fully enlivened in the afterlife and take his place as king of the dead, paralleling his Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
son's role as king of the living. Thereafter, Osiris is deeply involved with natural cycles of death and renewal, such as the annual growth of crops, that parallel his own resurrection.[79]
[edit]Origins
As the Osiris myth first appears in the Pyramid Texts, most of its essential features must have taken shape sometime before the texts were written. The distinct segments of the story—Osiris' Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
death and restoration, Horus' childhood, and Horus' conflict with Set—may originally have been independent mythic episodes. If so, they must have begun to coalesce into a single story by the time of the Pyramid Texts, which loosely connect those segments. In any case, the myth was inspired by a variety of influences.[3] Much of the story is based in religious ideas[80] and the general nature of Egyptian society: the divine nature of kingship, the succession from one king to another,[81] the struggle to maintain maat,[82] and the effort to overcome death.[3] For instance, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 6478 Keyboard
Isis and Nephthys' lamentations for their dead brother may represent an early tradition of ritualized mourning.[83]
There are, however, important points of disagreement. The origins of Osiris are much debated,[37] and the basis for the myth of his death is also somewhat uncertain.[84] One influential hypothesis was given by the anthropologist James Frazer, who in 1906 said that Osiris, like other "dying and rising gods" across the ancient Near East, began as a personification of IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Keyboard
vegetation. His death and restoration, therefore, were based on the yearly death and re-growth of plants.[85] Many Egyptologists adopted this explanation. But in the late 20th century, J. Gwyn Griffiths, who extensively studied Osiris and his mythology, argued that Osiris originated as a divine ruler of the dead, and his connection with vegetation was a secondary development.[86] Meanwhile, scholars of comparative religion have increasingly criticized Frazer's overarching concept of "dying and rising gods".[85] More recently, the Egyptologist Rosalie David maintains IBM ThinkPad T40 2678 Keyboard
that Osiris originally "personified the annual rebirth of the trees and plants after the [Nile] inundation."[87]
Horus and Set as supporters of the king
Another continuing debate concerns the opposition of Horus and Set, which Egyptologists have Asus A9Rp Keyboard
often tried to connect with political events early in Egypt's history or prehistory. The cases in which the combatants divide the kingdom, and the frequent association of the paired Horus and Set with the union of Upper and Lower Egypt, suggest that the two deities represent some kind of division within the country. Egyptian tradition and archaeological evidence indicate that Egypt was united at the beginning of its history when an Upper Egyptian kingdom, in the south, conquered Lower Egypt in the north. The Upper Egyptian rulers called themselves "followers of HP 505999-001 Keyboard
Horus", and Horus became the patron god of the unified nation and its kings. Yet Horus and Set cannot be easily equated with the two halves of the country. Both deities had several cult centers in each region, and Horus is often associated with Lower Egypt and Set with Upper Egypt.[30] One of the better-known explanations for these discrepancies was proposed by Kurt Sethe in 1930. He argued that Osiris was originally the human ruler of a unified Egypt in prehistoric times, before a rebellion of Upper Egyptian Set-worshippers. The Lower Egyptian followers of Horus Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
then forcibly reunified the land, inspiring the myth of Horus' triumph, before Upper Egypt, now led by Horus worshippers, became prominent again at the start of the Early Dynastic Period.[88]
In the late 20th century, Griffiths focused on the inconsistent portrayal of Horus and Set as brothers and as uncle and nephew. He argued that, in the early stages of Egyptian mythology, the struggle between Horus and Set as siblings and equals was originally separate from the murder of Osiris. The two stories were joined into the single Osiris myth sometime before the writing of the HP Pavilion dm1-1028tu Keyboard
Pyramid Texts. With this merging, the genealogy of the deities involved and the characterization of the Horus–Set conflict were altered so that Horus is the son and heir avenging Osiris' death. Traces of the independent traditions remained, in the conflicting characterizations of the combatants' relationship and in texts unrelated to the Osiris myth, which make Horus the son of the goddess Nut or the goddess Hathor rather than of Isis and Osiris. Griffiths therefore rejected the possibility that Osiris' murder was rooted in historical events.[89] This hypothesis has been IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 4057 Keyboard
accepted by more recent scholars such as Jan Assmann[54] and George Hart.[90]
Griffiths sought a historical origin for the Horus–Set rivalry, and he posited two distinct predynastic unifications of Egypt by Horus worshippers, similar to Sethe's theory, to account for it.[91] Yet the issue remains unresolved, partly because other political associations for Horus and Set complicate the picture further.[92] Before even Upper Egypt had a single ruler, two of its major cities were Nekhen, in the far south, and Naqada, many miles to the north. The rulers of FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
Nekhen, where Horus was the patron deity, are generally believed to have unified Upper Egypt, including Naqada, under their sway. Set was associated with Naqada, so it is possible that the divine conflict dimly reflects an enmity between the cities in the distant past. Much later, at the end of the Second Dynasty (c. 2890–2686 BC), King Peribsen used the Set animal in writing his serekh-name, in place of the traditional falcon hieroglyph representing Horus. His successor Khasekhemwy used both Horus and Set in the writing of his serekh. This evidence has prompted Dell Inspiron N4020 Keyboard
conjecture that the Second Dynasty saw a clash between the followers of the Horus-king and the worshippers of Set led by Peribsen. Khasekhemwy's use of the two animal symbols would then represent the reconciliation of the two factions, as does the resolution of the myth.[30]
Noting the uncertainties surrounding events so far back in time, Herman te Velde argues that the historical roots of the conflict are too obscure to be very useful in understanding the myth and are not as significant as its religious meaning. He says that "the origin of the myth of Horus and Sony V072078BS1 Keyboard
Seth is lost in the mists of the religious traditions of prehistory."[93]
[edit]Influence
The effect of the Osiris myth on Egyptian culture was greater and more widespread than that of any other myth.[1] In literature, the myth was not only the basis for a retelling such as "Contendings"; it also provided the basis for more distantly related stories. "The Tale of Two HP Pavilion dv2-1008ax Keyboard
Brothers", a folk tale with human protagonists, includes elements similar to the myth of Osiris.[94] One character's penis is eaten by a fish, and he later dies and is resurrected.[95] Another story, "The Tale of Truth and Falsehood", adapts the conflict of Horus and Set into an allegory, in which the characters are direct personifications of truth and lies rather than deities associated with those concepts.[94]
IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
The opening of the mouth ceremony, a key funerary ritual, performed for Tutankhamun by his successor Ay. The deceased king takes on the role of Osiris, upon whom Horus was supposed to have performed the ceremony.[96]
From at least the time of the Pyramid Texts, kings hoped that after their deaths they could emulate Osiris' restoration to life and his rule over the realm of the dead. By the early Middle HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC), non-royal Egyptians believed that they, too, could overcome death as Osiris had, by worshipping him and receiving the funerary rites that were partly based on his myth. Osiris thus became Egypt's most important afterlife deity.[97] The myth also influenced the notion, which grew prominent in the New Kingdom, that only virtuous people could reach the afterlife. As the assembled deities judged Osiris and Horus to be righteous, undoing the injustice of Osiris' death, so a deceased soul had to be judged righteous in order for his or her death to be Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
undone.[76]
As the importance of Osiris grew, so did his popularity. By late in the Middle Kingdom, the centuries-old tomb of the First Dynasty ruler Djer, near Osiris' main center of worship in the city of Abydos, was seen as Osiris' tomb. Accordingly, it became a major focus of Osiris worship. For the next 1,500 years, an annual festival procession traveled from Osiris' main temple to the tomb site. This procession made reference to, and may have ritually reenacted, Isis and Nephthys' IBM Thinkpad T61 Keyboard
mourning, restoration, and revival of their murdered brother.[98] Kings and commoners from across Egypt built chapels, which served as cenotaphs, near the processional route. In doing so they sought to strengthen their connection with Osiris in the afterlife.[99] Another major funerary festival, a national event spread over several days in the month of Khoiak in the Egyptian calendar, became linked with Osiris during the Middle Kingdom.[100] During Khoiak the djed pillar, an emblem of Osiris, was ritually raised into an upright position, symbolizing Osiris' IBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
restoration. By Ptolemaic times (305–30 BC), Khoiak also included the planting of seeds in an "Osiris bed", a mummy-shaped bed of soil, connecting the resurrection of Osiris with the seasonal growth of plants.[101]
The myth's religious importance extended beyond the funerary sphere. Mortuary offerings, in which family members or hired priests presented food to the deceased, were logically linked with the mythological offering of the Eye of Horus to Osiris. By analogy, this episode of the myth was IBM ThinkPad T40-2374 Keyboard
eventually equated with other interactions between a human and a being in the divine realm. In temple offering rituals, the officiating priest took on the role of Horus, the gifts to the deity became the Eye of Horus, and whichever deity received these gifts was momentarily equated with Osiris.[102]
The ideology surrounding the living king was also affected by the Osiris myth. The Egyptians envisioned the events of the Osiris myth as taking place sometime in Egypt's dim prehistory, so IBM ThinkPad T40p 2373 Keyboard
that Horus, as the king, was regarded as the predecessor and exemplar for all Egyptian rulers. His assumption of his predecessor's throne and pious actions to sustain that spirit in the afterlife were the model for all pharaonic successions to emulate.[103] Each new king was believed to renew maat after the death of the preceding king, just as Horus had done. In royal coronations, rituals alluded to Osiris' burial, and hymns celebrated the new king's accession as the equivalent of Horus' own.[75]
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The myth influenced popular religion as well. One example is the magical healing spells based on Horus' childhood. Another is the use of the Eye of Horus as a protective emblem in personal apotropaic amulets. Its mythological restoration made it appropriate for this purpose, as a general symbol of well-being.[30]
As the antagonist of the myth, Set did not enjoy increased popularity. Although he was credited with positive traits in the Osiris myth, the sinister aspects of his character predominate. Overall Toshiba Satellite L355-S7837 Keyboard
he was viewed with ambivalence until, during the first millennium BC, he came to be seen as a totally malevolent deity. This transformation was prompted more by his association with foreign lands than by the Osiris myth.[104] Nevertheless, in these late times, the widespread temple rituals involving the ceremonial annihilation of Set were often connected with the myth.[105]
Both Isis and Nephthys were seen as protectors of the dead in the afterlife because of their protection and restoration of Osiris' body.[106] Isis, as Horus' mother, was also the mother of Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
every king according to royal ideology, and kings were said to have nursed at her breast as a sign of their divine legitimacy.[107] Her appeal to the general populace was based in her protective character, as exemplified by the magical healing spells. In the Late Period, she was credited with ever greater magical power, and her maternal devotion was believed to extend to everyone. By Roman times she was the most important goddess in Egypt.[108]
In the late centuries BC, the worship of Isis spread from Egypt across the Mediterranean world. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2776 Keyboard
Until Christianity became dominant in the fourth century, Isis was one of the most popular deities in the whole region. Although this new, multicultural form of Isis absorbed characteristics from many other deities, her original mythological nature as a wife and mother was key to her appeal. Horus and Osiris, being central figures in her story, spread along with her.[109] It was to a Greek priestess of Isis that Plutarch wrote his account of the myth of Osiris.[110]
Through the work of classical writers such as Plutarch, knowledge of the Osiris myth was IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2778 Keyboard
preserved even after the middle of the first millennium AD, when Egyptian religion ceased to exist and knowledge of the writing systems that were originally used to record the myth were lost. The myth remained a major part of Western impressions of ancient Egypt. In modern times, when understanding of Egyptian beliefs is informed by the original Egyptian sources, the story continues to influence and inspire new ideas, from works of fiction to scholarly speculation and Sony VAIO VGN-SZ680N Keyboard
new religious movements.[111]
computer security
Computer security compromised by hardware failure is a branch of computer security applied to hardware. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to remain accessible and productive to its intended users.[1] Such secret information could be retrieved by different ways. Sony VAIO VGN-NW320F/T Keyboard
This article focus on the retrieval of data thanks to misused hardware or hardware failure. Hardware could be misused or exploited to get secret data. This article collects main types of attack that can be lead in a data thief.
Computer security can be comprised by devices, such as keyboards, monitors or printers (thanks to electromagnetic or acoustic emanation for example) or by components of the computer, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
such as the memory, the network card or the processor (thanks to time or temperature analysis for example).
Contents [hide]
1 Devices
1.1 Monitor
1.1.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.1.2 Compromising reflections
1.2 Keyboard
1.2.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.2.1.1 The Falling Edge Transition Technique
1.2.1.2 The Generalized Transition Technique
1.2.1.3 The Modulation Technique
1.2.1.4 The Matrix Scan Technique
1.2.1.5 SummaryAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
1.2.2 Acoustic emanations
1.2.3 Video Eavesdropping on Keyboard
1.3 Printer
1.3.1 Acoustic emanations
2 Computer components
2.1 Network Interface Card
2.1.1 Timing attack
2.2 Memory
2.2.1 Physical chemistry
2.2.2 Temperature
2.2.3 Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWireSony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
2.3 Processor
2.3.1 Cache attack
2.3.2 Timing attack
2.3.3 Privilege escalation
3 References
4 Bibliography
4.1 Acoustic
4.2 Cache attack
4.3 Chemical
4.4 Electromagnetic
4.5 FireWire
4.6 Processor bug and backdoorsAcer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
4.7 Temperature
4.8 Timing attacks
4.9 Other
[edit]Devices
[edit]Monitor
The monitor, main device of the computer, can be used to retrieve data. Even if monitors seem harmless, they radiate or reflect data on their environment; this lets attackers know useful data about the content displayed on the monitor.
[edit]Electromagnetic emanationsIdeapad U550
As previously said, video display units radiate :
narrowband harmonics of the digital clock signals ;
broadband harmonics of the various 'random' digital signals such as the video signal.[2]
Known as compromising emanations or TEMPEST radiation, a code word for a U.S. government programme aimed at attacking the problem, the electromagnetic broadcast of data has been a significant concern in sensitive computer applications. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
Eavesdroppers can reconstruct video screen content from radio frequency emanations.[3] Each (radiated) harmonic of the video signal shows a remarkable resemblance to a broadcast TV signal. It is therefore possible to reconstruct the picture displayed on the video display unit from the radiated emission by means of a normal television receiver.[2] If no preventive measures are taken, eavesdropping on a video display unit is possible at several hundreds of metres distance, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
using only a normal black-and-white TV receiver, a directional antenna and an antenna amplifier. It is even possible to pick up information from some types of video display units at a distance of over 1 kilometre If more sophisticated receiving and decoding equipment is used, the maximum distance can be much greater.[4]
[edit]Compromising reflectionsHP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
What is displayed by the monitor is reflected on the environment. The time-varying diffuse reflections of the light emitted by a CRT monitor can be exploited to recover the original monitor image.[5] This is a eavesdropping technique for spying at a distance on data that is displayed on an arbitrary computer screen, including the currently prevalent LCD monitors. Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
The technique exploits reflections of the screen’s optical emanations in various objects that one commonly finds in close proximity to the screen and uses those reflections to recover the original screen content. Such objects include eyeglasses, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
tea pots, spoons, plastic bottles, and even the eye of the user. This attack can be successfully mounted to spy on even small fonts using inexpensive, off-the-shelf equipment (less than 1500 dollars) from a distance of up to 10 meters. Relying on more expensive equipment allowed to conduct this attack from over 30 meters away, demonstrating that similar attacks are feasible from the other side of the street or from a close-by building.[6]
Many objects that may be found at a usual workplace can be exploited to retrieve information on a computer’s display by an outsider. SamsungR19 Keyboard
[7] Particularly good results were obtained from reflections in a user’s eyeglasses or a tea pot located on the desk next to the screen. Reflections that stem from the eye of the user also provide good results. However, eyes are harder to spy on at a distance because they are fast-moving objects and require high exposure times. Using more expensive equipment with lower exposure times helps to remedy this problem.[8] Compaq 6720 Keyboard
The reflections gathered from curved surfaces on close-by objects indeed pose a substantial threat to the confidentiality of data displayed on the screen. Fully invalidating this threat without at the same time hiding the screen from the legitimate user seems difficult, without using curtains on the windows or similar forms of strong optical shielding. Most users, however, will not be aware of this risk and may not be willing to close the curtains on a nice day. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
[9] The reflection of an object, a computer display, in a curved mirror creates a virtual image that is located behind the reflecting surface. For a flat mirror this virtual image has the same size and is located behind the mirror at the same distance as the original object. For curved mirrors, however, the situation is more complex.[10]
[edit]Keyboard
[edit]Electromagnetic emanations
Computer keyboards are often used to transmit confidential data such as passwords. Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
Since they contain electronic components, keyboards emit electromagnetic waves. These emanations could reveal sensitive information such as keystrokes.[11] Electromagnetic emanations have turned out to constitute a security threat to computer equipment.[9] The figure below presents how a keystroke is retrieved and what material is necessary.
Diagram presenting all material necessary to detect keystrokes
The approach is to acquire the raw signal directly from the antenna and to process the entire captured electromagnetic spectrum. Thanks to this method, four different kinds of compromising electromagnetic emanations have been detected, generated by wired and wireless keyboards. These emissions lead to a full or a partial recovery of the keystrokes. HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
The best practical attack fully recovered 95% of the keystrokes of a PS/2 keyboard at a distance up to 20 meters, even through walls.[11] Because each keyboard has a specific fingerprint based on the clock frequency inconsistencies, it can determine the source keyboard of a compromising emanation, even if multiple keyboards from the same model are used at the same time. Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
[12]
The four different kinds way of compromising electromagnetic emanations are described below.
[edit]The Falling Edge Transition Technique
When a key is pressed, released or held down, the keyboard sends a packet of information known as a scan code to the computer.[13] The protocol used to transmit these scan codes is a bidirectional serial communication, based on four wires: Vcc (5 volts), ground, data and clock.[13] Clock and data signals are identically generated. Hence, the compromising emanation detected is the combination of both signals. However, the edges of the data and the clock lines are not superposed. Thus, they can be easily separated to obtain independent signals.[14]
[edit]The Generalized Transition TechniqueDell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
The Falling Edge Transition attack is limited to a partial recovery of the keystrokes. This is a significant limitation.[15] The GTT is a falling edge transition attack improved, which recover almost all keystrokes. Indeed, between two traces, there is exactly one data rising edge. If attackers are able to detect this transition, they can fully recover the keystrokes.[15]
[edit]The Modulation Technique
Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
Harmonics compromising electromagnetic emissions come from unintentional emanations such as radiations emitted by the clock, non-linear elements, crosstalk, ground pollution, etc. Determining theoretically the reasons of these compromising radiations is a very complex task.[16] These harmonics correspond to a carrier of approximately 4 MHz which is very likely the internal clock of the micro-controller inside the keyboard. Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
These harmonics are correlated with both clock and data signals, which describe modulated signals (in amplitude and frequency) and the full state of both clock and data signals. This means that the scan code can be completely recovered from these harmonics.[16]
[edit]The Matrix Scan Technique
Keyboard manufacturers arrange the keys in a matrix. Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
The keyboard controller, often a 8-bit processor, parses columns one-by-one and recovers the state of 8 keys at once. This matrix scan process can be described as 192 keys (some keys may not be used, for instance modern keyboards use 104/105 keys) arranged in 24 columns and 8 rows.[17] These columns are continuously pulsed one-by-one for at least 3μs. Thus, Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
these leads may act as an antenna and generate electromagnetic emanations. If an attacker is able to capture these emanations, he can easily recover the column of the pressed key. Even if this signal does not fully describe the pressed key, it still gives partial information on the transmitted scan code, i.e. the column number.[17]
Note that the matrix scan routine loops continuously. Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
When no key is pressed, we still have a signal composed of multiple equidistant peaks. These emanations may be used to remotely detect the presence of powered computers. Concerning wireless keyboards, the wireless data burst transmission can be used as an electromagnetic trigger to detect exactly when a key is pressed, while the matrix scan emanations are used to determine the column it belongs to.[17]
[edit]SummaryAcer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Some techniques can only target some keyboards. This table sums up which technique could be used to find keystroke for different kind of keyboard.
Technique name Wired Keyboard Laptop Keyboard Wireless Keyboard
Falling Edge Transition Technique Yes Yes
Generalized Transition Technique Yes Yes
Modulation Technique Yes Yes HP 608558-001 Keyboard
Matrix Scan Technique Yes Yes Yes
In their paper called "Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired and Wireless Keyboards", Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini tested 12 different keyboard models, with PS/2, USB connectors and wireless communication in different setups: a semi-anechoic chamber, a small office, an adjacent office and a flat in a building. The table below presents their results.
Type of keyboard Number of tested keyboard FETT GTT MT MST
PS/2 7 7/7 6/7 4/7 5/7
USB 2 0/2 0/2 0/2 2/2
Laptop 2 1/2 1/2 0/2 2/2
Wireless 1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1
[edit]Acoustic emanationsAsus F80L Keyboard
Attacks against emanations caused by human typing have attracted interest in recent years. In particular, works showed that keyboard acoustic emanations do leak information that can be exploited to reconstruct the typed text.[18]
PC keyboards, notebook keyboards are vulnerable to attacks based on differentiating the sound emanated by different keys.[19] This attack takes as input an audio signal containing a recording of a single word typed by a single person on a keyboard, and a dictionary of words. It is assume that the typed word is present in the dictionary. The aim of the attack is to reconstruct the original word from the signal.[20] This attack, Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
taking as input a 10-minute sound recording of a user typing English text using a keyboard, and then recovering up to 96% of typed characters.[21] This attack is inexpensive because the other hardware required is a parabolic microphone and non-invasive because it does not require physical intrusion into the system. The attack employsSony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
a neural network to recognize the key being pressed.[19] It combines signal processing and efficient data structures and algorithms, to successfully reconstruct single words of 7-13 characters from a recording of the clicks made when typing them on a keyboard.[18] The sound of clicks can differ slightly from key to key, because the keys are positioned at different positions on the keyboard plate, although the clicks of different keys sound similar to the human ear. Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
[19]
On average, there were only 0.5 incorrect recognitions per 20 clicks, which shows the exposure of keyboard to the eavesdropping using this attack.[22] The attack is very efficient, taking under 20 seconds per word on a standard PC. A 90% or better success rate of finding the correct word for words of 10 or more characters, and a success rate of 73% over all the words tested.[18] In practice, a human attacker can typically determine if text is random. Asus A9Rp Keyboard
An attacker can also identify occasions when the user types user names and passwords.[23] Short audio signals containing a single word, with seven or more characters long was considered. This means that the signal is only a few seconds long. Such short words are often chosen as a password.[18] The dominant factors affecting the attack's success are the word length, and more importantly, the number of repeated characters within the word.[18] Toshiba Satellite 1870 Keyboard
This is a procedure that makes it possible to efficiently uncover a word out of audio recordings of keyboard click sounds.[24] More recently, extracting information out of an other type of emanations was demonstrated: acoustic emanations from mechanical devices such as dot-matrix printers.[18]
[edit]Video Eavesdropping on KeyboardThinkPad Edge E125
While extracting private information by watching somebody typing on a keyboard might seem to be an easy task, it becomes extremely challenging if it has to be automated. However, an automated tool is needed in the case of long-lasting surveillance procedures or long user activity, as a human being is able to reconstruct only a few characters per minute. The paper "ClearShot: Eavesdropping on Keyboard Input from Video" presents a novel approach to automatically recovering the text being typed on a keyboard, based solely on a video of the user typing.[25] Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
Automatically recognizing the keys being pressed by a user is a hard problem that requires sophisticated motion analysis. Experiments show that, for a human, reconstructing a few sentences requires lengthy hours of slow-motion analysis of the video. Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
[26] The attacker might install a surveillance device in the room of the victim, might take control of an existing camera by exploiting a vulnerability in the camera’s control software, or might simply point a mobile phone with an integrated camera at the laptop’s keyboard when the victim is working in a public space.[26]
Balzarotti's analysis is divided into two main phases (figure below). The first phase analyzes the video recorded by the camera using computer vision techniques. For each frame of the video, the computer vision analysis computes the set of keys that were likely pressed, Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
the set of keys that were certainly not pressed, and the position of space characters. Because the results of this phase of the analysis are noisy, a second phase, called the text analysis, is required. The goal of this phase is to remove errors using both language and context-sensitive techniques. The result of this phase is the reconstructed text, where each word is represented by a list of possible candidates, ranked by likelihood.[26]
Diagram presenting steps to go through when detecting keystroke with video inputToshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
[edit]Printer
[edit]Acoustic emanations
With acoustic emanations, an attack that recovers what a dot-matrix printer processing English text is printing is possible. It is based on a record of the sound the printer makes, if the microphone is close enough to it. This attack recovers up to 72 % of printed words, and up to 95 % if knowledge about the text are done, with a microphone at a distance of 10 cm from the printer.[5] Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
After an upfront training phase ("a" in the picture below), the attack ("b" in the picture below) is fully automated and uses a combination of machine learning, audio processing, and speech recognition techniques, including spectrum features, Hidden Markov Models and linear classification.[9] The fundamental reason why the reconstruction of the printed text works is that, the emitted sound becomes louder if more needles strike the paper at a given time.[9] There is a correlation between the number of needles and the intensity of the acoustic emanation.[9] Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
A training phase was conducted where words from a dictionary are printed and characteristic sound features of these words are extracted and stored in a database. The trained characteristic features was used to recognize the printed English text.[9] But, this task is not trivial. Major challenges include :
Identifying and extracting sound features that suitably capture the acoustic emanation of dot-matrix printers;
Compensating for the blurred and overlapping features that are induced by the substantial decay time of the emanations; HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
Identifying and eliminating wrongly recognized words to increase the overall percentage of correctly identified words (recognition rate).[9]
Diagram presenting phases when retrieving data from a printer
[edit]Computer componentsSony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
[edit]Network Interface Card
[edit]Timing attack
Timing attacks enable an attacker to extract secrets maintained in a security system by observing the time it takes the system to respond to various queries.[27]
SSH is designed to provide a secure channel between two hosts. Despite the encryption and authentication mechanisms it uses, SSH has weaknesses. In interactive mode, every individual keystroke that a user types is sent to the remote machine in a separate IP packet immediately after the key is pressed, which leaks the inter-keystroke timing information of users’ typing. Below, the picture represents the command su processed through a SSH connection. ThinkPad Edge E520
Network messages sent between the host and the client for the command 'su' - numbers are size of network packet in byte
A very simple statistical techniques suffice to reveal sensitive information such as the length of users’ passwords or even root passwords. By using advanced statistical techniques on timing information collected from the network, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
the eavesdropper can learn significant information about what users type in SSH sessions.[28] Because the time it takes the operating system to send out the packet after the keypress is in general negligible comparing to the interkeystroke timing, this also enables an eavesdropper to learn the precise interkeystroke timings of users’ typing from the arrival times of packets.[29]
[edit]Memory
[edit]Physical chemistryAcer eMachines G640 Keyboard
Data remanence problems not only affect obvious areas such as RAM and non-volatile memory cells but can also occur in other areas of the device through hot-carrier effects (which change the characteristics of the semiconductors in the device) and various other effects which are examined alongside the more obvious memory-cell remanence problems.[30] It is possible to analyse and recover data from these cells and from semiconductor devices in general long after it should (in theory) have vanished.[31] Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
Electromigration, which means to physically move the atom to new locations (to physically alter the device itself) is another type of attack.[30] It involves the relocation of metal atoms due to high current densities, a phenomenon in which atoms are carried along by an “electron wind” in the opposite direction to the conventional current, producing voids at the negative electrode and hillocks and whiskers at the positive electrode. Acer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
Void formation leads to a local increase in current density and Joule heating (the interaction of electrons and metal ions to produce thermal energy), producing further electromigration effects. When the external stress is removed, the disturbed system tends to relax back to its original equilibrium state, resulting in a backflow which heals some of the electromigration damage. In the long term though, this can cause device failure, but in less extreme cases it simply serves to alter a device’s operating characteristics in noticeable ways. HP 491274-031 Keyboard
For example, the excavations of voids leads to increased wiring resistance and the growth of whiskers leads to contact formation and current leakage.[30] An example of a conductor which exhibits whisker growth due to electromigration is shown in the figure below:
Whisker growth due to electromigration
One example which exhibits void formation (in this case severe enough to have led to complete failure) is shown in this figure:
Void formation due to electromigration
[edit]TemperatureHP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for several seconds after power is lost, even at room temperature and even if removed from a motherboard.[32]
Many products do cryptographic and other security-related computations using secret keys or other variables that the equipment’s operator must not be HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
able to read out or alter. The usual solution is for the secret data to be kept in volatile memory inside a tamper-sensing enclosure. Security processors typically store secret key material in static RAM, from which power is removed if the device is tampered with. At temperatures below −20°C, the contents of SRAM can be ‘frozen’. It is interesting to know the Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
period of time for which a static RAM device will retain data once the power has been removed. Low temperatures can increase the data retention time of SRAM to many seconds or even minutes.[33]
[edit]Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWire
Maximillian Dornseif presented a technique in these slides, HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
which let him take the control of a Apple computer thanks to an iPod. The attacks needed a first generic phase where the iPod software was modified so that it behave as master on the FireWire bus. Then the iPod had full read/write access on the Apple Computer when the iPod was plugged.[34] FireWire is used by : audio devices, printers, scanners, cameras, gps, etc. Generally, a device connected by FireWire has full access (read/write). Indeed, OHCI Standard (FireWire standard) reads : HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
“ Physical requests, including physical read, physical write and lock requests to some CSR registers (section 5.5), are handled directly by the Host Controller without assistance by system software. ”
—OHCI Standard
So, any device connected by FireWire can read and write data on the computer memory. For example, a device can : HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
Grab the screen contents ;
Just search the memory for strings such as login, passwords ;
Scan for possible key material ;
Search cryptographic keys stored in RAM ;
Parse the whole physical memory to understand logical memory layout.
Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
or
Mess up the memory ;
Change screen content ;
Change UID/GID of a certain process ;
Inject code into a process ;
Inject an additional process.
[edit]Processor
[edit]Cache attackToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
To increase the computational power, processors are generally equipped with a cache memory which decreases the memory access latency. Below, the figure shows the hierarchy between the processor and the memory. First the processor looks for data in the cache L1, then L2, then in the memory.
Processor cache hierarchyAcer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
When the data is not where the processor is looking for, it is called a cache-miss. Below, pictures show how the processor fetch data when there are two cache levels.
Data A is in the L1-Cache
Data A is in the L2-Cache
Data A is in the memoryToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
Unfortunately caches contain only a small portion of the application data and can introduce additional latency to the memory transaction in the case of a miss. This involves also additional power consumption which is due to the activation of memory devices down in the memory hierarchy. The miss penalty has been already used to attack symmetric encryption algorithms, like DES.[35] The basic idea proposed in this paper is to force a cache miss while the processor is executing the AES encryption algorithm on a known plain text.[ HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
36] The attacks allow an unprivileged process to attack other process running in parallel on the same processor, despite partitioning methods such as memory protection, sandboxing and virtualization.[37]
[edit]Timing attack
By carefully measuring the amount of time required to perform private key operations, attackers may be able to find fixed Diffie-Hellman exponents, factor RSA keys, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
and break other cryptosystems. Against a vulnerable system, the attack is computationally inexpensive and often requires only known ciphertext.[38] The attack can be treated as a signal detection problem. The signal consists of the timing variation due to the target exponent bit, and noise results from measurement inaccuracies and timing variations due to unknown exponent bits. The properties of the signal and noise determineAcer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
the number of timing measurements required to for the attack. Timing attacks can potentially be used against other cryptosystems, including symmetric functions.[39]
[edit]Privilege escalation
A simple and generic processor backdoor can be used by attackers as a means to privilege escalation to get to privileges equivalent to those of any given running operating system. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
[40] Also, a non-privileged process of one of the non-privileged invited domain running on top of a virtual machine monitor can get to privileges equivalent to those of the virtual machine monitor.[40]
Loïc Duflot studied Intel processors in the paper "CPU bugs, CPU backdoors and consequences on security" ; he explains that the processor defines four different privilege rings numbered from 0 (most privileged) to 3 (least privileged). HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
Kernel code is usually running in ring 0, whereas user-space code is generally running in ring 3. The use of some security-critical assembly language instructions is restricted to ring 0 code. In order to escalate privilege through the backdoor, the attacker must :[41]
activate the backdoor by placing the CPU in the desired state HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
;
inject code and run it in ring 0 ;
get back to ring 3 in order to return the system to a stable state. Indeed, when code is running in ring 0, system calls do not work : Leaving the system in ring 0 and running a random system call (exit() typically) is likely to crash the system. Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
The backdoors Loïc Duflot presents are simple as they only modify the behavior of three assembly language instructions and have very simple and specific activation conditions, so that they are very unlikely to be accidentally activated. HP 633736-001 Keyboard
This article focus on the retrieval of data thanks to misused hardware or hardware failure. Hardware could be misused or exploited to get secret data. This article collects main types of attack that can be lead in a data thief.
Computer security can be comprised by devices, such as keyboards, monitors or printers (thanks to electromagnetic or acoustic emanation for example) or by components of the computer, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
such as the memory, the network card or the processor (thanks to time or temperature analysis for example).
Contents [hide]
1 Devices
1.1 Monitor
1.1.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.1.2 Compromising reflections
1.2 Keyboard
1.2.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.2.1.1 The Falling Edge Transition Technique
1.2.1.2 The Generalized Transition Technique
1.2.1.3 The Modulation Technique
1.2.1.4 The Matrix Scan Technique
1.2.1.5 SummaryAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
1.2.2 Acoustic emanations
1.2.3 Video Eavesdropping on Keyboard
1.3 Printer
1.3.1 Acoustic emanations
2 Computer components
2.1 Network Interface Card
2.1.1 Timing attack
2.2 Memory
2.2.1 Physical chemistry
2.2.2 Temperature
2.2.3 Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWireSony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
2.3 Processor
2.3.1 Cache attack
2.3.2 Timing attack
2.3.3 Privilege escalation
3 References
4 Bibliography
4.1 Acoustic
4.2 Cache attack
4.3 Chemical
4.4 Electromagnetic
4.5 FireWire
4.6 Processor bug and backdoorsAcer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
4.7 Temperature
4.8 Timing attacks
4.9 Other
[edit]Devices
[edit]Monitor
The monitor, main device of the computer, can be used to retrieve data. Even if monitors seem harmless, they radiate or reflect data on their environment; this lets attackers know useful data about the content displayed on the monitor.
[edit]Electromagnetic emanationsIdeapad U550
As previously said, video display units radiate :
narrowband harmonics of the digital clock signals ;
broadband harmonics of the various 'random' digital signals such as the video signal.[2]
Known as compromising emanations or TEMPEST radiation, a code word for a U.S. government programme aimed at attacking the problem, the electromagnetic broadcast of data has been a significant concern in sensitive computer applications. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
Eavesdroppers can reconstruct video screen content from radio frequency emanations.[3] Each (radiated) harmonic of the video signal shows a remarkable resemblance to a broadcast TV signal. It is therefore possible to reconstruct the picture displayed on the video display unit from the radiated emission by means of a normal television receiver.[2] If no preventive measures are taken, eavesdropping on a video display unit is possible at several hundreds of metres distance, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
using only a normal black-and-white TV receiver, a directional antenna and an antenna amplifier. It is even possible to pick up information from some types of video display units at a distance of over 1 kilometre If more sophisticated receiving and decoding equipment is used, the maximum distance can be much greater.[4]
[edit]Compromising reflectionsHP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
What is displayed by the monitor is reflected on the environment. The time-varying diffuse reflections of the light emitted by a CRT monitor can be exploited to recover the original monitor image.[5] This is a eavesdropping technique for spying at a distance on data that is displayed on an arbitrary computer screen, including the currently prevalent LCD monitors. Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
The technique exploits reflections of the screen’s optical emanations in various objects that one commonly finds in close proximity to the screen and uses those reflections to recover the original screen content. Such objects include eyeglasses, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
tea pots, spoons, plastic bottles, and even the eye of the user. This attack can be successfully mounted to spy on even small fonts using inexpensive, off-the-shelf equipment (less than 1500 dollars) from a distance of up to 10 meters. Relying on more expensive equipment allowed to conduct this attack from over 30 meters away, demonstrating that similar attacks are feasible from the other side of the street or from a close-by building.[6]
Many objects that may be found at a usual workplace can be exploited to retrieve information on a computer’s display by an outsider. SamsungR19 Keyboard
[7] Particularly good results were obtained from reflections in a user’s eyeglasses or a tea pot located on the desk next to the screen. Reflections that stem from the eye of the user also provide good results. However, eyes are harder to spy on at a distance because they are fast-moving objects and require high exposure times. Using more expensive equipment with lower exposure times helps to remedy this problem.[8] Compaq 6720 Keyboard
The reflections gathered from curved surfaces on close-by objects indeed pose a substantial threat to the confidentiality of data displayed on the screen. Fully invalidating this threat without at the same time hiding the screen from the legitimate user seems difficult, without using curtains on the windows or similar forms of strong optical shielding. Most users, however, will not be aware of this risk and may not be willing to close the curtains on a nice day. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
[9] The reflection of an object, a computer display, in a curved mirror creates a virtual image that is located behind the reflecting surface. For a flat mirror this virtual image has the same size and is located behind the mirror at the same distance as the original object. For curved mirrors, however, the situation is more complex.[10]
[edit]Keyboard
[edit]Electromagnetic emanations
Computer keyboards are often used to transmit confidential data such as passwords. Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
Since they contain electronic components, keyboards emit electromagnetic waves. These emanations could reveal sensitive information such as keystrokes.[11] Electromagnetic emanations have turned out to constitute a security threat to computer equipment.[9] The figure below presents how a keystroke is retrieved and what material is necessary.
Diagram presenting all material necessary to detect keystrokes
The approach is to acquire the raw signal directly from the antenna and to process the entire captured electromagnetic spectrum. Thanks to this method, four different kinds of compromising electromagnetic emanations have been detected, generated by wired and wireless keyboards. These emissions lead to a full or a partial recovery of the keystrokes. HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
The best practical attack fully recovered 95% of the keystrokes of a PS/2 keyboard at a distance up to 20 meters, even through walls.[11] Because each keyboard has a specific fingerprint based on the clock frequency inconsistencies, it can determine the source keyboard of a compromising emanation, even if multiple keyboards from the same model are used at the same time. Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
[12]
The four different kinds way of compromising electromagnetic emanations are described below.
[edit]The Falling Edge Transition Technique
When a key is pressed, released or held down, the keyboard sends a packet of information known as a scan code to the computer.[13] The protocol used to transmit these scan codes is a bidirectional serial communication, based on four wires: Vcc (5 volts), ground, data and clock.[13] Clock and data signals are identically generated. Hence, the compromising emanation detected is the combination of both signals. However, the edges of the data and the clock lines are not superposed. Thus, they can be easily separated to obtain independent signals.[14]
[edit]The Generalized Transition TechniqueDell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
The Falling Edge Transition attack is limited to a partial recovery of the keystrokes. This is a significant limitation.[15] The GTT is a falling edge transition attack improved, which recover almost all keystrokes. Indeed, between two traces, there is exactly one data rising edge. If attackers are able to detect this transition, they can fully recover the keystrokes.[15]
[edit]The Modulation Technique
Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
Harmonics compromising electromagnetic emissions come from unintentional emanations such as radiations emitted by the clock, non-linear elements, crosstalk, ground pollution, etc. Determining theoretically the reasons of these compromising radiations is a very complex task.[16] These harmonics correspond to a carrier of approximately 4 MHz which is very likely the internal clock of the micro-controller inside the keyboard. Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
These harmonics are correlated with both clock and data signals, which describe modulated signals (in amplitude and frequency) and the full state of both clock and data signals. This means that the scan code can be completely recovered from these harmonics.[16]
[edit]The Matrix Scan Technique
Keyboard manufacturers arrange the keys in a matrix. Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
The keyboard controller, often a 8-bit processor, parses columns one-by-one and recovers the state of 8 keys at once. This matrix scan process can be described as 192 keys (some keys may not be used, for instance modern keyboards use 104/105 keys) arranged in 24 columns and 8 rows.[17] These columns are continuously pulsed one-by-one for at least 3μs. Thus, Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
these leads may act as an antenna and generate electromagnetic emanations. If an attacker is able to capture these emanations, he can easily recover the column of the pressed key. Even if this signal does not fully describe the pressed key, it still gives partial information on the transmitted scan code, i.e. the column number.[17]
Note that the matrix scan routine loops continuously. Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
When no key is pressed, we still have a signal composed of multiple equidistant peaks. These emanations may be used to remotely detect the presence of powered computers. Concerning wireless keyboards, the wireless data burst transmission can be used as an electromagnetic trigger to detect exactly when a key is pressed, while the matrix scan emanations are used to determine the column it belongs to.[17]
[edit]SummaryAcer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Some techniques can only target some keyboards. This table sums up which technique could be used to find keystroke for different kind of keyboard.
Technique name Wired Keyboard Laptop Keyboard Wireless Keyboard
Falling Edge Transition Technique Yes Yes
Generalized Transition Technique Yes Yes
Modulation Technique Yes Yes HP 608558-001 Keyboard
Matrix Scan Technique Yes Yes Yes
In their paper called "Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired and Wireless Keyboards", Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini tested 12 different keyboard models, with PS/2, USB connectors and wireless communication in different setups: a semi-anechoic chamber, a small office, an adjacent office and a flat in a building. The table below presents their results.
Type of keyboard Number of tested keyboard FETT GTT MT MST
PS/2 7 7/7 6/7 4/7 5/7
USB 2 0/2 0/2 0/2 2/2
Laptop 2 1/2 1/2 0/2 2/2
Wireless 1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1
[edit]Acoustic emanationsAsus F80L Keyboard
Attacks against emanations caused by human typing have attracted interest in recent years. In particular, works showed that keyboard acoustic emanations do leak information that can be exploited to reconstruct the typed text.[18]
PC keyboards, notebook keyboards are vulnerable to attacks based on differentiating the sound emanated by different keys.[19] This attack takes as input an audio signal containing a recording of a single word typed by a single person on a keyboard, and a dictionary of words. It is assume that the typed word is present in the dictionary. The aim of the attack is to reconstruct the original word from the signal.[20] This attack, Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
taking as input a 10-minute sound recording of a user typing English text using a keyboard, and then recovering up to 96% of typed characters.[21] This attack is inexpensive because the other hardware required is a parabolic microphone and non-invasive because it does not require physical intrusion into the system. The attack employsSony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
a neural network to recognize the key being pressed.[19] It combines signal processing and efficient data structures and algorithms, to successfully reconstruct single words of 7-13 characters from a recording of the clicks made when typing them on a keyboard.[18] The sound of clicks can differ slightly from key to key, because the keys are positioned at different positions on the keyboard plate, although the clicks of different keys sound similar to the human ear. Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
[19]
On average, there were only 0.5 incorrect recognitions per 20 clicks, which shows the exposure of keyboard to the eavesdropping using this attack.[22] The attack is very efficient, taking under 20 seconds per word on a standard PC. A 90% or better success rate of finding the correct word for words of 10 or more characters, and a success rate of 73% over all the words tested.[18] In practice, a human attacker can typically determine if text is random. Asus A9Rp Keyboard
An attacker can also identify occasions when the user types user names and passwords.[23] Short audio signals containing a single word, with seven or more characters long was considered. This means that the signal is only a few seconds long. Such short words are often chosen as a password.[18] The dominant factors affecting the attack's success are the word length, and more importantly, the number of repeated characters within the word.[18] Toshiba Satellite 1870 Keyboard
This is a procedure that makes it possible to efficiently uncover a word out of audio recordings of keyboard click sounds.[24] More recently, extracting information out of an other type of emanations was demonstrated: acoustic emanations from mechanical devices such as dot-matrix printers.[18]
[edit]Video Eavesdropping on KeyboardThinkPad Edge E125
While extracting private information by watching somebody typing on a keyboard might seem to be an easy task, it becomes extremely challenging if it has to be automated. However, an automated tool is needed in the case of long-lasting surveillance procedures or long user activity, as a human being is able to reconstruct only a few characters per minute. The paper "ClearShot: Eavesdropping on Keyboard Input from Video" presents a novel approach to automatically recovering the text being typed on a keyboard, based solely on a video of the user typing.[25] Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
Automatically recognizing the keys being pressed by a user is a hard problem that requires sophisticated motion analysis. Experiments show that, for a human, reconstructing a few sentences requires lengthy hours of slow-motion analysis of the video. Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
[26] The attacker might install a surveillance device in the room of the victim, might take control of an existing camera by exploiting a vulnerability in the camera’s control software, or might simply point a mobile phone with an integrated camera at the laptop’s keyboard when the victim is working in a public space.[26]
Balzarotti's analysis is divided into two main phases (figure below). The first phase analyzes the video recorded by the camera using computer vision techniques. For each frame of the video, the computer vision analysis computes the set of keys that were likely pressed, Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
the set of keys that were certainly not pressed, and the position of space characters. Because the results of this phase of the analysis are noisy, a second phase, called the text analysis, is required. The goal of this phase is to remove errors using both language and context-sensitive techniques. The result of this phase is the reconstructed text, where each word is represented by a list of possible candidates, ranked by likelihood.[26]
Diagram presenting steps to go through when detecting keystroke with video inputToshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
[edit]Printer
[edit]Acoustic emanations
With acoustic emanations, an attack that recovers what a dot-matrix printer processing English text is printing is possible. It is based on a record of the sound the printer makes, if the microphone is close enough to it. This attack recovers up to 72 % of printed words, and up to 95 % if knowledge about the text are done, with a microphone at a distance of 10 cm from the printer.[5] Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
After an upfront training phase ("a" in the picture below), the attack ("b" in the picture below) is fully automated and uses a combination of machine learning, audio processing, and speech recognition techniques, including spectrum features, Hidden Markov Models and linear classification.[9] The fundamental reason why the reconstruction of the printed text works is that, the emitted sound becomes louder if more needles strike the paper at a given time.[9] There is a correlation between the number of needles and the intensity of the acoustic emanation.[9] Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
A training phase was conducted where words from a dictionary are printed and characteristic sound features of these words are extracted and stored in a database. The trained characteristic features was used to recognize the printed English text.[9] But, this task is not trivial. Major challenges include :
Identifying and extracting sound features that suitably capture the acoustic emanation of dot-matrix printers;
Compensating for the blurred and overlapping features that are induced by the substantial decay time of the emanations; HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
Identifying and eliminating wrongly recognized words to increase the overall percentage of correctly identified words (recognition rate).[9]
Diagram presenting phases when retrieving data from a printer
[edit]Computer componentsSony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
[edit]Network Interface Card
[edit]Timing attack
Timing attacks enable an attacker to extract secrets maintained in a security system by observing the time it takes the system to respond to various queries.[27]
SSH is designed to provide a secure channel between two hosts. Despite the encryption and authentication mechanisms it uses, SSH has weaknesses. In interactive mode, every individual keystroke that a user types is sent to the remote machine in a separate IP packet immediately after the key is pressed, which leaks the inter-keystroke timing information of users’ typing. Below, the picture represents the command su processed through a SSH connection. ThinkPad Edge E520
Network messages sent between the host and the client for the command 'su' - numbers are size of network packet in byte
A very simple statistical techniques suffice to reveal sensitive information such as the length of users’ passwords or even root passwords. By using advanced statistical techniques on timing information collected from the network, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
the eavesdropper can learn significant information about what users type in SSH sessions.[28] Because the time it takes the operating system to send out the packet after the keypress is in general negligible comparing to the interkeystroke timing, this also enables an eavesdropper to learn the precise interkeystroke timings of users’ typing from the arrival times of packets.[29]
[edit]Memory
[edit]Physical chemistryAcer eMachines G640 Keyboard
Data remanence problems not only affect obvious areas such as RAM and non-volatile memory cells but can also occur in other areas of the device through hot-carrier effects (which change the characteristics of the semiconductors in the device) and various other effects which are examined alongside the more obvious memory-cell remanence problems.[30] It is possible to analyse and recover data from these cells and from semiconductor devices in general long after it should (in theory) have vanished.[31] Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
Electromigration, which means to physically move the atom to new locations (to physically alter the device itself) is another type of attack.[30] It involves the relocation of metal atoms due to high current densities, a phenomenon in which atoms are carried along by an “electron wind” in the opposite direction to the conventional current, producing voids at the negative electrode and hillocks and whiskers at the positive electrode. Acer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
Void formation leads to a local increase in current density and Joule heating (the interaction of electrons and metal ions to produce thermal energy), producing further electromigration effects. When the external stress is removed, the disturbed system tends to relax back to its original equilibrium state, resulting in a backflow which heals some of the electromigration damage. In the long term though, this can cause device failure, but in less extreme cases it simply serves to alter a device’s operating characteristics in noticeable ways. HP 491274-031 Keyboard
For example, the excavations of voids leads to increased wiring resistance and the growth of whiskers leads to contact formation and current leakage.[30] An example of a conductor which exhibits whisker growth due to electromigration is shown in the figure below:
Whisker growth due to electromigration
One example which exhibits void formation (in this case severe enough to have led to complete failure) is shown in this figure:
Void formation due to electromigration
[edit]TemperatureHP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for several seconds after power is lost, even at room temperature and even if removed from a motherboard.[32]
Many products do cryptographic and other security-related computations using secret keys or other variables that the equipment’s operator must not be HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
able to read out or alter. The usual solution is for the secret data to be kept in volatile memory inside a tamper-sensing enclosure. Security processors typically store secret key material in static RAM, from which power is removed if the device is tampered with. At temperatures below −20°C, the contents of SRAM can be ‘frozen’. It is interesting to know the Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
period of time for which a static RAM device will retain data once the power has been removed. Low temperatures can increase the data retention time of SRAM to many seconds or even minutes.[33]
[edit]Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWire
Maximillian Dornseif presented a technique in these slides, HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
which let him take the control of a Apple computer thanks to an iPod. The attacks needed a first generic phase where the iPod software was modified so that it behave as master on the FireWire bus. Then the iPod had full read/write access on the Apple Computer when the iPod was plugged.[34] FireWire is used by : audio devices, printers, scanners, cameras, gps, etc. Generally, a device connected by FireWire has full access (read/write). Indeed, OHCI Standard (FireWire standard) reads : HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
“ Physical requests, including physical read, physical write and lock requests to some CSR registers (section 5.5), are handled directly by the Host Controller without assistance by system software. ”
—OHCI Standard
So, any device connected by FireWire can read and write data on the computer memory. For example, a device can : HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
Grab the screen contents ;
Just search the memory for strings such as login, passwords ;
Scan for possible key material ;
Search cryptographic keys stored in RAM ;
Parse the whole physical memory to understand logical memory layout.
Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
or
Mess up the memory ;
Change screen content ;
Change UID/GID of a certain process ;
Inject code into a process ;
Inject an additional process.
[edit]Processor
[edit]Cache attackToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
To increase the computational power, processors are generally equipped with a cache memory which decreases the memory access latency. Below, the figure shows the hierarchy between the processor and the memory. First the processor looks for data in the cache L1, then L2, then in the memory.
Processor cache hierarchyAcer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
When the data is not where the processor is looking for, it is called a cache-miss. Below, pictures show how the processor fetch data when there are two cache levels.
Data A is in the L1-Cache
Data A is in the L2-Cache
Data A is in the memoryToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
Unfortunately caches contain only a small portion of the application data and can introduce additional latency to the memory transaction in the case of a miss. This involves also additional power consumption which is due to the activation of memory devices down in the memory hierarchy. The miss penalty has been already used to attack symmetric encryption algorithms, like DES.[35] The basic idea proposed in this paper is to force a cache miss while the processor is executing the AES encryption algorithm on a known plain text.[ HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
36] The attacks allow an unprivileged process to attack other process running in parallel on the same processor, despite partitioning methods such as memory protection, sandboxing and virtualization.[37]
[edit]Timing attack
By carefully measuring the amount of time required to perform private key operations, attackers may be able to find fixed Diffie-Hellman exponents, factor RSA keys, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
and break other cryptosystems. Against a vulnerable system, the attack is computationally inexpensive and often requires only known ciphertext.[38] The attack can be treated as a signal detection problem. The signal consists of the timing variation due to the target exponent bit, and noise results from measurement inaccuracies and timing variations due to unknown exponent bits. The properties of the signal and noise determineAcer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
the number of timing measurements required to for the attack. Timing attacks can potentially be used against other cryptosystems, including symmetric functions.[39]
[edit]Privilege escalation
A simple and generic processor backdoor can be used by attackers as a means to privilege escalation to get to privileges equivalent to those of any given running operating system. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
[40] Also, a non-privileged process of one of the non-privileged invited domain running on top of a virtual machine monitor can get to privileges equivalent to those of the virtual machine monitor.[40]
Loïc Duflot studied Intel processors in the paper "CPU bugs, CPU backdoors and consequences on security" ; he explains that the processor defines four different privilege rings numbered from 0 (most privileged) to 3 (least privileged). HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
Kernel code is usually running in ring 0, whereas user-space code is generally running in ring 3. The use of some security-critical assembly language instructions is restricted to ring 0 code. In order to escalate privilege through the backdoor, the attacker must :[41]
activate the backdoor by placing the CPU in the desired state HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
;
inject code and run it in ring 0 ;
get back to ring 3 in order to return the system to a stable state. Indeed, when code is running in ring 0, system calls do not work : Leaving the system in ring 0 and running a random system call (exit() typically) is likely to crash the system. Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
The backdoors Loïc Duflot presents are simple as they only modify the behavior of three assembly language instructions and have very simple and specific activation conditions, so that they are very unlikely to be accidentally activated. HP 633736-001 Keyboard
An author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility for what was created.
Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 Author of a written or legally copied work
1.1 Legal significance
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1.2 Literary significance
2 Relationship between author and publisher
3 Relationship between author and editor
4 Compensation
5 See also
6 References
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7 External links
[edit]Author of a written or legally copied work
[edit]Legal significance
In copyright law, there is a necessity for little flexibility as to what constitutes authorship. The United States Copyright Office defines copyright as "a form of protection provided by the laws of Acer TravelMate 2354NLC Keyboard
the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to authors of "original works of authorship".[2] Holding the title of "author" over any "literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, [or] certain other intellectual works" give rights to this person, the owner of the copyright, exclusive right to do or authorize any production or distribution of their work. Any person or entity wishing to use intellectual property held under copyright must receive permission from the copyright holder to use this work, and often will be asked to pay for the use of copyrighted material. After a fixed amount of Acer TravelMate 2354NLCi Keyboard
time, the copyright expires on intellectual work and it enters the public domain, where it can be used without limit. Copyright law has been amended time and time again since the inception of the law to extend the length of this fixed period where the work is exclusively controlled by the copyright holder. However, copyright is merely the legal reassurance that one owns his/her work. Technically, someone owns their work from the time it's created. An interesting aspect of authorship emerges with copyright in that it can be passed down to another upon one's death. Acer TravelMate 2354NLM Keyboard
The person who inherits the copyright is not the author, but enjoys the same legal benefits.
Questions arise as to the application of copyright law. How does it, for example, apply to the complex issue of fan fiction? If the media agency responsible for the authorized production allows material from fans, what is the limit before legal constraints from actors, music, and other considerations, come into play? As well, how does copyright apply to fan-generated stories for books? What powers do the original authors, as well as the publishers, have in regulating or even Acer TravelMate 2354NLMi Keyboard
stopping the fan fiction?
[edit]Literary significance
In literary theory, critics find complications in the term "author" beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting. In the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text.
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Barthes challenges the idea that a text can be attributed to any single author. He quotes, in his essay "Death of the Author" (1968), that "it is language which speaks, not the author".[3] The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, and not someone possessing legal responsibility for the process of its production. Every line of written text is a mere reflection of references from any of a multitude of traditions, or, as Barthes puts it, "the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture"; it is never Acer TravelMate 2355LCi Keyboard
original.[3] With this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, and the limits formerly imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed. The explanation and meaning of a work does not have to be sought in the one who produced it, "as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us".[3] The psyche, culture, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich Acer TravelMate 2355LM Keyboard
enough themselves with all of the traditions of language. To expose meanings in a written work without appealing to the celebrity of an author, their tastes, passions, vices, is, to Barthes, to allow language to speak, rather than author.
Michel Foucault argues in his essay "What is an author?" (1969), that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. He states that "a private letter may have a signatory—it does not have an author".[4] For a reader to assign the title of author upon any written work is to attribute Acer TravelMate 2355LMi Keyboard
certain standards upon the text which, for Foucault, are working in conjunction with the idea of "the author function".[4] Foucault's author function is the idea that an author exists only as a function of a written work, a part of its structure, but not necessarily part of the interpretive process. The author's name "indicates the status of the discourse within a society and culture", and at one time was used as an anchor for interpreting a text, a practice which Barthes would argue is not a particularly relevant or valid endeavor.[4]
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Expanding upon Foucault's position, Alexander Nehamas writes that Foucault suggests "an author [...] is whoever can be understood to have produced a particular text as we interpret it", not necessarily who penned the text.[5] It is this distinction between producing a written work and producing the interpretation or meaning in a written work that both Barthes and Foucault are interested in. Foucault warns of the risks of keeping the author's name in mind during interpretation, because it could affect the value and meaning with which one handles an Acer TravelMate 2355NLCi Keyboard
interpretation.
Literary critics Barthes and Foucault suggest that readers should not rely on or look for the notion of one overarching voice when interpreting a written work, because of the complications inherent with a writer's title of "author." They warn of the dangers interpretations could suffer from when associating the subject of inherently meaningful words and language with the personality of one authorial voice. Instead, readers should allow a text to be interpreted in terms Acer TravelMate 2355NLM Keyboard
of the language as "author."
[edit]Relationship between author and publisher
The publisher of a work might receive a percentage calculated on a wholesale or a specific price and or a fixed amount on each book that is sold. Publishers, at times, reduced the risk of this type of arrangement, by agreeing only to pay this after a certain amount of copies had sold. In Canada Acer TravelMate 2355NLMi Keyboard
this practice occurred during the 1890s, but was not commonplace until the 1920s.
Commissioned: Publishers made publication arrangements, and authors covered all expenses (today the practice of authors paying for their publications is often called vanity publishing, and is looked down upon by many publishers, even though it may have been a common and accepted practice in the past). Publishers would receive a percentage on the sale of every copy of a book, and the author would receive the rest of the money made.
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[edit]Relationship between author and editor
The relationship between the author and the editor, often the author's only liaison to the publishing company, is often characterized as the site of tension. For the author to reach his or Acer TravelMate 240 Series Keyboard
her audience, the work usually must attract the attention of the editor. The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher in order to engage the audience in writing as a social act.
Pierre Bourdieu's essay "The Field of Cultural Production" depicts the publishing industry as a "space of literary or artistic position-takings," also called the "field of struggles," which is defined by the tension and movement inherent among the various positions in the field.[6] Bourdieu Acer TravelMate 2400 Series Keyboard
claims that the "field of position-takings [...] is not the product of coherence-seeking intention or objective consensus," meaning that an industry characterized by position-takings is not one of harmony and neutrality.[7] In particular for the writer, their authorship in their work makes their work part of their identity, and there is much at stake personally over the negotiation of authority over that identity. However, it is the editor who has "the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in Acer TravelMate 2403 Series Keyboard
the struggle to define the writer".[8] As "cultural investors," publishers rely on the editor position to identify a good investment in "cultural capital" which may grow to yield economic capital across all positions.[9]
According to the studies of James Curran, the system of shared values among editors in Britain has generated a pressure among authors to write to fit the editors' expectations, removing the focus from the reader-audience and putting a strain on the relationship between authors and Acer Travelmate 2403WXCi Keyboard
editors and on writing as a social act. Even the book review by the editors has more significance than the readership's reception.[10]
[edit]Compensation
A standard contract for an author will usually include provision for payment in the form of an advance and royalties. An advance is a lump sum paid in advance of publication. An advance Acer TravelMate 240LCi Keyboard
must be earned out before royalties are payable. An advance may be paid in two lump sums: the first payment on contract signing, and the second on delivery of the completed manuscript or on publication.
An author's contract may specify, for example, that they will earn 10% of the retail price of each book sold. Some contracts specify a scale of royalties payable (for example, where royalties start at 10% for the first 10,000 sales, but then increase to a higher percentage rate at higher sale Acer TravelMate 2410 Keyboard
thresholds).
An author's book must earn out their advance before any further royalties are paid. For example, if an author is paid a modest advance of $2000.00, and their royalty rate is 10% of a book priced at $20.00 - that is, $2.00 per book - the book will need to sell 1000 copies before any further payment will be made. Publishers typically withhold payment of a percentage of royalties earned against returns.
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In some countries, authors also earn income from a government scheme such as the ELR (Educational Lending Right) and PLR (Public Lending Right) schemes in Australia. Under these schemes, authors are paid a fee for the number of copies of their books in educational and/or public libraries.
These days, many authors supplement their income from book sales with public speaking engagements, school visits, residencies, grants, and teaching positions.
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Ghostwriters, technical writers, and textbooks writers are typically paid in a different way: usually a set fee or a per word rate rather than on a percentage of sales.
A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup.
Traditionally, professionals in Great Britain received a fee in contradistinction to a payment, salary, or wage, and would often use guineas rather than pounds as units of account. Under the feudal Acer TravelMate 2423WXCi Keyboard
system, a Knight's fee was what was given to a knight for his service, usually the usage of land.
A contingent fee is an attorney's fee which is reduced or not charged at all if the court case is lost by the attorney.
A service fee, service charge, or surcharge is a fee added to a customer's bill. The purpose of a service charge often depends on the nature of the product and corresponding service provided. Examples of why this fee is charged are: travel time expenses, truck rental fees, liability and Acer TravelMate 2424NWXCI Keyboard
workers' compensation insurance fees, and planning fees. UPS and FedEx have recently begun surcharges for fuel.
Restaurants and banquet halls charging service charges in lieu of tips must distribute them to their wait staff in some US states (e.g., Massachusetts, New York, Montana), but in the State of Kentucky may keep them.
A fee may be a flat fee or a variable one, or part of a two-part tariff.
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A membership fee is charged as part of a subscription business model.
Contents [hide]
1 Telecom
2 Banking
3 Renting
4 Real estate
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5 Event tickets
6 Air travel
7 Customer service
8 Speaking
9 Late fees
10 Retail
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11 Early termination
12 Infrastructure and environment
13 Government
13.1 Public resources
13.2 Licenses and permits
13.3 Deceptive use
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14 Schooling
15 References
[edit]Telecom
For telecommunications services such as high-speed Internet and mobile phones, an activation fee is commonly assessed, although most companies fail to include it in the advertised price, and Acer TravelMate 242X Keyboard
activation means only typing some customer information into a computer. For example, as of 2008, Verizon Wireless has begun charging 20 dollars for activation of its phones, even for existing customers who want to upgrade. Customers are told that the phones can be returned or exchanged within 15 days, but are not told that the extra fee (which has been disclosed only in fine print) will not be returned, and that yet another fee will assessed against him or her for getting a different new phone, or even going back to their old one.
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Another fee is the early-termination fee applied nearly universally to cellphone contracts, supposedly to cover the remaining part of the subsidy that the provider prices the phones with. If the user terminates before the end of the term, he or she will be charged, often well over 100 dollars. In the U.S., mobile phone companies have come under heavy criticism for this anti-competitive practice, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering limits to prevent price gouging, such as requiring the fees to be prorated.
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Many cable TV and telephone companies, including AT&T, include a regulatory-cost recovery fee in the bill each month of around three U.S. dollars, passing the blame onto government regulation, and essentially charging their customers for complying with U.S. law.
[edit]Banking
Further information: bank charge
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Bank fees are assessed to customers for various services and as penalties. There are unauthorised overdraft fees, ATM usage fees, fees for having an account balance under a required amount. Some banks charge a fee for using tellers in an effort to encourage customers to use automated services instead.[1] The fees have come in for criticism as excessive from consumer advocates. They have also targeted banks practices the maximize the assessment of fees and fees that can add up to many times the amount of small transactions.
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U.S. banks extract fees from automatic teller machine transactions that are made at rival banks, even if the customer's home bank has no branch in a particular area (such as when the customer is on vacation). Customers are sometimes charged twice, both by the bank that owns the ATM, and again by their bank. Bank of America charges a denial fee, literally a fee for refusing service to the customer (if there are insufficient funds or a daily limit), and a fee to simply check the account balance at a "foreign" (other bank's) ATM.[citation needed]
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Following the 2008 financial crisis and legislation passed by Congress, banks have modified many credit card agreements with customers sometimes increasing interest rates or reducing credit limits.
[edit]Renting
Like an activation fee, a setup fee is often charged by places that rent space or other things. In Acer TravelMate 243X Keyboard
the case of self-storage businesses, this negates claims of "only one dollar for the first month" made by Public Storage and others. Apartment complexes often charge fees for pets (mainly dogs and cats). Some complexes euphemistically call these a non-refundable deposit, ignoring the definition of a deposit as inherently being refundable.
[edit]Real estate
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Main article: Closing cost
A title company or attorney collects a variety of fees in the course of handling the purchase of a house at a closing (real estate). These may include fees for tax service, flood certification, underwriting, appraisal, credit report, record deed, record deed trust, loan signing and processing.
[edit]Event tickets
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With respect to events tickets, online reservations and payments, and other transactions, there is sometimes a service charge (often called a convenience fee) that serves as additional compensation for the company facilitating the transaction. Ticketmaster and others charge this, and have made a business model of it. However, such groups have a monopoly on particular events or even entire concert venues.
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[edit]Air travel
Airlines have long charged fees for changing flights, and for excess luggage. However, with the oil price increases since 2003, many are increasing fees. In May 2008, it was announced that some Acer TravelMate 244LCi Keyboard
would be charging even for just one checked bag, making it nearly impossible to avoid. Airlines have also invented fees for nearly every "service" that has always previously been included in the ticket price. While the extra income may be necessary to prevent bankruptcy, the practice of not including mandatory fees in the stated price is deceptive.
Airports also charge landing fees to airlines in order to cover costs, particularly airport security.
[edit]Customer service
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Some businesses charge fees just for talking to a customer service representative. DirecTV charges this when ordering a pay-per-view movie via telephone instead of through the set-top box. Some companies charge for technical support, either prepaid or by using a premium-rate telephone number (such as the 1–900 numbers in North America). In the 2000s (decade), some banks in the U.S. began charging a fee just to visit a teller, prompting such customer anger that Acer TravelMate 2450 Series Keyboard
the banks were forced to back down.[citation needed]
[edit]Speaking
Main article: Speaking fee
A speaking fee is a payment awarded to an individual for speaking at a public event.
[edit]Late fees
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Late fees are charged when payment is not received by a deadline. These are supposedly intended to get people to pay rent or other charges on time, but these are sometimes exorbitant, or extremely out of proportion to the amount of money which is late. They can also add insult to injury for people who have hit hard financial times, making their situation worse. When added to credit card bills or check card statements, it may also cause an overlimit or NSF fee, creating an Acer TravelMate 2470 Keyboard
endless and inescapable cycle of fees that trigger other fees for people aleady stretched to their financial limit.
[edit]Retail
Some retail stores add fees, mainly for "guest passes" at membership warehouses like Costco and Sam's Club, where membership dues have not been paid.
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There are a few other "cost-plus" stores, however, that add ten percent or so at checkout, using the lower shelf price to trick consumers into erroneous comparison shopping. At Food Depot and other smaller low-end chain stores like this, the shelf price may be 1.95, when the shopper will actually be charged 2.15 in the end, in a sort of legalized bait and switch. (Furthermore, a disclaimer indicates the shelf price is not even the actual cost to the store.)
[edit]Early termination
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An early-termination fee is charged by a company when a customer wants or needs to be released from a contract before it expires. One example is when a renter leaves an apartment before a year-long contract is over. If tenants rent for a shorter period, or month-to-month, they are instead charged significantly more per month, and are often denied any promotional deals. Mobile phone companies in the U.S. are notorious for huge early-termination fees, typically Acer TravelMate 250 Series Keyboard
starting at 175 dollars, and falling by only a few dollars per month, no matter the actual cost of or subsidy to the phone.
Some mortgage companies also charge early payment penalties if the homeowner pays more than is due in order to reduce the interest owed and to shorten the remaining term of the loan. The fees typically negate this advantage at least in part.
There are also fees charged for any type of termination. In the suburban Atlanta county of Acer TravelMate 2500 Series Keyboard
Gwinnett for example, customers were hit with termination fees of over 23 dollars when the county commission chose not to renew the contracts of the county trash collectors in November 2008. The two companies charged this both in violation of county law and in breach of contract.
[edit]Infrastructure and environment
An impact fee is a charge which a developer must pay to local government, in order to raise Acer TravelMate 2500LCi Keyboard
money for capital improvements to roads, libraries, and other services upon which the new land development places a burden. This prevents existing residents from being forced to pay in taxes, in addition to already having to put-up with the traffic, noise, and environmental damage of the new development.
[edit]Government
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In government, the difference between a fee and a tax is that a fee is paid for specific goods or services rendered by the government, while a tax has no connection to the benefits received for an individual.[2]
[edit]Public resources
A user fee is a fee paid for the use of a public resource, like a park. This is most common for national parks, and often also state parks or provincial parks, and for privately-owned areas.
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[edit]Licenses and permits
Fees are usually charged for various government services, including license plates and annual motor vehicle registration, as well as driver licenses and professional licensing. Fees are also charged for various permits, like demolition and building permits, rezoning, and land grading (which causes silt); and sometimes for increasing stormwater runoff, destroying native vegetation, and cutting-down healthy trees. Acer TravelMate 2501LMi Keyboard
[edit]Deceptive use
Sometimes fee is used to whitewash what are actually penalties or taxes. For example, Virginia's now-repealed Civil Remedial Fees were actually a tax on drivers with certain kinds of traffic law violations[citation needed].
[edit]Schooling
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At public universities and community colleges, students are charged tuition and matriculation, when can themselves be considered fees charged per credit hour. However, the term student fees typically refers to additional charges which the student is required to pay, typically no matter how many hours the student is taking in the academic term.
Commonly this is a student activity fee, which helps to fund student organisations, particularly Acer TravelMate 250LCi Keyboard
those which are academic in nature; and those which serve all students equally, like student government and student media. A newer fee is the technology fee, which is often charged to students by schools when state government funding fails to meet needs for computers and other classroom technology. Students may also be charged a health fee which usually covers the campus nurse, and possibly a visit to a local clinic if the student is ill.
Parking fees are normally optional, because students may not have their own automobiles. Acer TravelMate 250P Keyboard
However, many U.S. schools are now forcing meal plans on their students, particularly those that stay in dorms, and some force freshmen to stay in the dorms. Generally, all fees except parking are covered under scholarships, whether they are from private, government, or lottery funds. However, at least one U.S. state (Georgia) began denying HOPE Scholarship money for any new fees added, even by its own state schools.
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"Slave" and "Slaves" redirect here. For a 1969 film, see Slaves (film). For other uses, see Slave (disambiguation).
Slavery
Contemporary slavery
Modern Africa Bangladesh China India North Korea Pakistan Sudan Mauritania
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Types
Bride-buying Child labour Debt bondage Human trafficking Peonage Penal labour Sexual slavery Sweatshop Wage slavery
Historic
History Antiquity Aztec Ancient Greece Rome Medieval Europe Thrall Kholop Serfdom Slave ship Slave raiding Blackbirding Galley slave
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By country or region:
Africa Atlantic Arab Barbary Pirates Spanish New World Angola Bhutan Brazil Britain and Ireland British Virgin Islands Canada China India Iran Japan Libya Ottoman empire Portugal Romania Seychelles Somalia South Africa
Sweden United States
Acer TravelMate 290 Keyboard
Religion
The Bible Judaism Christianity Islam
Related topics
Abolitionism Exploitation Indentured servant Unfree labour
v t e
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are Acer TravelMate 290D Keyboard
forced to work.[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Historically, slavery was institutionally recognized by many societies; in more recent times slavery has been outlawed in most societies but continues through the practices of debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]
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Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures.[3] The number of slaves today remains as high as 12 million[4] to 27 million.[5][6] Most are debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who are under debt bondage incurred by lenders, sometimes even for generations.[7] Human trafficking is primarily used for forcing women and children into sex industries.[8]
In pre-industrial societies, slaves and their labour were economically extremely important. Slaves and serfs made up around three-quarters of the world's population at the beginning of the 19th Acer TravelMate 290ELC Keyboard
century.[9]
In modern mechanised societies, there is less need for sheer massive manpower; Norbert Wiener wrote that "mechanical labor has most of the economic properties of slave labor, though ... it does not involve the direct demoralizing effects of human cruelty. "[10]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
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2 Types
2.1 Chattel slavery
2.2 Bonded labor
2.3 Forced labor
3 History
3.1 Early history
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3.2 Classical Antiquity
3.3 Middle Ages
3.3.1 Medieval Europe
3.3.2 Islamic world
3.4 Modern history
3.4.1 Europe
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3.4.2 Africa
3.4.3 Asia
3.4.4 Americas
3.4.5 Middle East
4 Present day
5 Abolitionism
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5.1 Legal actions
6 Economics
7 Apologies
7.1 Reparations
8 Other uses of the term
9 Movies
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10 References
11 Bibliography
11.1 Surveys and reference
12 External links
12.1 Historical
12.2 Modern
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Etymology
The English word slave comes from Old French sclave, from the Medieval Latin sclavus, from the Byzantine Greek σκλάβος.
The word σκλάβος, in turn, comes from the ethnonym Slav, because in some wars in early mediaeval times many Slavs were captured and enslaved.[11][12] An older theory connected it to Acer TravelMate 290LCi Keyboard
the Greek verb skyleúo 'to strip a slain enemy'.[13]
Types
Photograph of a slave boy in Zanzibar. 'An Arab master's punishment for a slight offence. ' c. Acer TravelMate 290LMi Keyboard
1890.
Chattel slavery
Chattel slavery, so named because people are treated as the personal property, chattels, of an owner and are bought and sold as commodities, is the original form of slavery. When taking these chattels across national borders it is referred to as human trafficking especially when these slaves provide sexual services.[7]
Acer TravelMate 290XCi Keyboard
Bonded labor
Main article: Bonded labor
Debt bondage or bonded labor occurs when a person pledges himself or herself against a loan.[14] The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, may be undefined.[14] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their parents' debt.[14] It is the most widespread form of slavery today.[7]
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Forced labor
Main article: Forced labor
Forced labor occurs when an individual is forced to work against his or her will, under threat of violence or other punishment, with restrictions on their freedom.[7] It is also used to describe all types of slavery and may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription and penal labor.
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History
Main article: History of slavery
Slave market in early medieval Eastern Europe. Painting by Sergei Ivanov.
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Early history
Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures.[3] Prehistoric graves from about 8000 BC in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people enslaved a San-like tribe.[15] Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations, as slavery is a system of social stratification. Mass slavery also requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the Acer TravelMate 291 Keyboard
invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.[16]
In the earliest known records slavery is treated as an established institution. The Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), for example, stated that death was prescribed for anyone who helped a slave to escape, as well as for anyone who sheltered a fugitive.[17] The Hebrew Bible refers uncritically to slavery as an established institution.[3]
Slavery was known in almost every ancient civilization, and society, including Sumer, Ancient Acer Travelmate 291LCi Keyboard
Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, the Hebrews in Palestine, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.[3] Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.[18]
Classical Antiquity
Main articles: Slavery in ancient Greece and Slavery in ancient Rome
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The work of the Mercedarians was in ransoming Christians slaves held in Muslim hands (1637).
Records of slavery in Ancient Greece go as far back as Mycenaean Greece. It is certain that Classical Athens had the largest slave population, with as many as 80,000 in the 6th and 5th centuries BC;[19] two to four-fifths of the population were slaves.[20] As the Roman Republic Acer Travelmate 291Lmi Keyboard
expanded outward, entire populations were enslaved, thus creating an ample supply from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Greeks, Illyrians, Berbers, Germans, Britons, Thracians, Gauls, Jews, Arabs, and many more were slaves used not only for labour, but also for amusement (e. g. gladiators and sex slaves). This oppression by an elite minority eventually led to slave revolts (see Roman Servile Wars); the Third Servile War led by Spartacus being the most famous and severe. By the late Republican era, slavery had become a vital economic pillar in the wealth Acer Travelmate 291LMi-G Keyboard
of Rome, as well as a very significant part of Roman society.[21] At the least, some 25% of the population of Ancient Rome was enslaved.[22] According to some scholars, slaves represented 35% or more of Italy's population.[23] In the city of Rome alone, under the Roman Empire, there were about 400,000 slaves.[24] During the millennium from the emergence of the Roman Empire to its eventual decline, at least 100 million people were captured or sold as slaves throughout the Mediterranean and its hinterlands.[25]
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Middle Ages
Medieval Europe
Main articles: Slavery in medieval Europe and Barbary slave trade
Further information: Serfdom
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A slave trader being presented to Boleslaus of Bohemia, 10th century.
The early medieval slave trade was mainly confined to the South and East: the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim world were the destinations, pagan Central and Eastern Europe, along with the Caucasus and Tartary, were important sources. Viking, Arab, Greek and Jewish merchants (known as Radhanites) were all involved in the slave trade during the Early Middle Ages.[26][27][28] The trade in European slaves reached a peak in the 10th century following the Zanj rebellion which Acer TravelMate 292ELC Keyboard
dampened the use of African slaves in the Arab world.[29][30]
Medieval Spain and Portugal were the scene of almost constant Muslim invasion of the predominantly Christian area. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Iberian Christian kingdoms, bringing back booty and slaves. In raid against Lisbon, Portugal in 1189, for example, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack upon Silves, Portugal in 1191, took 3,000 Acer TravelMate 292ELCi Keyboard
Christian slaves.[31] From the 11th to the 19th century, North African Barbary Pirates engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns, to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in places such as Algeria and Morocco.[32][33]
Depiction of socage on the royal demesne in feudal England (miniature from Queen Mary's Acer TravelMate 292ELM Keyboard
Psalter, ca. 1310). Socage is an aspect of serfdom, not usually included under the term "slavery".
At the time of the Domesday Book, compiled in 1086, nearly 10% of the English population were slaves.[34] Slavery in early medieval Europe was so common that the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly prohibited it — or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands was prohibited at e. g. the Council of Koblenz (922), the Council of London (1102), and the Council of Armagh (1171).[35] In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, granting the Acer TravelMate 292ELMi Keyboard
kings of Spain and Portugal the right to reduce any "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to perpetual slavery, legitimizing the slave trade as a result of war.[36] The approval of slavery under these conditions was reaffirmed and extended in his Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455. However, Pope Paul III forbade enslavement of the native Americans in 1537 in his papal bull Sublimus Dei.[37] Dominican friars who arrived at the Spanish settlement at Santo Domingo strongly denounced the enslavement of the local native Americans. Along with other priests, they Acer TravelMate 292EXC Keyboard
opposed their treatment as unjust and illegal in an audience with the Spanish king and in the subsequent royal commission.[38]
The Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe brought large numbers of slaves into the Islamic world.[39] From the mid to late 14th, through early 18th centuries, the Ottoman devşirme–janissary system enslaved and forcibly converted to Islam an estimated 500,000 to one million non–Muslim (primarily Balkan Christian) adolescent males.[40] After the Battle of Lepanto Acer TravelMate 292EXCi Keyboard
approximately 12,000 Christian galley slaves were freed from the Ottoman fleet.[41] A few years later Cervantes, who later wrote the famous book Don Quixote, was captured by corsairs and enslaved in Algiers, attempted to escape and was eventually ransomed; he wrote about the plight of Christian slaves in his fiction. Eastern Europe suffered a series of Tatar invasions, the goal of which was to loot and capture slaves into jasyr. Seventy-five Crimean Tatar raids were recorded into Poland–Lithuania between 1474–1569.[42] There were more than 100,000 Russian captives Acer TravelMate 292LC Keyboard
in the Kazan Khanate alone in 1551.[43]
Crimean Tatar raiders enslaved more than 1 million Eastern Europeans.[44]
Approximately 10–20% of the rural population of Carolingian Europe consisted of slaves.[45] In Western Europe slavery largely disappeared by the later Middle Ages.[46] The trade of slaves in Acer TravelMate 292LCi Keyboard
England was made illegal in 1102,[47] although England went on to become very active in the lucrative Atlantic slave trade from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. Thralldom in Scandinavia was finally abolished in the mid-14th century.[48] Slavery persisted longer in Eastern Europe. Slavery in Poland was forbidden in the 15th century; in Lithuania, slavery was formally abolished in 1588; they were replaced by the second serfdom. In Kievan Rus and Muscovy, the slaves were usually classified as kholops.
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Islamic world
Main articles: Arab slave trade and Somali slave trade
13th century slave market in Yemen. Yemen officially abolished slavery in 1962.[49]
In early Islamic states of the western Sudan, including Ghana (750–1076), Mali (1235–1645), Acer TravelMate 292LMi Keyboard
Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275–1591), about a third of the population were enslaved.[50]
Ibn Battuta tells us several times that he was given or purchased slaves.[51] The great 14th-century scholar Ibn Khaldun, wrote: "the Black nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Blacks) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals".[52] Slaves were purchased or captured on the frontiers of the Acer TravelMate 293ELC Keyboard
Islamic world and then imported to the major centers, where there were slave markets from which they were widely distributed.[53][54][55] In the 9th and 10th centuries, the black Zanj slaves may have constituted at least a half of the total population in lower Iraq.[56] At the same time, many tens of thousands of slaves in the region were also imported from Central Asia and the Caucasus.[57] Many slaves were taken in the wars with the Christian nations of medieval Europe.
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Modern history
Europe
An 1852 Wallachian poster advertising an auction of Roma slaves in Bucharest.
David P. Forsythe wrote: "In 1649 up to three-quarters of Muscovy's peasants, or 13 to 14 million Acer TravelMate 293ELM Keyboard
people, were serfs whose material lives were barely distinguishable from slaves. Perhaps another 1.5 million were formally enslaved, with Russian slaves serving Russian masters. "[58] Slavery remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.[59] Russia's more than 23 million privately-held serfs were freed from their lords by an edict of Alexander II in 1861.[60] State-owned serfs were emancipated in 1866.[61]
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During the Second World War (1939–1945) Nazi Germany effectively enslaved many people, both those considered undesirable and citizens of countries they conquered.[62]
Africa
Main article: African slave trade
Acer TravelMate 293LCi Keyboard
The main routes that were used to transport slaves across medieval Africa.
Arab slave traders and their captives along the Ruvuma river (in today's Tanzania and Mozambique).
In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was Acer TravelMate 293LMi Keyboard
enslaved.[50][58] In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of enslaved people.[50]
In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of enslaved people.[50]
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The population of the Kanem (1600–1800) was about a third-enslaved. It was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1580–1890). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani War states consisted of slaves.[50]
The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Fulanis and Hausas in northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in the 19th century. Between 65% to 90% population of Arab-Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved.[50] The Swahili-Arab slave trade reached its height about 150 years ago, Acer TravelMate 3000WTCi Keyboard
when, for example, approximately 20,000 slaves were considered to be carried yearly from Nkhotakota on Lake Malawi to Kilwa.[63] Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved.[50][64]
According to the Encyclopedia of African History, "It is estimated that by the 1890s the largest slave population of the world, about 2 million people, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. "[65][66] The Acer TravelMate 3000WTMi Keyboard
Anti-Slavery Society estimated there were 2 million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1930s out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million.[67]
Hugh Clapperton in 1824 believed that half the population of Kano were enslaved people.[68] W. A. Veenhoven wrote: "The German doctor, Gustav Nachtigal, an eye-witness, believed that for every slave who arrived at a market three or four died on the way ... Keltie (The Partition of Africa, London, 1920) believes that for every slave the Arabs brought to the coast at least six died on the Acer TravelMate 3001ENWTNi Keyboard
way or during the slavers' raid. Livingstone puts the figure as high as ten to one. "[69]
Slave traders in Gorée, Senegal, 18th century
One of the most famous slave traders on the East African coast was Tippu Tip, who was himself the grandson of an enslaved African. The prazeros slave traders, descendants of Portuguese and Acer TravelMate 3001NWTNi Keyboard
Africans, operated along the Zambezi. North of the Zambezi, the waYao and Makua people played a similar role as professional slave raiders and traders. The Nyamwezi slave traders operated further north under the leadership of Msiri and Mirambo.[70]
Asia
In Constantinople about one-fifth of the population consisted of slaves.[71] It has been estimated that some 200,000 slaves – mainly Circassians – were imported into the Ottoman Empire Acer TravelMate 3001WTCi Keyboard
between 1800 and 1909.[72] As late as 1908, women slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire.[73] A slave market for captured Russian and Persian slaves was centred in the Central Asian khanate of Khiva.[74] In the early 1840s, the population of the Uzbek states of Bukhara and Khiva included about 900,000 slaves.[72] Darrel P. Kaiser wrote, "Kazakh-Kirghiz tribesmen kidnapped 1573 settlers from colonies [German settlements in Russia] in 1774 alone and only half were successfully ransomed. The rest were killed or enslaved. "[75]
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According to Sir Henry Bartle Frere (who sat on the Viceroy's Council), there were an estimated 8 or 9 million slaves in India in 1841. About 15% of the population of Malabar were slaves. Slavery was abolished in British India by the Indian Slavery Act V. of 1843.[3][76]
In East Asia, the Imperial government formally abolished slavery in China in 1906, and the law became effective in 1910.[77] Slave rebellion in China at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century was so extensive that owners eventually converted the institution into a Acer TravelMate 3002ENWT Keyboard
female-dominated one.[78] The Nangzan in Tibetan history were, according to Chinese sources, hereditary household slaves.[79]
Indigenous slaves existed in Korea. Slavery was officially abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894 but continued in reality until 1930. During the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) about 30% to 50% of the Korean population were slaves.[80] In late 16th century Japan slavery as such was officially banned, but forms of contract and indentured labor persisted alongside the period penal codes' Acer TravelMate 3002ENWTNi Keyboard
forced labor.[81]
In Southeast Asia, a quarter to a third of seventeenth- to twentieth-century populations in some areas of Thailand and Burma were slaves.[3] The hill tribe people in Indochina were "hunted incessantly and carried off as slaves by the Siamese (Thai), the Anamites (Vietnamese), and the Cambodians. "[82] A Siamese military campaign in Laos in 1876 was described by a British observer as having been "transformed into slave-hunting raids on a large scale".[83] The census, Acer TravelMate 3002NWTNi Keyboard
taken in 1879, showed that 6% of the population in the Malay sultanate of Perak were slaves.[72] Enslaved people made up about two-thirds of the population in part of North Borneo in the 1880s.[72]
Americas
Further information: Atlantic slave trade, Encomienda, Mita (Inca), Slavery in Brazil, and Slavery in the United States
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The Brazilian slave-hunter, 1823, by Johann Moritz Rugendas.
Slavery in the Americas had a contentious history, dating back at least to the Aztecs,[84] and played a major role in the history and evolution of some countries, triggering at least one revolution and one civil war, as well as numerous rebellions. Other Amerindians, such as the Inca Acer TravelMate 3002WTMi Keyboard
of the Andes, the Tupinambá of Brazil, the Creek of Georgia, and the Comanche of Texas, also owned slaves.[3]
Slavery was prominent in Africa, across the Atlantic Ocean from the Americas, long before the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade.[71] The maritime town of Lagos, Portugal, Europe, was the first slave market created in Portugal (one of the earliest colonizers of the Americas) for the sale of imported African slaves – the Mercado de Escravos, opened in 1444.[85][86] In 1441, Acer TravelMate 3002XCi Keyboard
the first slaves were brought to Portugal from northern Mauritania.[86]
By 1552 black African slaves made up 10 percent of the population of Lisbon.[87][88] In the second half of the 16th century, the Crown gave up the monopoly on slave trade and the focus of European trade in African slaves shifted from import to Europe to slave transports directly to tropical colonies in the Americas – in the case of Portugal, especially Brazil.[86] In the 15th century one-third of the slaves were resold to the African market in exchange of gold.[89]
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Spain had to fight against the relatively powerful civilizations of the New World. The Spanish conquest of the indigenous peoples in the Americas included using the Natives as forced labour, part of the wider Atlantic slave trade. The Spanish colonies were the first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola.[90]
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The public flogging of a slave in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. From Jean Baptiste Debret, Voyage Pittoresque et Historique au Bresil (1834–1839).
Bartolomé de Las Casas a 16th-century Dominican friar and Spanish historian participated in campaigns in Cuba (at Bayamo and Camagüey) and was present at the massacre of Hatuey; his observation of that massacre led him to fight for a social movement away from the use of natives as slaves and towards the importation of African Blacks as slaves. Also, the alarming decline in Acer TravelMate 3003WTMi Keyboard
the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting the native population (Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513).
The first African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501.[91][dead link] In 1518, Charles I of Spain agreed to ship slaves directly from Africa. England played a prominent role in the Atlantic slave trade. The "slave triangle" was pioneered by Francis Drake and his associates. A black man named Anthony Johnson of Virginia first introduced permanent black slavery in the 1650s by becoming Acer TravelMate 3004WTCi Keyboard
the first holder in America of permanent black slaves.[92] By 1750, slavery was a legal institution in all of the 13 American colonies,[93][94] and the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution. [95]
The Transatlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by African kingdoms, such as the Oyo empire (Yoruba), the Ashanti Acer TravelMate 3004WTMi Keyboard
Empire,[96] the kingdom of Dahomey,[97] and the Aro Confederacy.[98] Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fierce African resistance. The slaves were brought to coastal outposts where they were traded for goods.
Slaves on a Virginia plantation (The Old Plantation, c. 1790).
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An estimated 12 million Africans arrived in the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries.[99] Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. The usual estimate is that about 15 per cent of slaves died during the voyage, with mortality rates considerably higher in Africa itself in the process of capturing and transporting indigenous peoples to the ships. Approximately 6 million black Africans were killed by others in tribal wars.[100]
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The white citizens of Virginia decided to treat the first Africans in Virginia as indentured servants.[101] Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured servants.[102] In 1655, John Casor, a black man, became the first legally recognized slave in the present United States.[103] According to the 1860 U. S. census, 393,975 individuals, representing 8% of all US families, owned 3,950,528 slaves.[104] One-third of Southern families owned slaves.[105]
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Funeral at slave plantation, Suriname. Colored lithograph printed circa 1840-1850, digitally restored.
The largest number of slaves were shipped to Brazil.[106] In the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada, corresponding mainly to modern Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela, the free black Acer TravelMate 3020WTCi Keyboard
population in 1789 was 420,000, whereas African slaves numbered only 20,000. Free blacks also outnumbered slaves in Brazil. In Cuba, by contrast, free blacks made up only 15% in 1827; and in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) it was a mere 5% in 1789.[107] Some half-million slaves, most of them born in Africa, worked the booming plantations of Saint-Domingue.[108]
Author Charles Rappleye argued that
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In the West Indies in particular, but also in North and South America, slavery was the engine that drove the mercantile empires of Europe..It appeared, in the eighteenth century, as universal and immutable as human nature.[109]
Although the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended shortly after the American Revolution, slavery remained a central economic institution in the Southern states of the United States, from where slavery expanded with the westward movement of population.[110] Historian Peter Kolchin Acer TravelMate 3022TCi Keyboard
wrote, "By breaking up existing families and forcing slaves to relocate far from everyone and everything they knew" this migration "replicated (if on a reduced level) many of [the] horrors" of the Atlantic slave trade.[111]
Historian Ira Berlin called this forced migration the Second Middle Passage. Characterizing it as the "central event" in the life of a slave between the American Revolution and the Civil War, Berlin wrote that whether they were uprooted themselves or simply lived in fear that they or Acer TravelMate 3022WLMi Keyboard
their families would be involuntarily moved, "the massive deportation traumatized black people, both slave and free. "[112]
Lady in litter being carried by her slaves, province of São Paulo in Brazil, ca.1860.
By 1860, 500,000 slaves had grown to 4 million. As long as slavery expanded, it remained Acer TravelMate 3022WTCi Keyboard
profitable and powerful and was unlikely to disappear. Although complete statistics are lacking, it is estimated that 1,000,000 slaves moved west from the Old South between 1790 and 1860.[113]
Most of the slaves were moved from Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Michael Tadman, in a 1989 book Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South, indicates that 60–70% of interregional migrations were the result of the sale of slaves. In 1820 a child in the Upper South had a 30% chance to be sold south by 1860.[113]
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Middle East
Main article: Arab slave trade
See also: Slavery (Ottoman Empire), Islam and slavery, and Slavery on the Barbary Coast
The Arab enslavement of the Dinka people.
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Persian slave in the Khanate of Khiva, 19th century
"Bound slave" by Lehnert & Landrock, Tunisia circa 1900.
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According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries.[114][115] There was also an extensive trade in Christian slaves in the Black Sea region for several centuries until the Crimean Khanate was destroyed by the Russian Empire in 1783.[43] In the 1570s close to 20,000 slaves a year were being sold in the Crimean port of Kaffa.[116] The slaves were captured in southern Russia, Poland-Lithuania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Acer TravelMate 3042WTMi Keyboard
and Circassia by Tatar horsemen in a trade known as the "harvesting of the steppe". In Podolia alone, about one-third of all the villages were destroyed or abandoned between 1578 and 1583.[117] Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate.[118][119] It is estimated that up to 75% of the Crimean population consisted of slaves or freedmen.[71]
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A slave market in Algiers. XVIIth (c.1684)
The Arab slave trade lasted more than a millennium.[120] As recently as the early 1960s, Saudi Arabia's slave population was estimated at 300,000.[121] Along with Yemen, the Saudis abolished slavery only in 1962.[122] Slaves in the Arab World came from many different regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa (mainly Zanj),[52] the Caucasus (mainly Circassians),[123] Central Asia (mainly Acer TravelMate 3043WLMi Keyboard
Tartars), and Central and Eastern Europe (mainly Saqaliba).[124]
Under Omani Arabs Zanzibar became East Africa's main slave port, with as many as 50,000 enslaved Africans passing through every year during the 19th century.[125][126] Some historians estimate that between 11 and 18 million African slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 AD to 1900 AD.[3][127] Eduard Rüppell described the heavy mortality of the enslaved Sudanese before reaching Egypt: "after the Daftardar bey's 1822 campaign in the Acer TravelMate 3043WTMi Keyboard
southern Nuba mountains, nearly 40,000 slaves were captured. However, through bad treatment, disease and desert travel barely 5000 made it to Egypt. "[128]
Central and Eastern European slaves were generally known as Saqaliba (i. e., Slavs).[129] The Moors, starting in the 8th century, also raided coastal areas around the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean, and became known as the Barbary pirates.[130] It is estimated that they captured 1.25 million white slaves from Western Europe and North America between the 16th and 19th Acer TravelMate 3044WLMi Keyboard
centuries.[131][132] The mortality rate was very high. For instance, when plague broke out in Algiers' overcrowded slave pens in 1662, some said that it carried off 10,000–20,000 of the city's 30,000 captives.[114]
Present day
See also: Contemporary slavery, Child slavery, and Trafficking of children
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Francis Bok, former Sudanese slave. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been enslaved during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The slaves are mostly Dinka people.[133][134]
The number of slaves today remains as high as 12 million[4] to 27 million,[5][6] even though slavery is now outlawed in all countries. Several estimates of the number of slaves in the world Acer TravelMate 3045WLMi Keyboard
have been provided.[135] According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there were 27 million people in slavery in 1999, spread all over the world.[5] In 2005, the International Labour Organization provided an estimate of 12.3 million forced labourers in the world.[136] Siddharth Kara has also provided an estimate of 28.4 million slaves at the end of 2006 divided into the following three categories: bonded labour/debt bondage (18.1 million), forced labour (7.6 Acer TravelMate 3045WTMi Keyboard
million), and trafficked slaves (2.7 million).[137] Kara provides a dynamic model to calculate the number of slaves in the world each year, with an estimated 29.2 million at the end of 2009.
Examples of modern slavery are numerous. In 2008, the Nepalese government abolished the Haliya system of forced labour, freeing about 20,000 people.[138] An estimated 40 million[139] people in India, most of them Dalits or "untouchables", are bonded workers, working in slave-like conditions in order to pay off debts.[140][141] Though slavery was officially abolished in China in Acer TravelMate 3210 Series Keyboard
1910,[142] the practice continues unofficially in some regions of the country.[143][144][145] In June and July 2007, 550 people who had been enslaved by brick manufacturers in Shanxi and Henan were freed by the Chinese government.[146] Among those rescued were 69 children.[147] In response, the Chinese government assembled a force of 35,000 police to check northern Chinese brick kilns for slaves, sent dozens of kiln supervisors to prison, punished 95 officials in Shanxi province for dereliction of duty, and sentenced one kiln foreman to death for killing an Acer TravelMate 3212WXMi Keyboard
enslaved worker.[146] The North Korean government[148] operates six large political prison camps,[149] where political prisoners and their families (around 200,000 people)[150] in lifelong detention[151] are subjected to hard slave labor,[152] torture and inhumane treatment.[153] In Brazil more than 5,000 slaves were rescued by authorities in 2008 as part of a government initiative to eradicate slavery.[154] Poverty has forced at least 225,000 Haitian children to work as restavecs (unpaid household servants); the United Nations considers this to be a modern-day Acer TravelMate 3220 Series Keyboard
form of slavery.[155]
In Mauritania, the last country to abolish slavery (in 1981),[156] it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are enslaved with many used as bonded labour.[157][158][159] Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007.[160] The Middle East Quarterly reports that slavery is still endemic in Sudan.[161] In Niger, slavery is also a current phenomenon. A Nigerien study has found that more than 800,000 people are enslaved, almost 8% Acer TravelMate 3230 Series Keyboard
of the population.[162][163][164] Niger officially abolished slavery in 2003.[165] Many pygmies in the Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo belong from birth to Bantus in a system of slavery.[166][167] Some tribal sheiks in Iraq still keep blacks, called Abd, which means servant or slave in Arabic, as slaves.[168] Child slavery has commonly been used in the production of cash crops and mining. According to the U. S. Department of State, more than 109,000 children were working on cocoa farms alone in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in "the worst Acer TravelMate 3232WXMi Keyboard
forms of child labor" in 2002.[169]
Trafficking in human beings (also called human trafficking) is one method of obtaining slaves.[170] Victims are typically recruited through deceit or trickery (such as a false job offer, false migration offer, or false marriage offer), sale by family members, recruitment by former slaves, or outright abduction. Victims are forced into a "debt slavery" situation by coercion, deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat, physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs of Acer TravelMate 3240 Keyboard
abuse to control their victims.[171] "Annually, according to U. S. Government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80 percent of transnational victims are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors, " reports the U. S. Department of State in a 2008 study.[172]
While the majority of trafficking victims are women, and sometimes children, who are forced into Acer TravelMate 3250 Keyboard
prostitution (in which case the practice is called sex trafficking), victims also include men, women and children who are forced into manual labour.[173] Due to the illegal nature of human trafficking, its exact extent is unknown. A U. S. Government report published in 2005, estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.[173] Another research effort revealed that between 1.5 million and 1.8 million individuals are trafficked either internally or internationally Acer TravelMate 3260 Keyboard
each year, 500,000 to 600,000 of whom are sex trafficking victims.[137]
Abolitionism
Main article: Abolitionism
See also: Abolition of slavery timeline
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The painting of the 1840 Anti-Slavery Society Convention at Exeter Hall. Move your cursor to identify delegates or click the icon to enlarge.[174]
Slavery has existed, in one form or another, through the whole of recorded human history — as have, in various periods, movements to free large or distinct groups of slaves.
The Greek Stoics advocated the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all human Acer TravelMate 3274 Keyboard
beings, and consistently critiqued slavery as against the law of nature.[175] Emperor Wang Mang abolished slave trading (although not slavery) in China in 9 CE.[176]
The Spanish colonization of the Americas sparked a discussion about the right to enslave native Americans. A prominent critic of slavery in the Spanish New World colonies was Bartolomé de las Casas, who opposed the enslavement of Native Americans, and later also of Africans in America.
One of the first protests against the enslavement of Africans came from German and Dutch Acer TravelMate 3280 Keyboard
Quakers in Pennsylvania in 1688. One of the most significant milestones in the campaign to abolish slavery throughout the world occurred in England in 1772, with British judge Lord Mansfield, whose opinion in Somersett's Case was widely taken to have held that slavery was illegal in England. This judgement also laid down the principle that slavery contracted in other jurisdictions (such as the American colonies) could not be enforced in England.[177] In 1777, Vermont became the first portion of what would become the United States to abolish slavery (at Acer TravelMate 3282WXMi Keyboard
the time Vermont was an independent nation). In 1794, under the Jacobins, Revolutionary France abolished slavery.[178] There were celebrations in 2007 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom through the work of the British Anti-Slavery Society.
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Joseph Jenkins Roberts, born in Virginia, was the first president of Liberia, which was founded in 1822 for freed American slaves.
William Wilberforce received much of the credit although the groundwork was an anti-slavery essay by Thomas Clarkson. Wilberforce was also urged by his close friend, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, to make the issue his own, and was also given support by reformed Evangelical John Newton. The Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 25, 1807, Acer TravelMate 4000 Keyboard
making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire,[179] Wilberforce also campaigned for abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. After the 1807 act abolishing the slave trade was passed, these campaigners switched to encouraging other countries to follow suit, notably France and the British colonies. In 1839, the world's oldest international human rights organization, Anti-Slavery International, was formed in Britain by Joseph Sturge, which campaigned to outlaw slavery in other countries.[180]
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Between 1808 and 1860, the British West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.[181] Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.[182]
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Three people in chains, probably somewhere in East-Africa. By 1900, slaves comprised up to one-third of Ethiopia's population.[128] Emperor Haile Selassie officially abolished slavery in 1942.
In the United States, abolitionist pressure produced a series of small steps towards emancipation. After January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited,[183] but Acer TravelMate 4003LCi Keyboard
not the internal slave trade, nor involvement in the international slave trade externally. Legal slavery persisted; and those slaves already in the U. S. were legally emancipated only in 1863. Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting the Underground Railroad. Violence soon erupted, with the anti-slavery forces led by John Brown, and Bleeding Kansas, involving anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers, became a symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery. By 1860 the total number of slaves reached almost four million, Acer TravelMate 4010 Keyboard
and the American Civil War, beginning in 1861, led to the end of slavery in the United States.[184]
In 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves held in the Confederate States; the 13th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution (1865) prohibited slavery throughout the country.
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Photographed in 1863 – Peter, a man who was enslaved in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This famous photo was distributed by abolitionists.[185]
In the 1860s, David Livingstone's reports of atrocities within the Arab slave trade in Africa stirred up the interest of the British public, reviving the flagging abolitionist movement. The Royal Navy throughout the 1870s attempted to suppress "this abominable Eastern trade", at Zanzibar in particular. In 1905, the French abolished indigenous slavery in most of French West Africa.[186]
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On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declared freedom from slavery is an internationally recognized human right. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.[187]
Groups such as the American Anti-Slavery Group, Anti-Slavery International, Free the Slaves, the Acer TravelMate 4050 Keyboard
Anti-Slavery Society, and the Norwegian Anti-Slavery Society continue to campaign to rid the world of slavery.
Legal actions
In November 2006, the International Labour Organization announced it will be seeking "to prosecute members of the ruling Myanmar junta for crimes against humanity" over the continuous unfree labour of its citizens by the military at the International Court of Acer TravelMate 4050LC Keyboard
Justice.[188][189] According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), an estimated 800,000 people are subject to forced labour in Myanmar.[190]
The Ecowas Court of Justice is hearing the case of Hadijatou Mani in late 2008, where Ms. Mani hopes to compel the government of Niger to end slavery in its jurisdiction. Cases brought by her in local courts have failed so far.[191]
Economics
Acer TravelMate 4050LCi Keyboard
Gustave Boulanger's painting The Slave Market
Economists have attempted to model the circumstances under which slavery (and variants such as serfdom) appear and disappear. One observation is that slavery becomes more desirable for Acer TravelMate 4050LM Keyboard
landowners where land is abundant but labour is scarce, such that rent is depressed and paid workers can demand high wages. If the opposite holds true, then it becomes more costly for landowners to have guards for the slaves than to employ paid workers who can only demand low wages due to the amount of competition.[192] Thus, first slavery and then serfdom gradually decreased in Europe as the population grew, but were reintroduced in the Americas and in Russia as large areas of new land with few people became available.[193] In his books, Time on the Acer TravelMate 4050LMi Keyboard
Cross and Without Consent or Contract: the Rise and Fall of American Slavery, Robert Fogel maintains that slavery was in fact a profitable method of production, especially on bigger plantations growing cotton that fetched high prices in the world market. It gave whites in the South higher average incomes than those in the North, but most of the money was spent on buying slaves and plantations.
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Slave being whipped in Brazil, during the heyday of gold exploration in Minas Gerais (1770).
Slavery is more common when the labour done is relatively simple and thus easy to supervise, such as large scale growing of a single crop. It is much more difficult and costly to check that slaves are doing their best and with good quality when they are doing complex tasks. Therefore, slavery was seen as the most efficient method of production for large scale crops like sugar and Acer TravelMate 4050WLMi Keyboard
cotton, whose output was based on economies of scale. This enabled a gang system of labor to be prominent on large plantations where field hands were monitored and worked with factory-like precision. Each work gang was based on an internal division of labor that not only assigned every member of the gang to a precise task but simultaneously made his or her performance dependent on the actions of the others. The hoe hands chopped out the weeds that surrounded the cotton plants as well as excessive sprouts. The plow gangs followed behind, Acer TravelMate 4060 Keyboard
stirring the soil near the rows of cotton plants and tossing it back around the plants. Thus, the gang system worked like an early version of the assembly line later to be found in factories.[194]
Critics since the 18th century have argued that slavery tends to retard technological advancement, since the focus is on increasing the number of slaves doing simple tasks rather than upgrading the efficiency of labour. Because of this, theoretical knowledge and learning in Greece—and later in Rome—was not applied to ease physical labour or improve Acer TravelMate 4070 Keyboard
manufacturing.[195]
Adam Smith made the argument that free labor was economically better than slave labor, and argued further that slavery in Europe ended during the Middle Ages, and then only after both the church and state were separate, independent and strong institutions,[196] that it is nearly impossible to end slavery in a free, democratic and republican forms of governments since many of its legislators or political figures were slave owners, and would not punish themselves, and Acer TravelMate 4080 Keyboard
that slaves would be better able to gain their freedom when there was centralized government, or a central authority like a king or the church.[197] Similar arguments appear later in the works of Auguste Comte, especially when it comes to Adam Smith's belief in the separation of powers or what Comte called the "separation of the spiritual and the temporal" during the Middle Ages and the end of slavery, and Smith's criticism of masters, past and present. As Smith stated in the Lectures on Jurisprudence, "The great power of the clergy thus concurring with that of the king Acer TravelMate 4100 Keyboard
set the slaves at liberty. But it was absolutely necessary both that the authority of the king and of the clergy should be great. Where ever any one of these was wanting, slavery still continues. "
The weighted average global sales price of a slave is calculated to be approximately $340, with a high of $1,895 for the average trafficked sex slave, and a low of $40 to $50 for debt bondage slaves in part of Asia and Africa.[137] Worldwide slavery is a criminal offense but slave owners can get very high returns for their risk.[198] According to researcher Siddharth Kara, the profits Acer TravelMate 4103WLCi Keyboard
generated worldwide by all forms of slavery in 2007 were $91.2 billion. That is second only to drug trafficking in terms of global criminal enterprises. The weighted average annual profits generated by a slave in 2007 was $3,175, with a low of an average $950 for bonded labor and $29,210 for a trafficked sex slave.[137] Approximately forty percent of all slave profits each year are generated by trafficked sex slaves, representing slightly more than 4 percent of the world's 29 million slaves.[137]
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Robert E. Wright has developed a model that helps to predict when firms (individuals, companies) will be more likely to use slaves rather than wage workers, indentured servants, family members, or other types of laborers.[199]
Apologies
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Monument to slaves in Zanzibar
On May 21, 2001, the National Assembly of France passed the Taubira law, recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity. Apologies on behalf of African nations, for their role in trading their countrymen into slavery, remain an open issue since slavery was practiced in Africa even before the first Europeans arrived and the Atlantic slave trade was performed with a high degree of Acer TravelMate 4154LMi Keyboard
involvement of several African societies. The black slave market was supplied by well-established slave trade networks controlled by local African societies and individuals.[200] Indeed, as already mentioned in this article, slavery persists in several areas of West Africa until the present day.
There is adequate evidence citing case after case of African control of segments of the trade. Several African nations such as the Calabar and other southern parts of Nigeria had economies depended solely on the trade. African peoples such as the Imbangala of Angola and the Acer TravelMate 4200 Series Keyboard
Nyamwezi of Tanzania would serve as middlemen or roving bands warring with other African nations to capture Africans for Europeans.[201]
Several historians have made important contributions to the global understanding of the African side of the Atlantic slave trade. By arguing that African merchants determined the assemblage of trade goods accepted in exchange for slaves, many historians argue for African agency and ultimately a shared responsibility for the slave trade.[202]
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The issue of an apology is linked to reparations for slavery and is still being pursued by a number of entities across the world. For example, the Jamaican Reparations Movement approved its declaration and action Plan.
In September 2006, it was reported that the UK government might issue a "statement of regret" over slavery.[203] This was followed by a "public statement of sorrow" from Tony Blair on November 27, 2006,[204] and a formal apology on March 14, 2007.[205]
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On February 25, 2007 the state of Virginia resolved to 'profoundly regret' and apologize for its role in the institution of slavery. Unique and the first of its kind in the U. S., the apology was unanimously passed in both Houses as Virginia approached the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, where the first slaves were imported into North America in 1619.[206]
Liverpool, which was a large slave trading port, apologized in 1999. On August 24, 2007, Mayor Ken Livingstone of London, United Kingdom apologized publicly for Britain's role in colonial slave Acer TravelMate 4230 Series Keyboard
trade. "You can look across there to see the institutions that still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery, " he said pointing towards the financial district. He claimed that London was still tainted by the horrors of slavery. Specifically, London outfitted, financed, and insured many of the ships, which helped fund the building of London's docks. Jesse Jackson praised Livingstone, and added that reparations should be made, one of his common arguments.[207]
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On July 30, 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for American slavery and subsequent discriminatory laws.[208] In June 2009, the US Senate passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and Acer Travelmate 4270 Keyboard
inhumanity of slavery".[209]
Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 Author of a written or legally copied work
1.1 Legal significance
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1.2 Literary significance
2 Relationship between author and publisher
3 Relationship between author and editor
4 Compensation
5 See also
6 References
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7 External links
[edit]Author of a written or legally copied work
[edit]Legal significance
In copyright law, there is a necessity for little flexibility as to what constitutes authorship. The United States Copyright Office defines copyright as "a form of protection provided by the laws of Acer TravelMate 2354NLC Keyboard
the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to authors of "original works of authorship".[2] Holding the title of "author" over any "literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, [or] certain other intellectual works" give rights to this person, the owner of the copyright, exclusive right to do or authorize any production or distribution of their work. Any person or entity wishing to use intellectual property held under copyright must receive permission from the copyright holder to use this work, and often will be asked to pay for the use of copyrighted material. After a fixed amount of Acer TravelMate 2354NLCi Keyboard
time, the copyright expires on intellectual work and it enters the public domain, where it can be used without limit. Copyright law has been amended time and time again since the inception of the law to extend the length of this fixed period where the work is exclusively controlled by the copyright holder. However, copyright is merely the legal reassurance that one owns his/her work. Technically, someone owns their work from the time it's created. An interesting aspect of authorship emerges with copyright in that it can be passed down to another upon one's death. Acer TravelMate 2354NLM Keyboard
The person who inherits the copyright is not the author, but enjoys the same legal benefits.
Questions arise as to the application of copyright law. How does it, for example, apply to the complex issue of fan fiction? If the media agency responsible for the authorized production allows material from fans, what is the limit before legal constraints from actors, music, and other considerations, come into play? As well, how does copyright apply to fan-generated stories for books? What powers do the original authors, as well as the publishers, have in regulating or even Acer TravelMate 2354NLMi Keyboard
stopping the fan fiction?
[edit]Literary significance
In literary theory, critics find complications in the term "author" beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting. In the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text.
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Barthes challenges the idea that a text can be attributed to any single author. He quotes, in his essay "Death of the Author" (1968), that "it is language which speaks, not the author".[3] The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, and not someone possessing legal responsibility for the process of its production. Every line of written text is a mere reflection of references from any of a multitude of traditions, or, as Barthes puts it, "the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture"; it is never Acer TravelMate 2355LCi Keyboard
original.[3] With this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, and the limits formerly imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed. The explanation and meaning of a work does not have to be sought in the one who produced it, "as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us".[3] The psyche, culture, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich Acer TravelMate 2355LM Keyboard
enough themselves with all of the traditions of language. To expose meanings in a written work without appealing to the celebrity of an author, their tastes, passions, vices, is, to Barthes, to allow language to speak, rather than author.
Michel Foucault argues in his essay "What is an author?" (1969), that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. He states that "a private letter may have a signatory—it does not have an author".[4] For a reader to assign the title of author upon any written work is to attribute Acer TravelMate 2355LMi Keyboard
certain standards upon the text which, for Foucault, are working in conjunction with the idea of "the author function".[4] Foucault's author function is the idea that an author exists only as a function of a written work, a part of its structure, but not necessarily part of the interpretive process. The author's name "indicates the status of the discourse within a society and culture", and at one time was used as an anchor for interpreting a text, a practice which Barthes would argue is not a particularly relevant or valid endeavor.[4]
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Expanding upon Foucault's position, Alexander Nehamas writes that Foucault suggests "an author [...] is whoever can be understood to have produced a particular text as we interpret it", not necessarily who penned the text.[5] It is this distinction between producing a written work and producing the interpretation or meaning in a written work that both Barthes and Foucault are interested in. Foucault warns of the risks of keeping the author's name in mind during interpretation, because it could affect the value and meaning with which one handles an Acer TravelMate 2355NLCi Keyboard
interpretation.
Literary critics Barthes and Foucault suggest that readers should not rely on or look for the notion of one overarching voice when interpreting a written work, because of the complications inherent with a writer's title of "author." They warn of the dangers interpretations could suffer from when associating the subject of inherently meaningful words and language with the personality of one authorial voice. Instead, readers should allow a text to be interpreted in terms Acer TravelMate 2355NLM Keyboard
of the language as "author."
[edit]Relationship between author and publisher
The publisher of a work might receive a percentage calculated on a wholesale or a specific price and or a fixed amount on each book that is sold. Publishers, at times, reduced the risk of this type of arrangement, by agreeing only to pay this after a certain amount of copies had sold. In Canada Acer TravelMate 2355NLMi Keyboard
this practice occurred during the 1890s, but was not commonplace until the 1920s.
Commissioned: Publishers made publication arrangements, and authors covered all expenses (today the practice of authors paying for their publications is often called vanity publishing, and is looked down upon by many publishers, even though it may have been a common and accepted practice in the past). Publishers would receive a percentage on the sale of every copy of a book, and the author would receive the rest of the money made.
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[edit]Relationship between author and editor
The relationship between the author and the editor, often the author's only liaison to the publishing company, is often characterized as the site of tension. For the author to reach his or Acer TravelMate 240 Series Keyboard
her audience, the work usually must attract the attention of the editor. The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher in order to engage the audience in writing as a social act.
Pierre Bourdieu's essay "The Field of Cultural Production" depicts the publishing industry as a "space of literary or artistic position-takings," also called the "field of struggles," which is defined by the tension and movement inherent among the various positions in the field.[6] Bourdieu Acer TravelMate 2400 Series Keyboard
claims that the "field of position-takings [...] is not the product of coherence-seeking intention or objective consensus," meaning that an industry characterized by position-takings is not one of harmony and neutrality.[7] In particular for the writer, their authorship in their work makes their work part of their identity, and there is much at stake personally over the negotiation of authority over that identity. However, it is the editor who has "the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in Acer TravelMate 2403 Series Keyboard
the struggle to define the writer".[8] As "cultural investors," publishers rely on the editor position to identify a good investment in "cultural capital" which may grow to yield economic capital across all positions.[9]
According to the studies of James Curran, the system of shared values among editors in Britain has generated a pressure among authors to write to fit the editors' expectations, removing the focus from the reader-audience and putting a strain on the relationship between authors and Acer Travelmate 2403WXCi Keyboard
editors and on writing as a social act. Even the book review by the editors has more significance than the readership's reception.[10]
[edit]Compensation
A standard contract for an author will usually include provision for payment in the form of an advance and royalties. An advance is a lump sum paid in advance of publication. An advance Acer TravelMate 240LCi Keyboard
must be earned out before royalties are payable. An advance may be paid in two lump sums: the first payment on contract signing, and the second on delivery of the completed manuscript or on publication.
An author's contract may specify, for example, that they will earn 10% of the retail price of each book sold. Some contracts specify a scale of royalties payable (for example, where royalties start at 10% for the first 10,000 sales, but then increase to a higher percentage rate at higher sale Acer TravelMate 2410 Keyboard
thresholds).
An author's book must earn out their advance before any further royalties are paid. For example, if an author is paid a modest advance of $2000.00, and their royalty rate is 10% of a book priced at $20.00 - that is, $2.00 per book - the book will need to sell 1000 copies before any further payment will be made. Publishers typically withhold payment of a percentage of royalties earned against returns.
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In some countries, authors also earn income from a government scheme such as the ELR (Educational Lending Right) and PLR (Public Lending Right) schemes in Australia. Under these schemes, authors are paid a fee for the number of copies of their books in educational and/or public libraries.
These days, many authors supplement their income from book sales with public speaking engagements, school visits, residencies, grants, and teaching positions.
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Ghostwriters, technical writers, and textbooks writers are typically paid in a different way: usually a set fee or a per word rate rather than on a percentage of sales.
A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup.
Traditionally, professionals in Great Britain received a fee in contradistinction to a payment, salary, or wage, and would often use guineas rather than pounds as units of account. Under the feudal Acer TravelMate 2423WXCi Keyboard
system, a Knight's fee was what was given to a knight for his service, usually the usage of land.
A contingent fee is an attorney's fee which is reduced or not charged at all if the court case is lost by the attorney.
A service fee, service charge, or surcharge is a fee added to a customer's bill. The purpose of a service charge often depends on the nature of the product and corresponding service provided. Examples of why this fee is charged are: travel time expenses, truck rental fees, liability and Acer TravelMate 2424NWXCI Keyboard
workers' compensation insurance fees, and planning fees. UPS and FedEx have recently begun surcharges for fuel.
Restaurants and banquet halls charging service charges in lieu of tips must distribute them to their wait staff in some US states (e.g., Massachusetts, New York, Montana), but in the State of Kentucky may keep them.
A fee may be a flat fee or a variable one, or part of a two-part tariff.
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A membership fee is charged as part of a subscription business model.
Contents [hide]
1 Telecom
2 Banking
3 Renting
4 Real estate
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5 Event tickets
6 Air travel
7 Customer service
8 Speaking
9 Late fees
10 Retail
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11 Early termination
12 Infrastructure and environment
13 Government
13.1 Public resources
13.2 Licenses and permits
13.3 Deceptive use
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14 Schooling
15 References
[edit]Telecom
For telecommunications services such as high-speed Internet and mobile phones, an activation fee is commonly assessed, although most companies fail to include it in the advertised price, and Acer TravelMate 242X Keyboard
activation means only typing some customer information into a computer. For example, as of 2008, Verizon Wireless has begun charging 20 dollars for activation of its phones, even for existing customers who want to upgrade. Customers are told that the phones can be returned or exchanged within 15 days, but are not told that the extra fee (which has been disclosed only in fine print) will not be returned, and that yet another fee will assessed against him or her for getting a different new phone, or even going back to their old one.
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Another fee is the early-termination fee applied nearly universally to cellphone contracts, supposedly to cover the remaining part of the subsidy that the provider prices the phones with. If the user terminates before the end of the term, he or she will be charged, often well over 100 dollars. In the U.S., mobile phone companies have come under heavy criticism for this anti-competitive practice, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering limits to prevent price gouging, such as requiring the fees to be prorated.
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Many cable TV and telephone companies, including AT&T, include a regulatory-cost recovery fee in the bill each month of around three U.S. dollars, passing the blame onto government regulation, and essentially charging their customers for complying with U.S. law.
[edit]Banking
Further information: bank charge
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Bank fees are assessed to customers for various services and as penalties. There are unauthorised overdraft fees, ATM usage fees, fees for having an account balance under a required amount. Some banks charge a fee for using tellers in an effort to encourage customers to use automated services instead.[1] The fees have come in for criticism as excessive from consumer advocates. They have also targeted banks practices the maximize the assessment of fees and fees that can add up to many times the amount of small transactions.
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U.S. banks extract fees from automatic teller machine transactions that are made at rival banks, even if the customer's home bank has no branch in a particular area (such as when the customer is on vacation). Customers are sometimes charged twice, both by the bank that owns the ATM, and again by their bank. Bank of America charges a denial fee, literally a fee for refusing service to the customer (if there are insufficient funds or a daily limit), and a fee to simply check the account balance at a "foreign" (other bank's) ATM.[citation needed]
Acer TravelMate 243LC Keyboard
Following the 2008 financial crisis and legislation passed by Congress, banks have modified many credit card agreements with customers sometimes increasing interest rates or reducing credit limits.
[edit]Renting
Like an activation fee, a setup fee is often charged by places that rent space or other things. In Acer TravelMate 243X Keyboard
the case of self-storage businesses, this negates claims of "only one dollar for the first month" made by Public Storage and others. Apartment complexes often charge fees for pets (mainly dogs and cats). Some complexes euphemistically call these a non-refundable deposit, ignoring the definition of a deposit as inherently being refundable.
[edit]Real estate
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Main article: Closing cost
A title company or attorney collects a variety of fees in the course of handling the purchase of a house at a closing (real estate). These may include fees for tax service, flood certification, underwriting, appraisal, credit report, record deed, record deed trust, loan signing and processing.
[edit]Event tickets
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With respect to events tickets, online reservations and payments, and other transactions, there is sometimes a service charge (often called a convenience fee) that serves as additional compensation for the company facilitating the transaction. Ticketmaster and others charge this, and have made a business model of it. However, such groups have a monopoly on particular events or even entire concert venues.
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[edit]Air travel
Airlines have long charged fees for changing flights, and for excess luggage. However, with the oil price increases since 2003, many are increasing fees. In May 2008, it was announced that some Acer TravelMate 244LCi Keyboard
would be charging even for just one checked bag, making it nearly impossible to avoid. Airlines have also invented fees for nearly every "service" that has always previously been included in the ticket price. While the extra income may be necessary to prevent bankruptcy, the practice of not including mandatory fees in the stated price is deceptive.
Airports also charge landing fees to airlines in order to cover costs, particularly airport security.
[edit]Customer service
Acer TravelMate 244X Keyboard
Some businesses charge fees just for talking to a customer service representative. DirecTV charges this when ordering a pay-per-view movie via telephone instead of through the set-top box. Some companies charge for technical support, either prepaid or by using a premium-rate telephone number (such as the 1–900 numbers in North America). In the 2000s (decade), some banks in the U.S. began charging a fee just to visit a teller, prompting such customer anger that Acer TravelMate 2450 Series Keyboard
the banks were forced to back down.[citation needed]
[edit]Speaking
Main article: Speaking fee
A speaking fee is a payment awarded to an individual for speaking at a public event.
[edit]Late fees
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Late fees are charged when payment is not received by a deadline. These are supposedly intended to get people to pay rent or other charges on time, but these are sometimes exorbitant, or extremely out of proportion to the amount of money which is late. They can also add insult to injury for people who have hit hard financial times, making their situation worse. When added to credit card bills or check card statements, it may also cause an overlimit or NSF fee, creating an Acer TravelMate 2470 Keyboard
endless and inescapable cycle of fees that trigger other fees for people aleady stretched to their financial limit.
[edit]Retail
Some retail stores add fees, mainly for "guest passes" at membership warehouses like Costco and Sam's Club, where membership dues have not been paid.
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There are a few other "cost-plus" stores, however, that add ten percent or so at checkout, using the lower shelf price to trick consumers into erroneous comparison shopping. At Food Depot and other smaller low-end chain stores like this, the shelf price may be 1.95, when the shopper will actually be charged 2.15 in the end, in a sort of legalized bait and switch. (Furthermore, a disclaimer indicates the shelf price is not even the actual cost to the store.)
[edit]Early termination
Acer TravelMate 2490 Series Keyboard
An early-termination fee is charged by a company when a customer wants or needs to be released from a contract before it expires. One example is when a renter leaves an apartment before a year-long contract is over. If tenants rent for a shorter period, or month-to-month, they are instead charged significantly more per month, and are often denied any promotional deals. Mobile phone companies in the U.S. are notorious for huge early-termination fees, typically Acer TravelMate 250 Series Keyboard
starting at 175 dollars, and falling by only a few dollars per month, no matter the actual cost of or subsidy to the phone.
Some mortgage companies also charge early payment penalties if the homeowner pays more than is due in order to reduce the interest owed and to shorten the remaining term of the loan. The fees typically negate this advantage at least in part.
There are also fees charged for any type of termination. In the suburban Atlanta county of Acer TravelMate 2500 Series Keyboard
Gwinnett for example, customers were hit with termination fees of over 23 dollars when the county commission chose not to renew the contracts of the county trash collectors in November 2008. The two companies charged this both in violation of county law and in breach of contract.
[edit]Infrastructure and environment
An impact fee is a charge which a developer must pay to local government, in order to raise Acer TravelMate 2500LCi Keyboard
money for capital improvements to roads, libraries, and other services upon which the new land development places a burden. This prevents existing residents from being forced to pay in taxes, in addition to already having to put-up with the traffic, noise, and environmental damage of the new development.
[edit]Government
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In government, the difference between a fee and a tax is that a fee is paid for specific goods or services rendered by the government, while a tax has no connection to the benefits received for an individual.[2]
[edit]Public resources
A user fee is a fee paid for the use of a public resource, like a park. This is most common for national parks, and often also state parks or provincial parks, and for privately-owned areas.
Acer TravelMate 2501LM Keyboard
[edit]Licenses and permits
Fees are usually charged for various government services, including license plates and annual motor vehicle registration, as well as driver licenses and professional licensing. Fees are also charged for various permits, like demolition and building permits, rezoning, and land grading (which causes silt); and sometimes for increasing stormwater runoff, destroying native vegetation, and cutting-down healthy trees. Acer TravelMate 2501LMi Keyboard
[edit]Deceptive use
Sometimes fee is used to whitewash what are actually penalties or taxes. For example, Virginia's now-repealed Civil Remedial Fees were actually a tax on drivers with certain kinds of traffic law violations[citation needed].
[edit]Schooling
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At public universities and community colleges, students are charged tuition and matriculation, when can themselves be considered fees charged per credit hour. However, the term student fees typically refers to additional charges which the student is required to pay, typically no matter how many hours the student is taking in the academic term.
Commonly this is a student activity fee, which helps to fund student organisations, particularly Acer TravelMate 250LCi Keyboard
those which are academic in nature; and those which serve all students equally, like student government and student media. A newer fee is the technology fee, which is often charged to students by schools when state government funding fails to meet needs for computers and other classroom technology. Students may also be charged a health fee which usually covers the campus nurse, and possibly a visit to a local clinic if the student is ill.
Parking fees are normally optional, because students may not have their own automobiles. Acer TravelMate 250P Keyboard
However, many U.S. schools are now forcing meal plans on their students, particularly those that stay in dorms, and some force freshmen to stay in the dorms. Generally, all fees except parking are covered under scholarships, whether they are from private, government, or lottery funds. However, at least one U.S. state (Georgia) began denying HOPE Scholarship money for any new fees added, even by its own state schools.
Acer TravelMate 250PEXC Keyboard
"Slave" and "Slaves" redirect here. For a 1969 film, see Slaves (film). For other uses, see Slave (disambiguation).
Slavery
Contemporary slavery
Modern Africa Bangladesh China India North Korea Pakistan Sudan Mauritania
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Types
Bride-buying Child labour Debt bondage Human trafficking Peonage Penal labour Sexual slavery Sweatshop Wage slavery
Historic
History Antiquity Aztec Ancient Greece Rome Medieval Europe Thrall Kholop Serfdom Slave ship Slave raiding Blackbirding Galley slave
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By country or region:
Africa Atlantic Arab Barbary Pirates Spanish New World Angola Bhutan Brazil Britain and Ireland British Virgin Islands Canada China India Iran Japan Libya Ottoman empire Portugal Romania Seychelles Somalia South Africa
Sweden United States
Acer TravelMate 290 Keyboard
Religion
The Bible Judaism Christianity Islam
Related topics
Abolitionism Exploitation Indentured servant Unfree labour
v t e
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are Acer TravelMate 290D Keyboard
forced to work.[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Historically, slavery was institutionally recognized by many societies; in more recent times slavery has been outlawed in most societies but continues through the practices of debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]
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Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures.[3] The number of slaves today remains as high as 12 million[4] to 27 million.[5][6] Most are debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who are under debt bondage incurred by lenders, sometimes even for generations.[7] Human trafficking is primarily used for forcing women and children into sex industries.[8]
In pre-industrial societies, slaves and their labour were economically extremely important. Slaves and serfs made up around three-quarters of the world's population at the beginning of the 19th Acer TravelMate 290ELC Keyboard
century.[9]
In modern mechanised societies, there is less need for sheer massive manpower; Norbert Wiener wrote that "mechanical labor has most of the economic properties of slave labor, though ... it does not involve the direct demoralizing effects of human cruelty. "[10]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
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2 Types
2.1 Chattel slavery
2.2 Bonded labor
2.3 Forced labor
3 History
3.1 Early history
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3.2 Classical Antiquity
3.3 Middle Ages
3.3.1 Medieval Europe
3.3.2 Islamic world
3.4 Modern history
3.4.1 Europe
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3.4.2 Africa
3.4.3 Asia
3.4.4 Americas
3.4.5 Middle East
4 Present day
5 Abolitionism
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5.1 Legal actions
6 Economics
7 Apologies
7.1 Reparations
8 Other uses of the term
9 Movies
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10 References
11 Bibliography
11.1 Surveys and reference
12 External links
12.1 Historical
12.2 Modern
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Etymology
The English word slave comes from Old French sclave, from the Medieval Latin sclavus, from the Byzantine Greek σκλάβος.
The word σκλάβος, in turn, comes from the ethnonym Slav, because in some wars in early mediaeval times many Slavs were captured and enslaved.[11][12] An older theory connected it to Acer TravelMate 290LCi Keyboard
the Greek verb skyleúo 'to strip a slain enemy'.[13]
Types
Photograph of a slave boy in Zanzibar. 'An Arab master's punishment for a slight offence. ' c. Acer TravelMate 290LMi Keyboard
1890.
Chattel slavery
Chattel slavery, so named because people are treated as the personal property, chattels, of an owner and are bought and sold as commodities, is the original form of slavery. When taking these chattels across national borders it is referred to as human trafficking especially when these slaves provide sexual services.[7]
Acer TravelMate 290XCi Keyboard
Bonded labor
Main article: Bonded labor
Debt bondage or bonded labor occurs when a person pledges himself or herself against a loan.[14] The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, may be undefined.[14] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their parents' debt.[14] It is the most widespread form of slavery today.[7]
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Forced labor
Main article: Forced labor
Forced labor occurs when an individual is forced to work against his or her will, under threat of violence or other punishment, with restrictions on their freedom.[7] It is also used to describe all types of slavery and may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription and penal labor.
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History
Main article: History of slavery
Slave market in early medieval Eastern Europe. Painting by Sergei Ivanov.
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Early history
Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures.[3] Prehistoric graves from about 8000 BC in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people enslaved a San-like tribe.[15] Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations, as slavery is a system of social stratification. Mass slavery also requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the Acer TravelMate 291 Keyboard
invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.[16]
In the earliest known records slavery is treated as an established institution. The Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), for example, stated that death was prescribed for anyone who helped a slave to escape, as well as for anyone who sheltered a fugitive.[17] The Hebrew Bible refers uncritically to slavery as an established institution.[3]
Slavery was known in almost every ancient civilization, and society, including Sumer, Ancient Acer Travelmate 291LCi Keyboard
Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, the Hebrews in Palestine, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.[3] Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.[18]
Classical Antiquity
Main articles: Slavery in ancient Greece and Slavery in ancient Rome
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The work of the Mercedarians was in ransoming Christians slaves held in Muslim hands (1637).
Records of slavery in Ancient Greece go as far back as Mycenaean Greece. It is certain that Classical Athens had the largest slave population, with as many as 80,000 in the 6th and 5th centuries BC;[19] two to four-fifths of the population were slaves.[20] As the Roman Republic Acer Travelmate 291Lmi Keyboard
expanded outward, entire populations were enslaved, thus creating an ample supply from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Greeks, Illyrians, Berbers, Germans, Britons, Thracians, Gauls, Jews, Arabs, and many more were slaves used not only for labour, but also for amusement (e. g. gladiators and sex slaves). This oppression by an elite minority eventually led to slave revolts (see Roman Servile Wars); the Third Servile War led by Spartacus being the most famous and severe. By the late Republican era, slavery had become a vital economic pillar in the wealth Acer Travelmate 291LMi-G Keyboard
of Rome, as well as a very significant part of Roman society.[21] At the least, some 25% of the population of Ancient Rome was enslaved.[22] According to some scholars, slaves represented 35% or more of Italy's population.[23] In the city of Rome alone, under the Roman Empire, there were about 400,000 slaves.[24] During the millennium from the emergence of the Roman Empire to its eventual decline, at least 100 million people were captured or sold as slaves throughout the Mediterranean and its hinterlands.[25]
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Middle Ages
Medieval Europe
Main articles: Slavery in medieval Europe and Barbary slave trade
Further information: Serfdom
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A slave trader being presented to Boleslaus of Bohemia, 10th century.
The early medieval slave trade was mainly confined to the South and East: the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim world were the destinations, pagan Central and Eastern Europe, along with the Caucasus and Tartary, were important sources. Viking, Arab, Greek and Jewish merchants (known as Radhanites) were all involved in the slave trade during the Early Middle Ages.[26][27][28] The trade in European slaves reached a peak in the 10th century following the Zanj rebellion which Acer TravelMate 292ELC Keyboard
dampened the use of African slaves in the Arab world.[29][30]
Medieval Spain and Portugal were the scene of almost constant Muslim invasion of the predominantly Christian area. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Iberian Christian kingdoms, bringing back booty and slaves. In raid against Lisbon, Portugal in 1189, for example, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack upon Silves, Portugal in 1191, took 3,000 Acer TravelMate 292ELCi Keyboard
Christian slaves.[31] From the 11th to the 19th century, North African Barbary Pirates engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns, to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in places such as Algeria and Morocco.[32][33]
Depiction of socage on the royal demesne in feudal England (miniature from Queen Mary's Acer TravelMate 292ELM Keyboard
Psalter, ca. 1310). Socage is an aspect of serfdom, not usually included under the term "slavery".
At the time of the Domesday Book, compiled in 1086, nearly 10% of the English population were slaves.[34] Slavery in early medieval Europe was so common that the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly prohibited it — or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands was prohibited at e. g. the Council of Koblenz (922), the Council of London (1102), and the Council of Armagh (1171).[35] In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, granting the Acer TravelMate 292ELMi Keyboard
kings of Spain and Portugal the right to reduce any "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to perpetual slavery, legitimizing the slave trade as a result of war.[36] The approval of slavery under these conditions was reaffirmed and extended in his Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455. However, Pope Paul III forbade enslavement of the native Americans in 1537 in his papal bull Sublimus Dei.[37] Dominican friars who arrived at the Spanish settlement at Santo Domingo strongly denounced the enslavement of the local native Americans. Along with other priests, they Acer TravelMate 292EXC Keyboard
opposed their treatment as unjust and illegal in an audience with the Spanish king and in the subsequent royal commission.[38]
The Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe brought large numbers of slaves into the Islamic world.[39] From the mid to late 14th, through early 18th centuries, the Ottoman devşirme–janissary system enslaved and forcibly converted to Islam an estimated 500,000 to one million non–Muslim (primarily Balkan Christian) adolescent males.[40] After the Battle of Lepanto Acer TravelMate 292EXCi Keyboard
approximately 12,000 Christian galley slaves were freed from the Ottoman fleet.[41] A few years later Cervantes, who later wrote the famous book Don Quixote, was captured by corsairs and enslaved in Algiers, attempted to escape and was eventually ransomed; he wrote about the plight of Christian slaves in his fiction. Eastern Europe suffered a series of Tatar invasions, the goal of which was to loot and capture slaves into jasyr. Seventy-five Crimean Tatar raids were recorded into Poland–Lithuania between 1474–1569.[42] There were more than 100,000 Russian captives Acer TravelMate 292LC Keyboard
in the Kazan Khanate alone in 1551.[43]
Crimean Tatar raiders enslaved more than 1 million Eastern Europeans.[44]
Approximately 10–20% of the rural population of Carolingian Europe consisted of slaves.[45] In Western Europe slavery largely disappeared by the later Middle Ages.[46] The trade of slaves in Acer TravelMate 292LCi Keyboard
England was made illegal in 1102,[47] although England went on to become very active in the lucrative Atlantic slave trade from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. Thralldom in Scandinavia was finally abolished in the mid-14th century.[48] Slavery persisted longer in Eastern Europe. Slavery in Poland was forbidden in the 15th century; in Lithuania, slavery was formally abolished in 1588; they were replaced by the second serfdom. In Kievan Rus and Muscovy, the slaves were usually classified as kholops.
Acer TravelMate 292LM Keyboard
Islamic world
Main articles: Arab slave trade and Somali slave trade
13th century slave market in Yemen. Yemen officially abolished slavery in 1962.[49]
In early Islamic states of the western Sudan, including Ghana (750–1076), Mali (1235–1645), Acer TravelMate 292LMi Keyboard
Segou (1712–1861), and Songhai (1275–1591), about a third of the population were enslaved.[50]
Ibn Battuta tells us several times that he was given or purchased slaves.[51] The great 14th-century scholar Ibn Khaldun, wrote: "the Black nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Blacks) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals".[52] Slaves were purchased or captured on the frontiers of the Acer TravelMate 293ELC Keyboard
Islamic world and then imported to the major centers, where there were slave markets from which they were widely distributed.[53][54][55] In the 9th and 10th centuries, the black Zanj slaves may have constituted at least a half of the total population in lower Iraq.[56] At the same time, many tens of thousands of slaves in the region were also imported from Central Asia and the Caucasus.[57] Many slaves were taken in the wars with the Christian nations of medieval Europe.
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Modern history
Europe
An 1852 Wallachian poster advertising an auction of Roma slaves in Bucharest.
David P. Forsythe wrote: "In 1649 up to three-quarters of Muscovy's peasants, or 13 to 14 million Acer TravelMate 293ELM Keyboard
people, were serfs whose material lives were barely distinguishable from slaves. Perhaps another 1.5 million were formally enslaved, with Russian slaves serving Russian masters. "[58] Slavery remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.[59] Russia's more than 23 million privately-held serfs were freed from their lords by an edict of Alexander II in 1861.[60] State-owned serfs were emancipated in 1866.[61]
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During the Second World War (1939–1945) Nazi Germany effectively enslaved many people, both those considered undesirable and citizens of countries they conquered.[62]
Africa
Main article: African slave trade
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The main routes that were used to transport slaves across medieval Africa.
Arab slave traders and their captives along the Ruvuma river (in today's Tanzania and Mozambique).
In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was Acer TravelMate 293LMi Keyboard
enslaved.[50][58] In Sierra Leone in the 19th century about half of the population consisted of enslaved people.[50]
In the 19th century at least half the population was enslaved among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Igbo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third of the population consisted of enslaved people.[50]
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The population of the Kanem (1600–1800) was about a third-enslaved. It was perhaps 40% in Bornu (1580–1890). Between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population of the Fulani War states consisted of slaves.[50]
The population of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Fulanis and Hausas in northern Nigeria and Cameroon was half-slave in the 19th century. Between 65% to 90% population of Arab-Swahili Zanzibar was enslaved.[50] The Swahili-Arab slave trade reached its height about 150 years ago, Acer TravelMate 3000WTCi Keyboard
when, for example, approximately 20,000 slaves were considered to be carried yearly from Nkhotakota on Lake Malawi to Kilwa.[63] Roughly half the population of Madagascar was enslaved.[50][64]
According to the Encyclopedia of African History, "It is estimated that by the 1890s the largest slave population of the world, about 2 million people, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture. "[65][66] The Acer TravelMate 3000WTMi Keyboard
Anti-Slavery Society estimated there were 2 million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1930s out of an estimated population of between 8 and 16 million.[67]
Hugh Clapperton in 1824 believed that half the population of Kano were enslaved people.[68] W. A. Veenhoven wrote: "The German doctor, Gustav Nachtigal, an eye-witness, believed that for every slave who arrived at a market three or four died on the way ... Keltie (The Partition of Africa, London, 1920) believes that for every slave the Arabs brought to the coast at least six died on the Acer TravelMate 3001ENWTNi Keyboard
way or during the slavers' raid. Livingstone puts the figure as high as ten to one. "[69]
Slave traders in Gorée, Senegal, 18th century
One of the most famous slave traders on the East African coast was Tippu Tip, who was himself the grandson of an enslaved African. The prazeros slave traders, descendants of Portuguese and Acer TravelMate 3001NWTNi Keyboard
Africans, operated along the Zambezi. North of the Zambezi, the waYao and Makua people played a similar role as professional slave raiders and traders. The Nyamwezi slave traders operated further north under the leadership of Msiri and Mirambo.[70]
Asia
In Constantinople about one-fifth of the population consisted of slaves.[71] It has been estimated that some 200,000 slaves – mainly Circassians – were imported into the Ottoman Empire Acer TravelMate 3001WTCi Keyboard
between 1800 and 1909.[72] As late as 1908, women slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire.[73] A slave market for captured Russian and Persian slaves was centred in the Central Asian khanate of Khiva.[74] In the early 1840s, the population of the Uzbek states of Bukhara and Khiva included about 900,000 slaves.[72] Darrel P. Kaiser wrote, "Kazakh-Kirghiz tribesmen kidnapped 1573 settlers from colonies [German settlements in Russia] in 1774 alone and only half were successfully ransomed. The rest were killed or enslaved. "[75]
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According to Sir Henry Bartle Frere (who sat on the Viceroy's Council), there were an estimated 8 or 9 million slaves in India in 1841. About 15% of the population of Malabar were slaves. Slavery was abolished in British India by the Indian Slavery Act V. of 1843.[3][76]
In East Asia, the Imperial government formally abolished slavery in China in 1906, and the law became effective in 1910.[77] Slave rebellion in China at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century was so extensive that owners eventually converted the institution into a Acer TravelMate 3002ENWT Keyboard
female-dominated one.[78] The Nangzan in Tibetan history were, according to Chinese sources, hereditary household slaves.[79]
Indigenous slaves existed in Korea. Slavery was officially abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894 but continued in reality until 1930. During the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) about 30% to 50% of the Korean population were slaves.[80] In late 16th century Japan slavery as such was officially banned, but forms of contract and indentured labor persisted alongside the period penal codes' Acer TravelMate 3002ENWTNi Keyboard
forced labor.[81]
In Southeast Asia, a quarter to a third of seventeenth- to twentieth-century populations in some areas of Thailand and Burma were slaves.[3] The hill tribe people in Indochina were "hunted incessantly and carried off as slaves by the Siamese (Thai), the Anamites (Vietnamese), and the Cambodians. "[82] A Siamese military campaign in Laos in 1876 was described by a British observer as having been "transformed into slave-hunting raids on a large scale".[83] The census, Acer TravelMate 3002NWTNi Keyboard
taken in 1879, showed that 6% of the population in the Malay sultanate of Perak were slaves.[72] Enslaved people made up about two-thirds of the population in part of North Borneo in the 1880s.[72]
Americas
Further information: Atlantic slave trade, Encomienda, Mita (Inca), Slavery in Brazil, and Slavery in the United States
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The Brazilian slave-hunter, 1823, by Johann Moritz Rugendas.
Slavery in the Americas had a contentious history, dating back at least to the Aztecs,[84] and played a major role in the history and evolution of some countries, triggering at least one revolution and one civil war, as well as numerous rebellions. Other Amerindians, such as the Inca Acer TravelMate 3002WTMi Keyboard
of the Andes, the Tupinambá of Brazil, the Creek of Georgia, and the Comanche of Texas, also owned slaves.[3]
Slavery was prominent in Africa, across the Atlantic Ocean from the Americas, long before the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade.[71] The maritime town of Lagos, Portugal, Europe, was the first slave market created in Portugal (one of the earliest colonizers of the Americas) for the sale of imported African slaves – the Mercado de Escravos, opened in 1444.[85][86] In 1441, Acer TravelMate 3002XCi Keyboard
the first slaves were brought to Portugal from northern Mauritania.[86]
By 1552 black African slaves made up 10 percent of the population of Lisbon.[87][88] In the second half of the 16th century, the Crown gave up the monopoly on slave trade and the focus of European trade in African slaves shifted from import to Europe to slave transports directly to tropical colonies in the Americas – in the case of Portugal, especially Brazil.[86] In the 15th century one-third of the slaves were resold to the African market in exchange of gold.[89]
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Spain had to fight against the relatively powerful civilizations of the New World. The Spanish conquest of the indigenous peoples in the Americas included using the Natives as forced labour, part of the wider Atlantic slave trade. The Spanish colonies were the first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola.[90]
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The public flogging of a slave in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. From Jean Baptiste Debret, Voyage Pittoresque et Historique au Bresil (1834–1839).
Bartolomé de Las Casas a 16th-century Dominican friar and Spanish historian participated in campaigns in Cuba (at Bayamo and Camagüey) and was present at the massacre of Hatuey; his observation of that massacre led him to fight for a social movement away from the use of natives as slaves and towards the importation of African Blacks as slaves. Also, the alarming decline in Acer TravelMate 3003WTMi Keyboard
the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting the native population (Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513).
The first African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501.[91][dead link] In 1518, Charles I of Spain agreed to ship slaves directly from Africa. England played a prominent role in the Atlantic slave trade. The "slave triangle" was pioneered by Francis Drake and his associates. A black man named Anthony Johnson of Virginia first introduced permanent black slavery in the 1650s by becoming Acer TravelMate 3004WTCi Keyboard
the first holder in America of permanent black slaves.[92] By 1750, slavery was a legal institution in all of the 13 American colonies,[93][94] and the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution. [95]
The Transatlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by African kingdoms, such as the Oyo empire (Yoruba), the Ashanti Acer TravelMate 3004WTMi Keyboard
Empire,[96] the kingdom of Dahomey,[97] and the Aro Confederacy.[98] Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fierce African resistance. The slaves were brought to coastal outposts where they were traded for goods.
Slaves on a Virginia plantation (The Old Plantation, c. 1790).
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An estimated 12 million Africans arrived in the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries.[99] Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. The usual estimate is that about 15 per cent of slaves died during the voyage, with mortality rates considerably higher in Africa itself in the process of capturing and transporting indigenous peoples to the ships. Approximately 6 million black Africans were killed by others in tribal wars.[100]
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The white citizens of Virginia decided to treat the first Africans in Virginia as indentured servants.[101] Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured servants.[102] In 1655, John Casor, a black man, became the first legally recognized slave in the present United States.[103] According to the 1860 U. S. census, 393,975 individuals, representing 8% of all US families, owned 3,950,528 slaves.[104] One-third of Southern families owned slaves.[105]
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Funeral at slave plantation, Suriname. Colored lithograph printed circa 1840-1850, digitally restored.
The largest number of slaves were shipped to Brazil.[106] In the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada, corresponding mainly to modern Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela, the free black Acer TravelMate 3020WTCi Keyboard
population in 1789 was 420,000, whereas African slaves numbered only 20,000. Free blacks also outnumbered slaves in Brazil. In Cuba, by contrast, free blacks made up only 15% in 1827; and in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) it was a mere 5% in 1789.[107] Some half-million slaves, most of them born in Africa, worked the booming plantations of Saint-Domingue.[108]
Author Charles Rappleye argued that
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In the West Indies in particular, but also in North and South America, slavery was the engine that drove the mercantile empires of Europe..It appeared, in the eighteenth century, as universal and immutable as human nature.[109]
Although the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended shortly after the American Revolution, slavery remained a central economic institution in the Southern states of the United States, from where slavery expanded with the westward movement of population.[110] Historian Peter Kolchin Acer TravelMate 3022TCi Keyboard
wrote, "By breaking up existing families and forcing slaves to relocate far from everyone and everything they knew" this migration "replicated (if on a reduced level) many of [the] horrors" of the Atlantic slave trade.[111]
Historian Ira Berlin called this forced migration the Second Middle Passage. Characterizing it as the "central event" in the life of a slave between the American Revolution and the Civil War, Berlin wrote that whether they were uprooted themselves or simply lived in fear that they or Acer TravelMate 3022WLMi Keyboard
their families would be involuntarily moved, "the massive deportation traumatized black people, both slave and free. "[112]
Lady in litter being carried by her slaves, province of São Paulo in Brazil, ca.1860.
By 1860, 500,000 slaves had grown to 4 million. As long as slavery expanded, it remained Acer TravelMate 3022WTCi Keyboard
profitable and powerful and was unlikely to disappear. Although complete statistics are lacking, it is estimated that 1,000,000 slaves moved west from the Old South between 1790 and 1860.[113]
Most of the slaves were moved from Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Michael Tadman, in a 1989 book Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South, indicates that 60–70% of interregional migrations were the result of the sale of slaves. In 1820 a child in the Upper South had a 30% chance to be sold south by 1860.[113]
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Middle East
Main article: Arab slave trade
See also: Slavery (Ottoman Empire), Islam and slavery, and Slavery on the Barbary Coast
The Arab enslavement of the Dinka people.
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Persian slave in the Khanate of Khiva, 19th century
"Bound slave" by Lehnert & Landrock, Tunisia circa 1900.
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According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries.[114][115] There was also an extensive trade in Christian slaves in the Black Sea region for several centuries until the Crimean Khanate was destroyed by the Russian Empire in 1783.[43] In the 1570s close to 20,000 slaves a year were being sold in the Crimean port of Kaffa.[116] The slaves were captured in southern Russia, Poland-Lithuania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Acer TravelMate 3042WTMi Keyboard
and Circassia by Tatar horsemen in a trade known as the "harvesting of the steppe". In Podolia alone, about one-third of all the villages were destroyed or abandoned between 1578 and 1583.[117] Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate.[118][119] It is estimated that up to 75% of the Crimean population consisted of slaves or freedmen.[71]
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A slave market in Algiers. XVIIth (c.1684)
The Arab slave trade lasted more than a millennium.[120] As recently as the early 1960s, Saudi Arabia's slave population was estimated at 300,000.[121] Along with Yemen, the Saudis abolished slavery only in 1962.[122] Slaves in the Arab World came from many different regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa (mainly Zanj),[52] the Caucasus (mainly Circassians),[123] Central Asia (mainly Acer TravelMate 3043WLMi Keyboard
Tartars), and Central and Eastern Europe (mainly Saqaliba).[124]
Under Omani Arabs Zanzibar became East Africa's main slave port, with as many as 50,000 enslaved Africans passing through every year during the 19th century.[125][126] Some historians estimate that between 11 and 18 million African slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 AD to 1900 AD.[3][127] Eduard Rüppell described the heavy mortality of the enslaved Sudanese before reaching Egypt: "after the Daftardar bey's 1822 campaign in the Acer TravelMate 3043WTMi Keyboard
southern Nuba mountains, nearly 40,000 slaves were captured. However, through bad treatment, disease and desert travel barely 5000 made it to Egypt. "[128]
Central and Eastern European slaves were generally known as Saqaliba (i. e., Slavs).[129] The Moors, starting in the 8th century, also raided coastal areas around the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean, and became known as the Barbary pirates.[130] It is estimated that they captured 1.25 million white slaves from Western Europe and North America between the 16th and 19th Acer TravelMate 3044WLMi Keyboard
centuries.[131][132] The mortality rate was very high. For instance, when plague broke out in Algiers' overcrowded slave pens in 1662, some said that it carried off 10,000–20,000 of the city's 30,000 captives.[114]
Present day
See also: Contemporary slavery, Child slavery, and Trafficking of children
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Francis Bok, former Sudanese slave. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been enslaved during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The slaves are mostly Dinka people.[133][134]
The number of slaves today remains as high as 12 million[4] to 27 million,[5][6] even though slavery is now outlawed in all countries. Several estimates of the number of slaves in the world Acer TravelMate 3045WLMi Keyboard
have been provided.[135] According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there were 27 million people in slavery in 1999, spread all over the world.[5] In 2005, the International Labour Organization provided an estimate of 12.3 million forced labourers in the world.[136] Siddharth Kara has also provided an estimate of 28.4 million slaves at the end of 2006 divided into the following three categories: bonded labour/debt bondage (18.1 million), forced labour (7.6 Acer TravelMate 3045WTMi Keyboard
million), and trafficked slaves (2.7 million).[137] Kara provides a dynamic model to calculate the number of slaves in the world each year, with an estimated 29.2 million at the end of 2009.
Examples of modern slavery are numerous. In 2008, the Nepalese government abolished the Haliya system of forced labour, freeing about 20,000 people.[138] An estimated 40 million[139] people in India, most of them Dalits or "untouchables", are bonded workers, working in slave-like conditions in order to pay off debts.[140][141] Though slavery was officially abolished in China in Acer TravelMate 3210 Series Keyboard
1910,[142] the practice continues unofficially in some regions of the country.[143][144][145] In June and July 2007, 550 people who had been enslaved by brick manufacturers in Shanxi and Henan were freed by the Chinese government.[146] Among those rescued were 69 children.[147] In response, the Chinese government assembled a force of 35,000 police to check northern Chinese brick kilns for slaves, sent dozens of kiln supervisors to prison, punished 95 officials in Shanxi province for dereliction of duty, and sentenced one kiln foreman to death for killing an Acer TravelMate 3212WXMi Keyboard
enslaved worker.[146] The North Korean government[148] operates six large political prison camps,[149] where political prisoners and their families (around 200,000 people)[150] in lifelong detention[151] are subjected to hard slave labor,[152] torture and inhumane treatment.[153] In Brazil more than 5,000 slaves were rescued by authorities in 2008 as part of a government initiative to eradicate slavery.[154] Poverty has forced at least 225,000 Haitian children to work as restavecs (unpaid household servants); the United Nations considers this to be a modern-day Acer TravelMate 3220 Series Keyboard
form of slavery.[155]
In Mauritania, the last country to abolish slavery (in 1981),[156] it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are enslaved with many used as bonded labour.[157][158][159] Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007.[160] The Middle East Quarterly reports that slavery is still endemic in Sudan.[161] In Niger, slavery is also a current phenomenon. A Nigerien study has found that more than 800,000 people are enslaved, almost 8% Acer TravelMate 3230 Series Keyboard
of the population.[162][163][164] Niger officially abolished slavery in 2003.[165] Many pygmies in the Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo belong from birth to Bantus in a system of slavery.[166][167] Some tribal sheiks in Iraq still keep blacks, called Abd, which means servant or slave in Arabic, as slaves.[168] Child slavery has commonly been used in the production of cash crops and mining. According to the U. S. Department of State, more than 109,000 children were working on cocoa farms alone in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in "the worst Acer TravelMate 3232WXMi Keyboard
forms of child labor" in 2002.[169]
Trafficking in human beings (also called human trafficking) is one method of obtaining slaves.[170] Victims are typically recruited through deceit or trickery (such as a false job offer, false migration offer, or false marriage offer), sale by family members, recruitment by former slaves, or outright abduction. Victims are forced into a "debt slavery" situation by coercion, deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat, physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs of Acer TravelMate 3240 Keyboard
abuse to control their victims.[171] "Annually, according to U. S. Government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80 percent of transnational victims are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors, " reports the U. S. Department of State in a 2008 study.[172]
While the majority of trafficking victims are women, and sometimes children, who are forced into Acer TravelMate 3250 Keyboard
prostitution (in which case the practice is called sex trafficking), victims also include men, women and children who are forced into manual labour.[173] Due to the illegal nature of human trafficking, its exact extent is unknown. A U. S. Government report published in 2005, estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.[173] Another research effort revealed that between 1.5 million and 1.8 million individuals are trafficked either internally or internationally Acer TravelMate 3260 Keyboard
each year, 500,000 to 600,000 of whom are sex trafficking victims.[137]
Abolitionism
Main article: Abolitionism
See also: Abolition of slavery timeline
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The painting of the 1840 Anti-Slavery Society Convention at Exeter Hall. Move your cursor to identify delegates or click the icon to enlarge.[174]
Slavery has existed, in one form or another, through the whole of recorded human history — as have, in various periods, movements to free large or distinct groups of slaves.
The Greek Stoics advocated the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all human Acer TravelMate 3274 Keyboard
beings, and consistently critiqued slavery as against the law of nature.[175] Emperor Wang Mang abolished slave trading (although not slavery) in China in 9 CE.[176]
The Spanish colonization of the Americas sparked a discussion about the right to enslave native Americans. A prominent critic of slavery in the Spanish New World colonies was Bartolomé de las Casas, who opposed the enslavement of Native Americans, and later also of Africans in America.
One of the first protests against the enslavement of Africans came from German and Dutch Acer TravelMate 3280 Keyboard
Quakers in Pennsylvania in 1688. One of the most significant milestones in the campaign to abolish slavery throughout the world occurred in England in 1772, with British judge Lord Mansfield, whose opinion in Somersett's Case was widely taken to have held that slavery was illegal in England. This judgement also laid down the principle that slavery contracted in other jurisdictions (such as the American colonies) could not be enforced in England.[177] In 1777, Vermont became the first portion of what would become the United States to abolish slavery (at Acer TravelMate 3282WXMi Keyboard
the time Vermont was an independent nation). In 1794, under the Jacobins, Revolutionary France abolished slavery.[178] There were celebrations in 2007 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom through the work of the British Anti-Slavery Society.
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Joseph Jenkins Roberts, born in Virginia, was the first president of Liberia, which was founded in 1822 for freed American slaves.
William Wilberforce received much of the credit although the groundwork was an anti-slavery essay by Thomas Clarkson. Wilberforce was also urged by his close friend, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, to make the issue his own, and was also given support by reformed Evangelical John Newton. The Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 25, 1807, Acer TravelMate 4000 Keyboard
making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire,[179] Wilberforce also campaigned for abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. After the 1807 act abolishing the slave trade was passed, these campaigners switched to encouraging other countries to follow suit, notably France and the British colonies. In 1839, the world's oldest international human rights organization, Anti-Slavery International, was formed in Britain by Joseph Sturge, which campaigned to outlaw slavery in other countries.[180]
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Between 1808 and 1860, the British West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.[181] Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.[182]
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Three people in chains, probably somewhere in East-Africa. By 1900, slaves comprised up to one-third of Ethiopia's population.[128] Emperor Haile Selassie officially abolished slavery in 1942.
In the United States, abolitionist pressure produced a series of small steps towards emancipation. After January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited,[183] but Acer TravelMate 4003LCi Keyboard
not the internal slave trade, nor involvement in the international slave trade externally. Legal slavery persisted; and those slaves already in the U. S. were legally emancipated only in 1863. Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting the Underground Railroad. Violence soon erupted, with the anti-slavery forces led by John Brown, and Bleeding Kansas, involving anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers, became a symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery. By 1860 the total number of slaves reached almost four million, Acer TravelMate 4010 Keyboard
and the American Civil War, beginning in 1861, led to the end of slavery in the United States.[184]
In 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves held in the Confederate States; the 13th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution (1865) prohibited slavery throughout the country.
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Photographed in 1863 – Peter, a man who was enslaved in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This famous photo was distributed by abolitionists.[185]
In the 1860s, David Livingstone's reports of atrocities within the Arab slave trade in Africa stirred up the interest of the British public, reviving the flagging abolitionist movement. The Royal Navy throughout the 1870s attempted to suppress "this abominable Eastern trade", at Zanzibar in particular. In 1905, the French abolished indigenous slavery in most of French West Africa.[186]
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On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declared freedom from slavery is an internationally recognized human right. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.[187]
Groups such as the American Anti-Slavery Group, Anti-Slavery International, Free the Slaves, the Acer TravelMate 4050 Keyboard
Anti-Slavery Society, and the Norwegian Anti-Slavery Society continue to campaign to rid the world of slavery.
Legal actions
In November 2006, the International Labour Organization announced it will be seeking "to prosecute members of the ruling Myanmar junta for crimes against humanity" over the continuous unfree labour of its citizens by the military at the International Court of Acer TravelMate 4050LC Keyboard
Justice.[188][189] According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), an estimated 800,000 people are subject to forced labour in Myanmar.[190]
The Ecowas Court of Justice is hearing the case of Hadijatou Mani in late 2008, where Ms. Mani hopes to compel the government of Niger to end slavery in its jurisdiction. Cases brought by her in local courts have failed so far.[191]
Economics
Acer TravelMate 4050LCi Keyboard
Gustave Boulanger's painting The Slave Market
Economists have attempted to model the circumstances under which slavery (and variants such as serfdom) appear and disappear. One observation is that slavery becomes more desirable for Acer TravelMate 4050LM Keyboard
landowners where land is abundant but labour is scarce, such that rent is depressed and paid workers can demand high wages. If the opposite holds true, then it becomes more costly for landowners to have guards for the slaves than to employ paid workers who can only demand low wages due to the amount of competition.[192] Thus, first slavery and then serfdom gradually decreased in Europe as the population grew, but were reintroduced in the Americas and in Russia as large areas of new land with few people became available.[193] In his books, Time on the Acer TravelMate 4050LMi Keyboard
Cross and Without Consent or Contract: the Rise and Fall of American Slavery, Robert Fogel maintains that slavery was in fact a profitable method of production, especially on bigger plantations growing cotton that fetched high prices in the world market. It gave whites in the South higher average incomes than those in the North, but most of the money was spent on buying slaves and plantations.
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Slave being whipped in Brazil, during the heyday of gold exploration in Minas Gerais (1770).
Slavery is more common when the labour done is relatively simple and thus easy to supervise, such as large scale growing of a single crop. It is much more difficult and costly to check that slaves are doing their best and with good quality when they are doing complex tasks. Therefore, slavery was seen as the most efficient method of production for large scale crops like sugar and Acer TravelMate 4050WLMi Keyboard
cotton, whose output was based on economies of scale. This enabled a gang system of labor to be prominent on large plantations where field hands were monitored and worked with factory-like precision. Each work gang was based on an internal division of labor that not only assigned every member of the gang to a precise task but simultaneously made his or her performance dependent on the actions of the others. The hoe hands chopped out the weeds that surrounded the cotton plants as well as excessive sprouts. The plow gangs followed behind, Acer TravelMate 4060 Keyboard
stirring the soil near the rows of cotton plants and tossing it back around the plants. Thus, the gang system worked like an early version of the assembly line later to be found in factories.[194]
Critics since the 18th century have argued that slavery tends to retard technological advancement, since the focus is on increasing the number of slaves doing simple tasks rather than upgrading the efficiency of labour. Because of this, theoretical knowledge and learning in Greece—and later in Rome—was not applied to ease physical labour or improve Acer TravelMate 4070 Keyboard
manufacturing.[195]
Adam Smith made the argument that free labor was economically better than slave labor, and argued further that slavery in Europe ended during the Middle Ages, and then only after both the church and state were separate, independent and strong institutions,[196] that it is nearly impossible to end slavery in a free, democratic and republican forms of governments since many of its legislators or political figures were slave owners, and would not punish themselves, and Acer TravelMate 4080 Keyboard
that slaves would be better able to gain their freedom when there was centralized government, or a central authority like a king or the church.[197] Similar arguments appear later in the works of Auguste Comte, especially when it comes to Adam Smith's belief in the separation of powers or what Comte called the "separation of the spiritual and the temporal" during the Middle Ages and the end of slavery, and Smith's criticism of masters, past and present. As Smith stated in the Lectures on Jurisprudence, "The great power of the clergy thus concurring with that of the king Acer TravelMate 4100 Keyboard
set the slaves at liberty. But it was absolutely necessary both that the authority of the king and of the clergy should be great. Where ever any one of these was wanting, slavery still continues. "
The weighted average global sales price of a slave is calculated to be approximately $340, with a high of $1,895 for the average trafficked sex slave, and a low of $40 to $50 for debt bondage slaves in part of Asia and Africa.[137] Worldwide slavery is a criminal offense but slave owners can get very high returns for their risk.[198] According to researcher Siddharth Kara, the profits Acer TravelMate 4103WLCi Keyboard
generated worldwide by all forms of slavery in 2007 were $91.2 billion. That is second only to drug trafficking in terms of global criminal enterprises. The weighted average annual profits generated by a slave in 2007 was $3,175, with a low of an average $950 for bonded labor and $29,210 for a trafficked sex slave.[137] Approximately forty percent of all slave profits each year are generated by trafficked sex slaves, representing slightly more than 4 percent of the world's 29 million slaves.[137]
Acer TravelMate 4150 Series Keyboard
Robert E. Wright has developed a model that helps to predict when firms (individuals, companies) will be more likely to use slaves rather than wage workers, indentured servants, family members, or other types of laborers.[199]
Apologies
Acer TravelMate 4152LMi Keyboard
Monument to slaves in Zanzibar
On May 21, 2001, the National Assembly of France passed the Taubira law, recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity. Apologies on behalf of African nations, for their role in trading their countrymen into slavery, remain an open issue since slavery was practiced in Africa even before the first Europeans arrived and the Atlantic slave trade was performed with a high degree of Acer TravelMate 4154LMi Keyboard
involvement of several African societies. The black slave market was supplied by well-established slave trade networks controlled by local African societies and individuals.[200] Indeed, as already mentioned in this article, slavery persists in several areas of West Africa until the present day.
There is adequate evidence citing case after case of African control of segments of the trade. Several African nations such as the Calabar and other southern parts of Nigeria had economies depended solely on the trade. African peoples such as the Imbangala of Angola and the Acer TravelMate 4200 Series Keyboard
Nyamwezi of Tanzania would serve as middlemen or roving bands warring with other African nations to capture Africans for Europeans.[201]
Several historians have made important contributions to the global understanding of the African side of the Atlantic slave trade. By arguing that African merchants determined the assemblage of trade goods accepted in exchange for slaves, many historians argue for African agency and ultimately a shared responsibility for the slave trade.[202]
Acer Travelmate 4210 Keyboard
The issue of an apology is linked to reparations for slavery and is still being pursued by a number of entities across the world. For example, the Jamaican Reparations Movement approved its declaration and action Plan.
In September 2006, it was reported that the UK government might issue a "statement of regret" over slavery.[203] This was followed by a "public statement of sorrow" from Tony Blair on November 27, 2006,[204] and a formal apology on March 14, 2007.[205]
Acer Travelmate 4220 Keyboard
On February 25, 2007 the state of Virginia resolved to 'profoundly regret' and apologize for its role in the institution of slavery. Unique and the first of its kind in the U. S., the apology was unanimously passed in both Houses as Virginia approached the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, where the first slaves were imported into North America in 1619.[206]
Liverpool, which was a large slave trading port, apologized in 1999. On August 24, 2007, Mayor Ken Livingstone of London, United Kingdom apologized publicly for Britain's role in colonial slave Acer TravelMate 4230 Series Keyboard
trade. "You can look across there to see the institutions that still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery, " he said pointing towards the financial district. He claimed that London was still tainted by the horrors of slavery. Specifically, London outfitted, financed, and insured many of the ships, which helped fund the building of London's docks. Jesse Jackson praised Livingstone, and added that reparations should be made, one of his common arguments.[207]
Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
On July 30, 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for American slavery and subsequent discriminatory laws.[208] In June 2009, the US Senate passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and Acer Travelmate 4270 Keyboard
inhumanity of slavery".[209]
A drum kit
A drum kit, drum set[1] or trap set is a collection of drums and other percussion instruments set up to be played by a single player.[2]
More specifically, a modern kit (for a right handed player), as used in popular music, taught in many music schools, and for which qualifications are available from Trinity College London[3] consists of:
A snare drum, mounted on a specialised stand, placed between the player's knees and played Ideapad B470
with drum sticks (which may include rutes or brushes).
A bass drum, played by a pedal operated by the right foot.
A hi-hat stand and cymbals, operated by the left foot and played with the sticks, particularly but not only the right hand stick.
One or more tom-tom drums, played with the sticks.
One or more suspended cymbals, played with the sticks, particularly but not only the right hand IdeaPad G460
stick.
A drum kit is usually played seated on a drum stool or throne.
Most drummers extend their kits from this basic pattern, adding more drums, more cymbals, and many other instruments. In some styles of music particular extensions are normal, for example double bass drums in heavy metal music. On the other extreme but more rarely, some performers omit elements from even the basic setup, again particularly for particular styles of IdeaPad G465
music.
Louis Moholo playing a four-piece kit
Contents [hide]
1 History
IdeaPad G465A
1.1 Beginnings
1.2 Development
1.3 Rock and Roll
1.4 Recording
2 Components
2.1 Drums
2.1.1 Drum sizes
2.1.2 Snare drum
2.1.3 Toms
2.1.4 Bass drum
2.1.5 Other drums
2.2 Cymbals
Ideapad G470AH
2.2.1 Ride cymbal
2.2.2 Hi-hats
2.2.3 Crashes
2.2.4 Other cymbals
2.3 Other acoustic instruments
2.4 Electronic drums
2.5 Hardware
3 Common configurations
3.1 Three-piece
3.2 Four-piece
3.2.1 Four piece with floor tom
3.2.2 Four piece with two hanging toms
Ideapad G475
3.3 Five-piece
3.4 Small kits
3.5 Extended kits
4 Accessories
4.1 Sticks
4.2 Muffles
4.3 Cases
4.4 Microphones
4.5 Drum screens
4.6 Carpets
4.7 Practice equipment
5 Playing
IdeaPad G550A
5.1 Grooves
5.2 Fills
5.3 Grips
5.4 Notation
6 Audio samples
7 See also
IdeaPad G550M
8 References
9 External links
[edit]History
IdeaPad G550S
Kit with bass drum pedal and low sock, 1935
[edit]Beginnings
The first recognizable ancestors of the modern drum kit were born in the Vaudeville era. Pecuniary and theater space considerations demanded that fewer percussionists covered more percussion parts. In military and orchestral music settings, drums and cymbals were traditionally played separately by one or many percussionists. The bass drum, snare drum, cymbals and other IdeaPad G555
percussion instruments were all played using hand-held drum sticks. Circa 1890, experimentation with foot pedals began. Many patented their systems such as Dee Dee Chandler of New Orleans 1904-05.[4] Liberating the hands for the first time, this evolution saw the bass drum played (first standing) with the foot of a percussionist and became the central piece around which every other percussion instruments would later revolve. Ludwig-Musser, William F. Ludwig Senior and his brother Theodor Ludwig founded the Ludwig & Ludwig Co. in 1909 and patented the first IdeaPad G555AX
workable bass drum pedal system, paving the way for what was to become the modern drum kit.
[edit]Development
Kit with four non-tunable toms, 1939
Ideapad G560
Gene Krupa, 1946
Louis Bellson, 1952
By World War I drum kits were characterized by very large bold marching bass drums and many Ideapad G565
percussion items suspended on and around them, and they became a central part of jazz music, specifically (but not limited to) dixieland. Metal consoles were developed to hold Chinese tom-toms, with swing out stands for snare drums and cymbals. On top of the console was a "contraption" (shortened to "trap") tray used to hold whistles, klaxons, and cowbells, thus drum Ideapad S10
kits were dubbed "trap kits." Hi-hat stands appeared around 1926.
By the 1930s, Ben Duncan and others popularized streamlined trap kits leading to a basic four piece drum set standard: bass, snare, tom-tom, and floor tom. In time legs were fitted to larger floor toms, and "consolettes" were devised to hold smaller tom-toms on the bass drum. In the 1940s, Louie Bellson pioneered use of two bass drums, or the double bass drum kit. Gene Krupa was the first drummer to head his own orchestra and thrust the drums into the spotlight with his IdeaPad S10 20015
drum solos. Others would soon follow his lead. Krupa is also known to be the first to record a drum solo on a commercial record.
Influential drummers of the jazz tradition included Gene Krupa, "Papa" Jo Jones, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Joe Morello and many more.
[edit]Rock and Roll
IdeaPad S10 4231
John Bonham, 1975
With the ascendance of rock and roll, a watershed moment occurred between 1962 and 1964 when the Surfaris released "Wipe Out," and when Ringo Starr of The Beatles played his Ludwig kit on American television; events that motivated legions to take up the drums.
Ideapad S10-2
A trend towards bigger drum kits in Rock music began in the 1960s and gained momentum in the 1970s. By the 1980s, widely popular drummers like Billy Cobham, Carl Palmer, Nicko McBrain, Phil Collins, Stewart Copeland and perhaps most notably Neil Peart were using large numbers of drums and cymbals and had also begun using electronic drums. In the 1990s and 2000s, many drummers in popular music and indie music have reverted back to basic four piece drum set standard.
IdeaPad S10C
In the 21st century, it is not uncommon for drummers to use a variety of auxiliary percussion instruments, found objects, and electronics as part of their "drum" kits. Popular electronics include: electronic sound modules; laptop computers used to activate loops, sequences and samples; metronomes and tempo meters; recording devices; and personal sound reinforcement equipment (e.g., a small PA system to amplify electronic drums and provide a monitor for singing).
Ideapad S10E
[edit]Recording
On early recording mediums (until 1925[5]) such as wax cylinders and discs carved with an engraving needle, sound balancing meant that musicians had to be literally moved in the room.[5] Drums were often put far from the horn (part of the mechanical transducer) to reduce sound IdeaPad S10e 4068
distortion. Since this affected the rendition of cymbals at playback, sound engineers of the time remedied the situation by asking drummers to play the content of the cymbals onto woodblocks, temple blocks and cowbells for their loudness and short decay.
This recording-specific particularity had the effect of altering the evolution of the drum set and of stigmatizing the sound of the music recorded at the time. The drum kit featured in many of rock and roll songs and the Rock and Roll period played a big role in modernizing the drum kit.
IdeaPad S10e 4187
[edit]Components
Foreground: Snare drums. Background: Hi-hat cymbals.
[edit]Drums
[Ideapad S9
edit]Drum sizes
See Common configurations below for typical drum sizes.
Traditionally, drum sizes were expressed as depth x diameter, both in inches. More recently, many drum kit manufacturers have begun instead to express the size as diameter x depth, again in inches.
Manufacturers still using the traditional format in their catalogues include:
IdeaPad S9e 4187
ddrum
Drum Workshop
Gretsch Drums
Ludwig-Musser
Slingerland Drum Company
Tama Drums
Ideapad U330
while those using diameter x depth include:
Brady Drum Company
Mapex Drums
Meinl Percussion[6]
Pearl Drums
Premier Percussion
Ideapad U550
Rogers Drums
Sonor
Yamaha Drums
For example, a hanging tom 12" in diameter and 8" deep would be described by Tama as 8x12, but by Pearl as 12x8, and a standard diameter Ludwig snare drum 5" deep is a 5x14, while a Premier of the same dimensions is a 14x5.
Ideapad V470
[edit]Snare drum
Snare drum on a modern light-duty snare drum stand
Ideapad Y300
Main article: snare drum
The snare drum is the centre of the kit. It provides the strongest regular accents, played by the left hand, and the backbone for many fills.
[edit]Toms
Ideapad Y330
Keith Moon with a mixture of concert toms and conventional toms, 1975
Main article: tom-tom drum
Tom-tom drums or toms for short are drums without snares and played with sticks, and are the most numerous drums in almost all kits. They provide the bulk of most drum fills and solos.
They include:
Traditional double-headed rack toms, of varying depths.
Ideapad Y410
Floor toms.
Single-headed concert toms.
Rototoms.
The smallest and largest drums without snares, such as octobans and gong drums, are sometimes considered toms and sometimes not, and if not there are many borderline cases.
The naming of common configurations is largely a reflection of the number of toms, as only the Ideapad Y430
drums are conventionally counted, and these configurations all contain one snare and one or more rarely two bass drums, the balance being toms.
[edit]Bass drum
A drum kit bass drum
IdeaPad Y430 2781
Main article: bass drum
The bass drum gives a regular but often varied foundation to the rhythm. Beginners tend to play simple bass drum patterns, moderate players complex ones with many strokes, and accomplished players more subtle ones with fewer strokes.
[edit]Other drums
Octobans were designed for use in a drum kit, extending the tom range upwards in pitch.
IdeaPad Y430a
Anders Johansson with an array of Oktobans
Timbales are tuned much higher than a tom of the same diameter, and normally played with very light sticks. They have relatively thin, fragile heads and a very different tone to a tom, but are IdeaPad Y430g
used by some drummers to extend the tom range upwards. Alternatively, they can be fitted with tom heads and tuned as shallow concert toms. Attack Timbales and mini timbales are reduced diameter timbales designed specifically for drum kit usage, the smaller diameter allowing for thicker heads for the same pitch and head tension.
Similarly, most hand drums cannot be played with drum sticks without risking damage to the head and to the bearing edge, which is not protected by a drum rim. For use in a drum kit they Ideapad Y450
may be fitted with a suitable drum head and played with care, or played by hand.
[edit]Cymbals
Cymbal innovator Mike Portnoy with many cymbals, 2006
Cymbals are as important in most drum kits as the drums themselves.
Ideapad Y450A
Beginners cymbal packs normally contain four cymbals: one ride, one crash, and a pair of hi-hats. A few contain only three cymbals, using a crash/ride instead of the separate ride and crash. The sizes closely follow those given in Common configurations below.
Most drummers soon extend this by adding another crash, a splash or a china, or even all three.
[edit]Ride cymbal
Main article: ride cymbal
Ideapad Y450AW
The ride cymbal is most often used to keep a constant rhythm, every beat or more often. Development of this ride technique is generally credited to Baby Dodds.[7]
Most drummers have a single main ride, near their right hand, most often 20" but 16"-24" are not uncommon. It is most often a heavy, standard cymbal, but some drummers use a swish cymbal, sizzle cymbal or other exotic as the main or only ride, particularly for jazz. In the 1960s Ringo Starr used a sizzle cymbal as a second ride particularly for use during guitar solos.
Ideapad Y510
[edit]Hi-hats
Main article: hi-hat
The hi-hat has a similar function to the ride cymbal; The two are rarely played at once, but one or the other keeps the fine rhythm much of the time, played by the right stick of a right-handed Ideapad Y520
drummer. Changing between ride and hi-hat, or between either and a leaner sound with neither, is often used to mark a change from one passage to another, for example to distinguish verse and chorus.
[edit]Crashes
Main article: crash cymbal
The crash cymbals are the strongest accents, marking crescendos and climaxes, vocal entries, and Ideapad Y550
major changes of mood. A cymbal crash is often accompanied by a strong kick on the bass drum pedal, both for musical effect and to support the stroke.
In the very smallest kits, in jazz, and at very high volumes, ride cymbals may be used as crashes. Some hi-hats will also give a useful crash, particularly thinner hats or those with an unusually severe taper. At low volumes, producing a good crash from a cymbal not particularly suited to it is a highly skilled art. Alternatively, specialised crash/ride and ride/crash cymbals are specifically Ideapad Y550A
designed to combine both functions.
[edit]Other cymbals
Main article: effects cymbal
Cymbals other than rides, hi-hats and crashes are called effects cymbals when used in a drum kit.
Most extended kits include one or more splash cymbals and at least one china cymbal. Major cymbal makers produce cymbal extension packs consisting of one splash and one china, or more Ideapad Y550P
rarely a second crash, a splash and a china, to match some of their starter packs of ride, crash and hi-hats.
[edit]Other acoustic instruments
Günter Sommer with bodhrán and bongo drums in his kit
IdeaPad Y710
Other instruments that have regularly been incorporated into drum kits include:
Wood block and cowbell. These are traditional in some forms of music.
Tambourine, particularly mounted on the hi-hat stand above the cymbals. An ordinary tambourine can be used, or a tambourine produced specially for drum kit use.
Timbales can be used to extend the ring of tom-toms, particularly when the drummer owns them for other reasons. A traditional timbale is tuned far higher than a tom of the same diameter, so IdeaPad Y710 4054
the result is not ideal. Some makers produce smaller timbales 8" or 10" in diameter more suited to drum kit usage, see Timbales#Non-traditional use.
Xylophone or glockenspiel.
Tubular bells.
Gongs.
Bar chimes.
IdeaPad Y730
Triangles.
Found objects, including spanners, brake drums, buckets, cardboard boxes, and jam and kerosene tins.
See also Extended kits below.
[edit]Electronic drums
IdeaPad Y730 4053
Trigger sensors in use, here they are red and mounted on the rims of the snare drum, bass drum and hanging toms. The larger box in the same colour red is the "brain" to which they are connected.
IdeaPad Y730a
A Korg trigger pad
Pat Mastelotto playing a kit with both acoustic and electronic drums, 2005
Main article: Electronic drums
As well as providing an alternative to a conventional drum kit, electronic drums can be Ideapad Y810
incorporated into a kit.
This is possible in two ways:
Triggers are sensors that can be attached to drum kit components. In this way, an electronic drum sound will be produced when the instrument is played, as well as the sound made by the instrument.
Trigger pads can be mounted alongside other components. These pads make no significant sound ThinkPad Edge E120
themselves, but purely trigger the electronic sound, and are played with the same drum sticks as other drum kit components.
In either case, a control unit (brain) with suitable sampled sounds, and amplification equipment are both required. Sometimes, for the sake of appearance or of the desired "feel" of the instrument, a drum with a trigger will be used as a trigger pad by muffling it so heavily that no significant sound at all is produced, see Electronic drum#Acoustic triggered drum kit.
ThinkPad Edge E125
A trigger pad can contain up to four independent sensors, each of them capable of sending to the brain information describing the timing and intensity of a stroke. A circular drum pad will normally contain only one sensor, but a cymbal-shaped pad often contains two, one for the body and one for the rim of the cymbal, and a triangular pad may contain four, one for the body, played by the stick tips, and one for the rim of each side, played by the stick shafts. (Commonly called a rim shot and often used to trigger a similar effect, playing the rim of the trigger pad is a ThinkPad Edge E220s
significantly different and far simpler technique, as it is not necessary or even desired to strike the body of the pad.)
Trigger sensors are most commonly used to replace the acoustic drum sounds. For example, in a live performance in a difficult acoustical space, a sensor may be placed on every drum and cymbal, and used in each case to trigger a similar sound. These sounds are then amplified through the PA and are all the audience hears, and can be amplified to any level without the ThinkPad Edge E520
feedback problems associated with microphones. The sound of the drums and cymbals themselves is heard by the drummer and possibly other musicians, but even there the foldback system will be fed from the electronic sounds rather than the live sounds. The drums can be heavily muffled, and their tuning and even quality is less critical. In this way much of the atmosphere of the live performance is retained but without some of the problems associated with amplified drums.
ThinkPad Edge E520s
Trigger sensors can also be used in conjunction with conventional or built-in microphones. If some components of a kit prove more difficult to "mike" than others, sensors may be used on only the more difficult instruments.
Trigger pads on the other hand when used in a conventional kit are most commonly used to produce sounds not otherwise available. Any sound that can be sampled can be used. Recordings of barking dogs and stereo recordings of aircraft taking off and landing have for example been ThinkPad Edge E525
used to great effect, as well as the more obvious electronically generated sounds.
[edit]Hardware
Main article: drum hardware
Hardware is the name given to the stands that support the instruments. Generally the term also includes the hi-hat pedal and bass drum pedal or pedals, and the drum stool, but not the drum sticks.
Thinkpad T400S
Hardware is carried along with sticks and other accessories in the traps case, and includes:
Cymbal stands.
Hi-hat stand.
Floor tom feet.
Hanging tom brackets or arms.
Snare drum stand.
ThinkPad T400S-2808
Bass drum pedal or pedals.
Particularly for large kits, many or even all of the stands may be replaced by a drum rack.
[edit]Common configurations
ThinkPad T400S-2815
A two-piece kit in action
Drum kits are traditionally categorised by the number of drums, ignoring cymbals and other instruments. Snare, tom-tom and bass drums are always counted; Other drums such as octobans may or may not be counted.[8]
The sizes of drums and cymbals given below are typical. Many drummers differ slightly or radically from them. Where no size is given, it is because there is too much variety to call a typical Thinkpad T410
size.
[edit]Three-piece
Three-piece set for a young player: 16" bass, 10" snare, one 10" hanging tom
A basic, conventional three-piece kit consists of bass drum, 14" diameter snare drum, 12"-14" ThinkPad T410-2516
hi-hats, and a single 12" diameter hanging tom 8"-9" in depth and a suspended cymbal in the range 14"-18", both mounted on the bass drum.
Such kits were common in the 1950s and 1960s and may still be found in small acoustic dance bands. It is a common configuration for kits sold through mail order, and, with smaller size drums and cymbals, for very young drummers.
[edit]Four-piece
ThinkPad T410-2518
Mitch Mitchell playing a classic four piece kit in the Jimi Hendrix Experience
A four-piece kit extends the three-piece by one tom, either a second hanging tom mounted on the bass drum and often displacing the cymbal, or a floor tom. Normally another cymbal is added as well, so there are separate ride and crash cymbals, either on two stands, or the ride on the ThinkPad T410-2519
bass drum to the player's right and the crash on a stand.
The standard cymbal sizes are 16" crash and 18"-20" ride, with the 20" ride most common.
[edit]Four piece with floor tom
The floor tom is most often 14" for jazz, and 16" otherwise.
Many historic bands and early rock music recordings used this configuration, notable users including Ringo Starr in the Beatles, Mitch Mitchell in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, John Barbata ThinkPad T410-2522
in the Turtles and many others.
The four-piece kit with floor tom remains popular, particularly for jazz.
[edit]Four piece with two hanging toms
If a second hanging tom is used, it is 10" diameter and 8" deep for fusion, or 13" diameter and one inch deeper than the 12" diameter tom otherwise, or very occasionally a 14" diameter hanging tom is added to the 12", both being 8" deep. In any case, both toms are most often ThinkPad T410-2537
mounted on the bass drum with the smaller of the two next to the hi-hats, on the left for a right-handed drummer.
These kits are particularly useful for smaller venues where space is limited.
[edit]Five-piece
ThinkPad T410-2538
A basic five-piece fusion kit, with one crash cymbal and no effects cymbals, complete with throne and sticks
The five-piece kit is the full entry level kit and the most common configuration. It adds a third tom, making three in all.
A fusion kit will normally add a 14" tom, either a floor tom or a hanging tom on a stand to the right of the bass drum, in either case making the tom lineup 10", 12" and 14".
ThinkPad T410-2539
Other kits will normally have 12" and 13" hanging toms plus either a 14" hanging tom on a stand, a 14" floor tom, or a 16" floor tom. For depths, see Tom-tom drum#Modern tom toms. In recent years, it is very popular to have 10" and 12" hanging toms, with a 16" floor tom. This configuration is often called a hybrid setup.[9]
The bass drum is most commonly 20" in diameter, but rock kits may use 22" or 24", jazz 18",[8] and big bands up to 26".
Thinkpad T410I
A second crash cymbal is common, typically an inch or two larger or smaller than the 16", with the larger of the two to the right for a right-handed drummer, but a big band may use crashes up to 27" and ride up to 24" or very occasionally 26". A rock kit may also substitute a larger ride cymbal or larger hi-hats, typically 22" for the ride and 15" for the hats.
Most five-piece kits at more than entry level also have one or more effects cymbals. Adding cymbals beyond the basic ride, hi-hats and one crash configuration requires stands in addition to Thinkpad T410S
that of standard drum hardware packs. Because of this, many higher level kits are sold with little or even no hardware, to allow the drummer to choose the stands and also the bass drum pedal they prefer. At the other extreme, many entry level kits are sold complete with two cymbal stands, most often one straight and one boom, and some even with a standard cymbal pack, a stool and a pair of drum sticks.
[edit]Small kits
ThinkPad T410s-2901
Neo-Rockabilly pioneer Slim Jim Phantom playing a two-piece kit while standing
If the toms are omitted completely, or the bass drum replaced by a pedal-operated beater on the bottom skin of a floor tom and the hanging toms omitted, in either case the result is a two-piece kit. Such kits are particularly favoured in musical genres such as trad jazz, rockabilly and swing ThinkPad T410s-2904
blues.
Some rockabilly kits and beginners kits for very young players omit the hi-hat stand. In rockabilly, this allows the drummer to play standing rather than seated.
Although these kits may be small with respect to the number of drums used, the drums themselves are most often normal sizes, or even larger in the case of the bass drum. Kits using smaller drums in both smaller and larger configurations are also produced for particular uses, ThinkPad T410s-2907
such as boutique kits designed to reduce visual impact or space requirements, travelling kits to reduce luggage volume, and junior kits for very young players. Smaller drums also tend to be quieter, again suiting smaller venues, and many of these kits extend this with easily fitted extra muffling to the point of allowing quiet or even silent practice in a hotel room or bedroom.
[edit]Extended kits
ThinkPad T410s-2912
A professional seven-piece kit with snare, double bass drums, two hanging toms, two hanging floor toms, hi-hats, ride cymbal, three crash cymbals, splash cymbal and china type
Common extensions beyond these standard configurations include:
Effects cymbals, particularly splash cymbals and china cymbals.
Double bass drums. Double bass drums or a double bass pedal are standard for some genres, ThinkPad T410s-2924
particularly in heavy rock music.
Extra hanging toms.
Extra crash cymbals.
A crash/ride cymbal in addition to the main ride.
A second, larger floor tom.
One or more octobans or a pair of mini timbales.
Thinkpad T420
A second pair of hi-hats mounted as cable hats or X-hats.
Cymbal stacks.
Individual tiger, wind or chau gongs.
Multiple ride cymbals. A sizzle cymbal thinner and larger than the main ride was once common as a second ride or crash/ride even in a four-piece kit but is now less so. Jazz drummers however may still have two or more ride cymbals even in a small kit.
Thinkpad T420i
See also other acoustic instruments above. Another versatile extension becoming increasingly common is the use of some electronic drums in a mainly conventional kit.
Less common extensions found particularly but not only in very large kits include:
Multiple snare drums.
Multiple bass drums beyond the double bass drum setup.
Gong drums (single headed bass drums, played with sticks or mallets).
Thinkpad T420S
Sets of gongs, tuned or untuned.
Sound effects such as a thunder sheet.
One or more crotales.
Instruments "borrowed" from orchestral percussion, such as timpani.
Instruments "borrowed" from marching band percussion, such as the tuned bass drums used in the drumline.
Thinkpad T510
A very large kit played by Terry Bozzio
[edit]Accessories
[edit]Sticks
ThinkPad T510-4313
Main article: drum stick
The most common kit drumming sticks are wooden sticks modelled on, or in some cases identical to, those originally designed for use with the snare drum. These come in a variety of weights, conventionally expressed as a number, and tip designs, expressed as a letter following the number, with the higher numbers indicating lighter sticks. Thus, a 7A is a common jazz stick with a wooden tip, while a 7N is the same weight of stick with a nylon tip, and a 7B is a wooden tip but ThinkPad T510-4314
with a different tip profile, shorter and rounder than a 7A. A 5A is a common wood tipped rock stick, heavier than a 7A but with a similar profile. The numbers are most commonly odd but even numbers are used occasionally, in the range 2 (heaviest) to 9 (lightest).
The exact meanings of both numbers and letters differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, and some sticks are not described using this system at all, just being known as Jazz (typically a 7N or 8N) or Heavy Rock (typically a 4B or 5B) for example. The most general purpose stick is a 5A ThinkPad T510-4339
(wood tip, for snare tone) or 5N (nylon tip, for cymbal tone).
Other sticks commonly used are rutes, consisting of a bundle of canes, and wire or nylon drum brushes. More rarely, other beaters such as cartwheel mallets (known to kit drummers as "soft sticks") may be used. It is not uncommon for rock drummers to use the "wrong" end of a stick, and in view of this some makers now produce tipless sticks with two "wrong" ends.
ThinkPad T510-4349
Tools of the trade: 7N, 5B, "double bummer", and side drum No3 sticks, standard 19 cane rutes, sheathed 7 cane rutes, nylon brushes, steel brushes, cartwheels
[edit]Muffles
ThinkPad T510-4384
Mylar muffle ring on snare.
Drum muffles can reduce the ring, overtone frequencies, or volume on a snare, bass, or tom. Controlling the ring is useful in studio or live settings when unwanted frequencies can clash with other instruments in the mix. There are internal and external muffling devices which rest on the inside or outside of the drumhead, respectively.[10] Common types of mufflers include muffling rings, gels and tape, and placing one's wallet near the edge of the head.[11]
ThinkPad T510i-4484
Snare Drum and Tom-Tom Typical ways to muffle a snare or tom is to place an object on the outer edge of the drumhead. A piece of cloth, a wallet, gel, or fitted rings made of mylar are common objects. Also used are external clip-on muffles that work using the same principle. Internal mufflers that lie on the inside of the drumhead are often built into a drum, but are generally considered less effective as external muffles.
Bass Drum Muffling the bass can be achieved with the same muffling techniques as the snare, ThinkPad T510i-4873
but bass drums in a drum kit are more commonly muffled with pillows between the heads. Cutting a small hole in the resonant head can also produce a more muffled tone.
Silencers/Mutes Another type of drum muffler is a piece of rubber that fits over the entire drumhead or cymbal. It interrupts contact between the stick and the head which dampens the sound even more. They are typically used in practice settings.
Exemplary list of companies with muffle products:
Thinkpad T520
Evans
Remo
Pearl Drums
Tama Drums
Vic Firth
Aquarian
Thinkpad T520i
HQ Percussion
Historical Uses Muffled drums are often associated with funeral ceremonies as well, such as the funerals of John F. Kennedy and Queen Victoria.[12][13] The use of muffled drums has been written about by such poets as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Mayne, and Theodore O'Hara.[14][15][16]
[edit]Cases
Thinkpad W510
A five-piece kit in hard cases. From left: Traps case, floor tom case, snare drum case (in front), twin hanging toms case, cymbal case. Rear: Bass drum case.
Three types of protective covers are common for kit drums:
Drum bags are made from robust cloth such as cordura or from cloth-backed vinyl. They give ThinkPad W510-4318
minimal protection, but are adequate for drums transported rarely and in private cars for example, and may be the only option for working drummers starting out, particularly when air travel is involved.
Hard cases are of similar construction to suitcases, commonly of fibre composite.
Flight cases or road cases are standard for touring drummers.
As with all musical instruments, the ultimate protection is afforded by a combination of a hard ThinkPad W510-4319
case or road case, padded on the inside, inside a soft padded bag.
[edit]Microphones
Carl Palmer with rim-mounted tom mikes
In "miking" a drum kit, dynamic microphones, which can handle high sound pressure levels are ThinkPad W510-4387
usually used to close-mic drums while condenser microphones are used for overheads and room mics.[17]
Close miking of drums may be done using stands or by mounting the microphones on the rims of the drums, or even using microphones built in to the drum itself, which eliminates the need for stands for these microphones, reducing both clutter and set-up time. In some styles of music, drummers use electronic effects on drums, such as individual noise gates that mute the attached ThinkPad W510-4389
microphone when the signal is below a threshold volume. This allows the sound engineer to use a higher overall volume for the drum kit by reducing the number of "active" mics which could feed back at any one time.
[edit]Drum screens
Main article: drum screen
ThinkPad W510-4391
Tris Imboden using a perspex drum screen
In some styles or settings, such as country music clubs or churches, the drummer may use a perspex or plexiglass screen to dampen the onstage volume of the drums.
A screen that surrounds the drummer is known as a drum booth.
[edit]Carpets
ThinkPad W510-4875
Two hi-hat stands both with retractible spikes extended
Drummers who play in different venues generally carry carpeting or mats. The primary purpose of this is to prevent the bass drum and hi-hat stand from slipping on a wooden floor or similar slippery surface.
ThinkPad W510-4876
The carpet also reduces short reverberation (which is generally but not always an advantage), and helps to prevent damage to the flooring or floor coverings.
Bass drums and hi-hat stands commonly have retractable spikes to help them to grip on surfaces such as carpet.
[edit]Practice equipment
Thinkpad X220
Practice pad on snare drum stand
Drummers often use a variety of accessories when they are practicing. Metronomes and beat counters are used to develop a steady rhythm. Drum muffling pads may be used to lessen the volume of drums during practicing.
A practice pad, either held on the lap or mounted on a stand, is used for silent practice with Thinkpad X220i
drumsticks. A set of practice pads mounted to simulate an entire drum kit is known as a practice kit; These have largely been superseded by electronic drums and kits with non-sounding mesh heads.
[edit]Playing
[edit]Grooves
Thinkpad X220s
Main article: drum beat
The basic common time groove with bass (bottom), back beat snare, and cymbal (top) is common in popular music play (help·info)
Thinkpad X220T
A swing groove, common in jazz and early rock music, with the complex time shuffle rhythm understood as is traditional rather than explicit. Play (help·info)
Kit drumming, whether playing accompaniment of voices and other instruments or solo, consists of two elements:
A groove which sets the feel and provides a framework.
Acer TravelMate 2352NLCi Keyboard
Drum fills and other ornaments and variations which provide variety and substance.
[edit]Fills
Main article: drum fill
A fill is a departure from the repetitive rhythm. Fills vary from a simple, single stroke on a tom, to sequences several bars long that are short drum solos in themselves.
Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
As well as simply adding interest and variation to the music, fills serve an important function in preparing and supporting significant events in the music. A vocal cue is a short drum fill that introduces a vocal entry. A fill ending on a cymbal crash on beat one is often used to lead in to a chorus or verse.
[edit]Grips
Main article: grip (percussion)
Acer TravelMate 2353LC Keyboard
Most drummers hold the drumsticks in one of two types of grip:
The traditional grip, originally developed for playing the military side drum, most commonly with an overhand grip for the right hand and an underhand grip for the left.
The matched grip, in which the sticks are held in similar (but mirror image) fashion.
Within these two types, there is still considerable variation, and even disagreements as to exactly how the stick is held in a particular method. For example, Jim Chapin, an early and influential Acer TravelMate 2353LCi Keyboard
exponent of the Moeller method, asserts that the technique does not rely on rebound,[18] while Dave Weckl asserts that it does rely on rebound.[19]
[edit]Notation
Main article: percussion notation
Acer TravelMate 2353LM Keyboard
Neutral or percussion clef, two versions
Drum kit music is most commonly written on a standard five-line staff. These days a special percussion clef is used, while previously the bass clef was used. However even if bass or no clef is
used, each line and space is assigned an instrument of the kit rather than to a note.
More specifically, a modern kit (for a right handed player), as used in popular music, taught in many music schools, and for which qualifications are available from Trinity College London[3] consists of:
A snare drum, mounted on a specialised stand, placed between the player's knees and played Ideapad B470
with drum sticks (which may include rutes or brushes).
A bass drum, played by a pedal operated by the right foot.
A hi-hat stand and cymbals, operated by the left foot and played with the sticks, particularly but not only the right hand stick.
One or more tom-tom drums, played with the sticks.
One or more suspended cymbals, played with the sticks, particularly but not only the right hand IdeaPad G460
stick.
A drum kit is usually played seated on a drum stool or throne.
Most drummers extend their kits from this basic pattern, adding more drums, more cymbals, and many other instruments. In some styles of music particular extensions are normal, for example double bass drums in heavy metal music. On the other extreme but more rarely, some performers omit elements from even the basic setup, again particularly for particular styles of IdeaPad G465
music.
Louis Moholo playing a four-piece kit
Contents [hide]
1 History
IdeaPad G465A
1.1 Beginnings
1.2 Development
1.3 Rock and Roll
1.4 Recording
2 Components
2.1 Drums
2.1.1 Drum sizes
2.1.2 Snare drum
2.1.3 Toms
2.1.4 Bass drum
2.1.5 Other drums
2.2 Cymbals
Ideapad G470AH
2.2.1 Ride cymbal
2.2.2 Hi-hats
2.2.3 Crashes
2.2.4 Other cymbals
2.3 Other acoustic instruments
2.4 Electronic drums
2.5 Hardware
3 Common configurations
3.1 Three-piece
3.2 Four-piece
3.2.1 Four piece with floor tom
3.2.2 Four piece with two hanging toms
Ideapad G475
3.3 Five-piece
3.4 Small kits
3.5 Extended kits
4 Accessories
4.1 Sticks
4.2 Muffles
4.3 Cases
4.4 Microphones
4.5 Drum screens
4.6 Carpets
4.7 Practice equipment
5 Playing
IdeaPad G550A
5.1 Grooves
5.2 Fills
5.3 Grips
5.4 Notation
6 Audio samples
7 See also
IdeaPad G550M
8 References
9 External links
[edit]History
IdeaPad G550S
Kit with bass drum pedal and low sock, 1935
[edit]Beginnings
The first recognizable ancestors of the modern drum kit were born in the Vaudeville era. Pecuniary and theater space considerations demanded that fewer percussionists covered more percussion parts. In military and orchestral music settings, drums and cymbals were traditionally played separately by one or many percussionists. The bass drum, snare drum, cymbals and other IdeaPad G555
percussion instruments were all played using hand-held drum sticks. Circa 1890, experimentation with foot pedals began. Many patented their systems such as Dee Dee Chandler of New Orleans 1904-05.[4] Liberating the hands for the first time, this evolution saw the bass drum played (first standing) with the foot of a percussionist and became the central piece around which every other percussion instruments would later revolve. Ludwig-Musser, William F. Ludwig Senior and his brother Theodor Ludwig founded the Ludwig & Ludwig Co. in 1909 and patented the first IdeaPad G555AX
workable bass drum pedal system, paving the way for what was to become the modern drum kit.
[edit]Development
Kit with four non-tunable toms, 1939
Ideapad G560
Gene Krupa, 1946
Louis Bellson, 1952
By World War I drum kits were characterized by very large bold marching bass drums and many Ideapad G565
percussion items suspended on and around them, and they became a central part of jazz music, specifically (but not limited to) dixieland. Metal consoles were developed to hold Chinese tom-toms, with swing out stands for snare drums and cymbals. On top of the console was a "contraption" (shortened to "trap") tray used to hold whistles, klaxons, and cowbells, thus drum Ideapad S10
kits were dubbed "trap kits." Hi-hat stands appeared around 1926.
By the 1930s, Ben Duncan and others popularized streamlined trap kits leading to a basic four piece drum set standard: bass, snare, tom-tom, and floor tom. In time legs were fitted to larger floor toms, and "consolettes" were devised to hold smaller tom-toms on the bass drum. In the 1940s, Louie Bellson pioneered use of two bass drums, or the double bass drum kit. Gene Krupa was the first drummer to head his own orchestra and thrust the drums into the spotlight with his IdeaPad S10 20015
drum solos. Others would soon follow his lead. Krupa is also known to be the first to record a drum solo on a commercial record.
Influential drummers of the jazz tradition included Gene Krupa, "Papa" Jo Jones, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Joe Morello and many more.
[edit]Rock and Roll
IdeaPad S10 4231
John Bonham, 1975
With the ascendance of rock and roll, a watershed moment occurred between 1962 and 1964 when the Surfaris released "Wipe Out," and when Ringo Starr of The Beatles played his Ludwig kit on American television; events that motivated legions to take up the drums.
Ideapad S10-2
A trend towards bigger drum kits in Rock music began in the 1960s and gained momentum in the 1970s. By the 1980s, widely popular drummers like Billy Cobham, Carl Palmer, Nicko McBrain, Phil Collins, Stewart Copeland and perhaps most notably Neil Peart were using large numbers of drums and cymbals and had also begun using electronic drums. In the 1990s and 2000s, many drummers in popular music and indie music have reverted back to basic four piece drum set standard.
IdeaPad S10C
In the 21st century, it is not uncommon for drummers to use a variety of auxiliary percussion instruments, found objects, and electronics as part of their "drum" kits. Popular electronics include: electronic sound modules; laptop computers used to activate loops, sequences and samples; metronomes and tempo meters; recording devices; and personal sound reinforcement equipment (e.g., a small PA system to amplify electronic drums and provide a monitor for singing).
Ideapad S10E
[edit]Recording
On early recording mediums (until 1925[5]) such as wax cylinders and discs carved with an engraving needle, sound balancing meant that musicians had to be literally moved in the room.[5] Drums were often put far from the horn (part of the mechanical transducer) to reduce sound IdeaPad S10e 4068
distortion. Since this affected the rendition of cymbals at playback, sound engineers of the time remedied the situation by asking drummers to play the content of the cymbals onto woodblocks, temple blocks and cowbells for their loudness and short decay.
This recording-specific particularity had the effect of altering the evolution of the drum set and of stigmatizing the sound of the music recorded at the time. The drum kit featured in many of rock and roll songs and the Rock and Roll period played a big role in modernizing the drum kit.
IdeaPad S10e 4187
[edit]Components
Foreground: Snare drums. Background: Hi-hat cymbals.
[edit]Drums
[Ideapad S9
edit]Drum sizes
See Common configurations below for typical drum sizes.
Traditionally, drum sizes were expressed as depth x diameter, both in inches. More recently, many drum kit manufacturers have begun instead to express the size as diameter x depth, again in inches.
Manufacturers still using the traditional format in their catalogues include:
IdeaPad S9e 4187
ddrum
Drum Workshop
Gretsch Drums
Ludwig-Musser
Slingerland Drum Company
Tama Drums
Ideapad U330
while those using diameter x depth include:
Brady Drum Company
Mapex Drums
Meinl Percussion[6]
Pearl Drums
Premier Percussion
Ideapad U550
Rogers Drums
Sonor
Yamaha Drums
For example, a hanging tom 12" in diameter and 8" deep would be described by Tama as 8x12, but by Pearl as 12x8, and a standard diameter Ludwig snare drum 5" deep is a 5x14, while a Premier of the same dimensions is a 14x5.
Ideapad V470
[edit]Snare drum
Snare drum on a modern light-duty snare drum stand
Ideapad Y300
Main article: snare drum
The snare drum is the centre of the kit. It provides the strongest regular accents, played by the left hand, and the backbone for many fills.
[edit]Toms
Ideapad Y330
Keith Moon with a mixture of concert toms and conventional toms, 1975
Main article: tom-tom drum
Tom-tom drums or toms for short are drums without snares and played with sticks, and are the most numerous drums in almost all kits. They provide the bulk of most drum fills and solos.
They include:
Traditional double-headed rack toms, of varying depths.
Ideapad Y410
Floor toms.
Single-headed concert toms.
Rototoms.
The smallest and largest drums without snares, such as octobans and gong drums, are sometimes considered toms and sometimes not, and if not there are many borderline cases.
The naming of common configurations is largely a reflection of the number of toms, as only the Ideapad Y430
drums are conventionally counted, and these configurations all contain one snare and one or more rarely two bass drums, the balance being toms.
[edit]Bass drum
A drum kit bass drum
IdeaPad Y430 2781
Main article: bass drum
The bass drum gives a regular but often varied foundation to the rhythm. Beginners tend to play simple bass drum patterns, moderate players complex ones with many strokes, and accomplished players more subtle ones with fewer strokes.
[edit]Other drums
Octobans were designed for use in a drum kit, extending the tom range upwards in pitch.
IdeaPad Y430a
Anders Johansson with an array of Oktobans
Timbales are tuned much higher than a tom of the same diameter, and normally played with very light sticks. They have relatively thin, fragile heads and a very different tone to a tom, but are IdeaPad Y430g
used by some drummers to extend the tom range upwards. Alternatively, they can be fitted with tom heads and tuned as shallow concert toms. Attack Timbales and mini timbales are reduced diameter timbales designed specifically for drum kit usage, the smaller diameter allowing for thicker heads for the same pitch and head tension.
Similarly, most hand drums cannot be played with drum sticks without risking damage to the head and to the bearing edge, which is not protected by a drum rim. For use in a drum kit they Ideapad Y450
may be fitted with a suitable drum head and played with care, or played by hand.
[edit]Cymbals
Cymbal innovator Mike Portnoy with many cymbals, 2006
Cymbals are as important in most drum kits as the drums themselves.
Ideapad Y450A
Beginners cymbal packs normally contain four cymbals: one ride, one crash, and a pair of hi-hats. A few contain only three cymbals, using a crash/ride instead of the separate ride and crash. The sizes closely follow those given in Common configurations below.
Most drummers soon extend this by adding another crash, a splash or a china, or even all three.
[edit]Ride cymbal
Main article: ride cymbal
Ideapad Y450AW
The ride cymbal is most often used to keep a constant rhythm, every beat or more often. Development of this ride technique is generally credited to Baby Dodds.[7]
Most drummers have a single main ride, near their right hand, most often 20" but 16"-24" are not uncommon. It is most often a heavy, standard cymbal, but some drummers use a swish cymbal, sizzle cymbal or other exotic as the main or only ride, particularly for jazz. In the 1960s Ringo Starr used a sizzle cymbal as a second ride particularly for use during guitar solos.
Ideapad Y510
[edit]Hi-hats
Main article: hi-hat
The hi-hat has a similar function to the ride cymbal; The two are rarely played at once, but one or the other keeps the fine rhythm much of the time, played by the right stick of a right-handed Ideapad Y520
drummer. Changing between ride and hi-hat, or between either and a leaner sound with neither, is often used to mark a change from one passage to another, for example to distinguish verse and chorus.
[edit]Crashes
Main article: crash cymbal
The crash cymbals are the strongest accents, marking crescendos and climaxes, vocal entries, and Ideapad Y550
major changes of mood. A cymbal crash is often accompanied by a strong kick on the bass drum pedal, both for musical effect and to support the stroke.
In the very smallest kits, in jazz, and at very high volumes, ride cymbals may be used as crashes. Some hi-hats will also give a useful crash, particularly thinner hats or those with an unusually severe taper. At low volumes, producing a good crash from a cymbal not particularly suited to it is a highly skilled art. Alternatively, specialised crash/ride and ride/crash cymbals are specifically Ideapad Y550A
designed to combine both functions.
[edit]Other cymbals
Main article: effects cymbal
Cymbals other than rides, hi-hats and crashes are called effects cymbals when used in a drum kit.
Most extended kits include one or more splash cymbals and at least one china cymbal. Major cymbal makers produce cymbal extension packs consisting of one splash and one china, or more Ideapad Y550P
rarely a second crash, a splash and a china, to match some of their starter packs of ride, crash and hi-hats.
[edit]Other acoustic instruments
Günter Sommer with bodhrán and bongo drums in his kit
IdeaPad Y710
Other instruments that have regularly been incorporated into drum kits include:
Wood block and cowbell. These are traditional in some forms of music.
Tambourine, particularly mounted on the hi-hat stand above the cymbals. An ordinary tambourine can be used, or a tambourine produced specially for drum kit use.
Timbales can be used to extend the ring of tom-toms, particularly when the drummer owns them for other reasons. A traditional timbale is tuned far higher than a tom of the same diameter, so IdeaPad Y710 4054
the result is not ideal. Some makers produce smaller timbales 8" or 10" in diameter more suited to drum kit usage, see Timbales#Non-traditional use.
Xylophone or glockenspiel.
Tubular bells.
Gongs.
Bar chimes.
IdeaPad Y730
Triangles.
Found objects, including spanners, brake drums, buckets, cardboard boxes, and jam and kerosene tins.
See also Extended kits below.
[edit]Electronic drums
IdeaPad Y730 4053
Trigger sensors in use, here they are red and mounted on the rims of the snare drum, bass drum and hanging toms. The larger box in the same colour red is the "brain" to which they are connected.
IdeaPad Y730a
A Korg trigger pad
Pat Mastelotto playing a kit with both acoustic and electronic drums, 2005
Main article: Electronic drums
As well as providing an alternative to a conventional drum kit, electronic drums can be Ideapad Y810
incorporated into a kit.
This is possible in two ways:
Triggers are sensors that can be attached to drum kit components. In this way, an electronic drum sound will be produced when the instrument is played, as well as the sound made by the instrument.
Trigger pads can be mounted alongside other components. These pads make no significant sound ThinkPad Edge E120
themselves, but purely trigger the electronic sound, and are played with the same drum sticks as other drum kit components.
In either case, a control unit (brain) with suitable sampled sounds, and amplification equipment are both required. Sometimes, for the sake of appearance or of the desired "feel" of the instrument, a drum with a trigger will be used as a trigger pad by muffling it so heavily that no significant sound at all is produced, see Electronic drum#Acoustic triggered drum kit.
ThinkPad Edge E125
A trigger pad can contain up to four independent sensors, each of them capable of sending to the brain information describing the timing and intensity of a stroke. A circular drum pad will normally contain only one sensor, but a cymbal-shaped pad often contains two, one for the body and one for the rim of the cymbal, and a triangular pad may contain four, one for the body, played by the stick tips, and one for the rim of each side, played by the stick shafts. (Commonly called a rim shot and often used to trigger a similar effect, playing the rim of the trigger pad is a ThinkPad Edge E220s
significantly different and far simpler technique, as it is not necessary or even desired to strike the body of the pad.)
Trigger sensors are most commonly used to replace the acoustic drum sounds. For example, in a live performance in a difficult acoustical space, a sensor may be placed on every drum and cymbal, and used in each case to trigger a similar sound. These sounds are then amplified through the PA and are all the audience hears, and can be amplified to any level without the ThinkPad Edge E520
feedback problems associated with microphones. The sound of the drums and cymbals themselves is heard by the drummer and possibly other musicians, but even there the foldback system will be fed from the electronic sounds rather than the live sounds. The drums can be heavily muffled, and their tuning and even quality is less critical. In this way much of the atmosphere of the live performance is retained but without some of the problems associated with amplified drums.
ThinkPad Edge E520s
Trigger sensors can also be used in conjunction with conventional or built-in microphones. If some components of a kit prove more difficult to "mike" than others, sensors may be used on only the more difficult instruments.
Trigger pads on the other hand when used in a conventional kit are most commonly used to produce sounds not otherwise available. Any sound that can be sampled can be used. Recordings of barking dogs and stereo recordings of aircraft taking off and landing have for example been ThinkPad Edge E525
used to great effect, as well as the more obvious electronically generated sounds.
[edit]Hardware
Main article: drum hardware
Hardware is the name given to the stands that support the instruments. Generally the term also includes the hi-hat pedal and bass drum pedal or pedals, and the drum stool, but not the drum sticks.
Thinkpad T400S
Hardware is carried along with sticks and other accessories in the traps case, and includes:
Cymbal stands.
Hi-hat stand.
Floor tom feet.
Hanging tom brackets or arms.
Snare drum stand.
ThinkPad T400S-2808
Bass drum pedal or pedals.
Particularly for large kits, many or even all of the stands may be replaced by a drum rack.
[edit]Common configurations
ThinkPad T400S-2815
A two-piece kit in action
Drum kits are traditionally categorised by the number of drums, ignoring cymbals and other instruments. Snare, tom-tom and bass drums are always counted; Other drums such as octobans may or may not be counted.[8]
The sizes of drums and cymbals given below are typical. Many drummers differ slightly or radically from them. Where no size is given, it is because there is too much variety to call a typical Thinkpad T410
size.
[edit]Three-piece
Three-piece set for a young player: 16" bass, 10" snare, one 10" hanging tom
A basic, conventional three-piece kit consists of bass drum, 14" diameter snare drum, 12"-14" ThinkPad T410-2516
hi-hats, and a single 12" diameter hanging tom 8"-9" in depth and a suspended cymbal in the range 14"-18", both mounted on the bass drum.
Such kits were common in the 1950s and 1960s and may still be found in small acoustic dance bands. It is a common configuration for kits sold through mail order, and, with smaller size drums and cymbals, for very young drummers.
[edit]Four-piece
ThinkPad T410-2518
Mitch Mitchell playing a classic four piece kit in the Jimi Hendrix Experience
A four-piece kit extends the three-piece by one tom, either a second hanging tom mounted on the bass drum and often displacing the cymbal, or a floor tom. Normally another cymbal is added as well, so there are separate ride and crash cymbals, either on two stands, or the ride on the ThinkPad T410-2519
bass drum to the player's right and the crash on a stand.
The standard cymbal sizes are 16" crash and 18"-20" ride, with the 20" ride most common.
[edit]Four piece with floor tom
The floor tom is most often 14" for jazz, and 16" otherwise.
Many historic bands and early rock music recordings used this configuration, notable users including Ringo Starr in the Beatles, Mitch Mitchell in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, John Barbata ThinkPad T410-2522
in the Turtles and many others.
The four-piece kit with floor tom remains popular, particularly for jazz.
[edit]Four piece with two hanging toms
If a second hanging tom is used, it is 10" diameter and 8" deep for fusion, or 13" diameter and one inch deeper than the 12" diameter tom otherwise, or very occasionally a 14" diameter hanging tom is added to the 12", both being 8" deep. In any case, both toms are most often ThinkPad T410-2537
mounted on the bass drum with the smaller of the two next to the hi-hats, on the left for a right-handed drummer.
These kits are particularly useful for smaller venues where space is limited.
[edit]Five-piece
ThinkPad T410-2538
A basic five-piece fusion kit, with one crash cymbal and no effects cymbals, complete with throne and sticks
The five-piece kit is the full entry level kit and the most common configuration. It adds a third tom, making three in all.
A fusion kit will normally add a 14" tom, either a floor tom or a hanging tom on a stand to the right of the bass drum, in either case making the tom lineup 10", 12" and 14".
ThinkPad T410-2539
Other kits will normally have 12" and 13" hanging toms plus either a 14" hanging tom on a stand, a 14" floor tom, or a 16" floor tom. For depths, see Tom-tom drum#Modern tom toms. In recent years, it is very popular to have 10" and 12" hanging toms, with a 16" floor tom. This configuration is often called a hybrid setup.[9]
The bass drum is most commonly 20" in diameter, but rock kits may use 22" or 24", jazz 18",[8] and big bands up to 26".
Thinkpad T410I
A second crash cymbal is common, typically an inch or two larger or smaller than the 16", with the larger of the two to the right for a right-handed drummer, but a big band may use crashes up to 27" and ride up to 24" or very occasionally 26". A rock kit may also substitute a larger ride cymbal or larger hi-hats, typically 22" for the ride and 15" for the hats.
Most five-piece kits at more than entry level also have one or more effects cymbals. Adding cymbals beyond the basic ride, hi-hats and one crash configuration requires stands in addition to Thinkpad T410S
that of standard drum hardware packs. Because of this, many higher level kits are sold with little or even no hardware, to allow the drummer to choose the stands and also the bass drum pedal they prefer. At the other extreme, many entry level kits are sold complete with two cymbal stands, most often one straight and one boom, and some even with a standard cymbal pack, a stool and a pair of drum sticks.
[edit]Small kits
ThinkPad T410s-2901
Neo-Rockabilly pioneer Slim Jim Phantom playing a two-piece kit while standing
If the toms are omitted completely, or the bass drum replaced by a pedal-operated beater on the bottom skin of a floor tom and the hanging toms omitted, in either case the result is a two-piece kit. Such kits are particularly favoured in musical genres such as trad jazz, rockabilly and swing ThinkPad T410s-2904
blues.
Some rockabilly kits and beginners kits for very young players omit the hi-hat stand. In rockabilly, this allows the drummer to play standing rather than seated.
Although these kits may be small with respect to the number of drums used, the drums themselves are most often normal sizes, or even larger in the case of the bass drum. Kits using smaller drums in both smaller and larger configurations are also produced for particular uses, ThinkPad T410s-2907
such as boutique kits designed to reduce visual impact or space requirements, travelling kits to reduce luggage volume, and junior kits for very young players. Smaller drums also tend to be quieter, again suiting smaller venues, and many of these kits extend this with easily fitted extra muffling to the point of allowing quiet or even silent practice in a hotel room or bedroom.
[edit]Extended kits
ThinkPad T410s-2912
A professional seven-piece kit with snare, double bass drums, two hanging toms, two hanging floor toms, hi-hats, ride cymbal, three crash cymbals, splash cymbal and china type
Common extensions beyond these standard configurations include:
Effects cymbals, particularly splash cymbals and china cymbals.
Double bass drums. Double bass drums or a double bass pedal are standard for some genres, ThinkPad T410s-2924
particularly in heavy rock music.
Extra hanging toms.
Extra crash cymbals.
A crash/ride cymbal in addition to the main ride.
A second, larger floor tom.
One or more octobans or a pair of mini timbales.
Thinkpad T420
A second pair of hi-hats mounted as cable hats or X-hats.
Cymbal stacks.
Individual tiger, wind or chau gongs.
Multiple ride cymbals. A sizzle cymbal thinner and larger than the main ride was once common as a second ride or crash/ride even in a four-piece kit but is now less so. Jazz drummers however may still have two or more ride cymbals even in a small kit.
Thinkpad T420i
See also other acoustic instruments above. Another versatile extension becoming increasingly common is the use of some electronic drums in a mainly conventional kit.
Less common extensions found particularly but not only in very large kits include:
Multiple snare drums.
Multiple bass drums beyond the double bass drum setup.
Gong drums (single headed bass drums, played with sticks or mallets).
Thinkpad T420S
Sets of gongs, tuned or untuned.
Sound effects such as a thunder sheet.
One or more crotales.
Instruments "borrowed" from orchestral percussion, such as timpani.
Instruments "borrowed" from marching band percussion, such as the tuned bass drums used in the drumline.
Thinkpad T510
A very large kit played by Terry Bozzio
[edit]Accessories
[edit]Sticks
ThinkPad T510-4313
Main article: drum stick
The most common kit drumming sticks are wooden sticks modelled on, or in some cases identical to, those originally designed for use with the snare drum. These come in a variety of weights, conventionally expressed as a number, and tip designs, expressed as a letter following the number, with the higher numbers indicating lighter sticks. Thus, a 7A is a common jazz stick with a wooden tip, while a 7N is the same weight of stick with a nylon tip, and a 7B is a wooden tip but ThinkPad T510-4314
with a different tip profile, shorter and rounder than a 7A. A 5A is a common wood tipped rock stick, heavier than a 7A but with a similar profile. The numbers are most commonly odd but even numbers are used occasionally, in the range 2 (heaviest) to 9 (lightest).
The exact meanings of both numbers and letters differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, and some sticks are not described using this system at all, just being known as Jazz (typically a 7N or 8N) or Heavy Rock (typically a 4B or 5B) for example. The most general purpose stick is a 5A ThinkPad T510-4339
(wood tip, for snare tone) or 5N (nylon tip, for cymbal tone).
Other sticks commonly used are rutes, consisting of a bundle of canes, and wire or nylon drum brushes. More rarely, other beaters such as cartwheel mallets (known to kit drummers as "soft sticks") may be used. It is not uncommon for rock drummers to use the "wrong" end of a stick, and in view of this some makers now produce tipless sticks with two "wrong" ends.
ThinkPad T510-4349
Tools of the trade: 7N, 5B, "double bummer", and side drum No3 sticks, standard 19 cane rutes, sheathed 7 cane rutes, nylon brushes, steel brushes, cartwheels
[edit]Muffles
ThinkPad T510-4384
Mylar muffle ring on snare.
Drum muffles can reduce the ring, overtone frequencies, or volume on a snare, bass, or tom. Controlling the ring is useful in studio or live settings when unwanted frequencies can clash with other instruments in the mix. There are internal and external muffling devices which rest on the inside or outside of the drumhead, respectively.[10] Common types of mufflers include muffling rings, gels and tape, and placing one's wallet near the edge of the head.[11]
ThinkPad T510i-4484
Snare Drum and Tom-Tom Typical ways to muffle a snare or tom is to place an object on the outer edge of the drumhead. A piece of cloth, a wallet, gel, or fitted rings made of mylar are common objects. Also used are external clip-on muffles that work using the same principle. Internal mufflers that lie on the inside of the drumhead are often built into a drum, but are generally considered less effective as external muffles.
Bass Drum Muffling the bass can be achieved with the same muffling techniques as the snare, ThinkPad T510i-4873
but bass drums in a drum kit are more commonly muffled with pillows between the heads. Cutting a small hole in the resonant head can also produce a more muffled tone.
Silencers/Mutes Another type of drum muffler is a piece of rubber that fits over the entire drumhead or cymbal. It interrupts contact between the stick and the head which dampens the sound even more. They are typically used in practice settings.
Exemplary list of companies with muffle products:
Thinkpad T520
Evans
Remo
Pearl Drums
Tama Drums
Vic Firth
Aquarian
Thinkpad T520i
HQ Percussion
Historical Uses Muffled drums are often associated with funeral ceremonies as well, such as the funerals of John F. Kennedy and Queen Victoria.[12][13] The use of muffled drums has been written about by such poets as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Mayne, and Theodore O'Hara.[14][15][16]
[edit]Cases
Thinkpad W510
A five-piece kit in hard cases. From left: Traps case, floor tom case, snare drum case (in front), twin hanging toms case, cymbal case. Rear: Bass drum case.
Three types of protective covers are common for kit drums:
Drum bags are made from robust cloth such as cordura or from cloth-backed vinyl. They give ThinkPad W510-4318
minimal protection, but are adequate for drums transported rarely and in private cars for example, and may be the only option for working drummers starting out, particularly when air travel is involved.
Hard cases are of similar construction to suitcases, commonly of fibre composite.
Flight cases or road cases are standard for touring drummers.
As with all musical instruments, the ultimate protection is afforded by a combination of a hard ThinkPad W510-4319
case or road case, padded on the inside, inside a soft padded bag.
[edit]Microphones
Carl Palmer with rim-mounted tom mikes
In "miking" a drum kit, dynamic microphones, which can handle high sound pressure levels are ThinkPad W510-4387
usually used to close-mic drums while condenser microphones are used for overheads and room mics.[17]
Close miking of drums may be done using stands or by mounting the microphones on the rims of the drums, or even using microphones built in to the drum itself, which eliminates the need for stands for these microphones, reducing both clutter and set-up time. In some styles of music, drummers use electronic effects on drums, such as individual noise gates that mute the attached ThinkPad W510-4389
microphone when the signal is below a threshold volume. This allows the sound engineer to use a higher overall volume for the drum kit by reducing the number of "active" mics which could feed back at any one time.
[edit]Drum screens
Main article: drum screen
ThinkPad W510-4391
Tris Imboden using a perspex drum screen
In some styles or settings, such as country music clubs or churches, the drummer may use a perspex or plexiglass screen to dampen the onstage volume of the drums.
A screen that surrounds the drummer is known as a drum booth.
[edit]Carpets
ThinkPad W510-4875
Two hi-hat stands both with retractible spikes extended
Drummers who play in different venues generally carry carpeting or mats. The primary purpose of this is to prevent the bass drum and hi-hat stand from slipping on a wooden floor or similar slippery surface.
ThinkPad W510-4876
The carpet also reduces short reverberation (which is generally but not always an advantage), and helps to prevent damage to the flooring or floor coverings.
Bass drums and hi-hat stands commonly have retractable spikes to help them to grip on surfaces such as carpet.
[edit]Practice equipment
Thinkpad X220
Practice pad on snare drum stand
Drummers often use a variety of accessories when they are practicing. Metronomes and beat counters are used to develop a steady rhythm. Drum muffling pads may be used to lessen the volume of drums during practicing.
A practice pad, either held on the lap or mounted on a stand, is used for silent practice with Thinkpad X220i
drumsticks. A set of practice pads mounted to simulate an entire drum kit is known as a practice kit; These have largely been superseded by electronic drums and kits with non-sounding mesh heads.
[edit]Playing
[edit]Grooves
Thinkpad X220s
Main article: drum beat
The basic common time groove with bass (bottom), back beat snare, and cymbal (top) is common in popular music play (help·info)
Thinkpad X220T
A swing groove, common in jazz and early rock music, with the complex time shuffle rhythm understood as is traditional rather than explicit. Play (help·info)
Kit drumming, whether playing accompaniment of voices and other instruments or solo, consists of two elements:
A groove which sets the feel and provides a framework.
Acer TravelMate 2352NLCi Keyboard
Drum fills and other ornaments and variations which provide variety and substance.
[edit]Fills
Main article: drum fill
A fill is a departure from the repetitive rhythm. Fills vary from a simple, single stroke on a tom, to sequences several bars long that are short drum solos in themselves.
Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
As well as simply adding interest and variation to the music, fills serve an important function in preparing and supporting significant events in the music. A vocal cue is a short drum fill that introduces a vocal entry. A fill ending on a cymbal crash on beat one is often used to lead in to a chorus or verse.
[edit]Grips
Main article: grip (percussion)
Acer TravelMate 2353LC Keyboard
Most drummers hold the drumsticks in one of two types of grip:
The traditional grip, originally developed for playing the military side drum, most commonly with an overhand grip for the right hand and an underhand grip for the left.
The matched grip, in which the sticks are held in similar (but mirror image) fashion.
Within these two types, there is still considerable variation, and even disagreements as to exactly how the stick is held in a particular method. For example, Jim Chapin, an early and influential Acer TravelMate 2353LCi Keyboard
exponent of the Moeller method, asserts that the technique does not rely on rebound,[18] while Dave Weckl asserts that it does rely on rebound.[19]
[edit]Notation
Main article: percussion notation
Acer TravelMate 2353LM Keyboard
Neutral or percussion clef, two versions
Drum kit music is most commonly written on a standard five-line staff. These days a special percussion clef is used, while previously the bass clef was used. However even if bass or no clef is
used, each line and space is assigned an instrument of the kit rather than to a note.
Oldham
Oldham ( /ˈoʊldəm/) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England.[1] It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, 5.3 miles (8.5 km) south-southeast of Rochdale, and 6.9 miles (11.1 km) northeast of the city of Manchester. Oldham is surrounded by several smaller towns that together form the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, of which Oldham is the administrative centre.
Historically a part of Lancashire, and with little early history to speak of, Oldham rose to HP Pavilion dv5z-1000 CTO Keyboard
prominence during the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and among the first ever industrialised towns, rapidly becoming "one of the most important centres of cotton and textile industries in England".[2] At its zenith, it was the most productive cotton spinning mill town in the world,[3][4] spinning more cotton than France and Germany combined.[5] Oldham's textile industry began to fall into decline during the mid-20th century, and its last mill closed in 1998.
HP Pavilion dv5z-1100 CTO Keyboard
The demise of textile processing in Oldham depressed the local economy.[6] Today Oldham is a predominantly residential town, and a centre for further education and the performing arts.[7] It is, however, still distinguished architecturally by the surviving cotton mills and other buildings associated with that industry. The town's population of 103,544[8] lives in an area of around 26 square miles (67 km2).[9]
Contents [hide]
HP Pavilion dv5z-1200 CTO Keyboard
1 History
1.1 Toponymy
1.2 Early history
1.3 Industrial Revolution and cotton
1.3.1 Engineering
1.3.2 Coal mining
HP Pavilion DV6-1000 Keyboard
1.4 Social history
2 Governance
2.1 Civic history
2.2 Parliamentary representation
3 Geography
3.1 Divisions and suburbs
HP Pavilion DV6-1000 cto Keyboard
4 Demography
5 Economy
6 Landmarks
6.1 Town Hall
6.2 War memorial
6.3 Civic Centre
HP Pavilion DV6-1000eg Keyboard
6.4 Parish Church
7 Transport
8 Sports
9 Education
10 Public services
11 Culture
HP Pavilion DV6-1000et Keyboard
11.1 Communal facilities
11.2 Carnival
12 Notable people
13 References
14 Bibliography
15 External links
HP Pavilion DV6-1001tx Keyboard
History
Main article: History of Oldham
Toponymy
The toponymy of Oldham seems to imply "old village or place" from Eald (Saxon) signifying oldness or antiquity, and Ham (Saxon) a house, farm or hamlet.[10] However, Oldham is known to HP Pavilion DV6-1001xx Keyboard
be a derivative of Aldehulme; undoubtedly an Old Norse name.[11] It is believed to be derived from the Old English ald combined with the Old Norse holmi or holmr, meaning "old promontory or outcrop", possibly describing the town's hilltop position.[11] It has alternatively been suggested that it may mean "holm or hulme of a farmer named Alda".[11] The name is understood to date from 865, during the period of the Danelaw.[11]
Early history
HP Pavilion DV6-1002tx Keyboard
The earliest known evidence of a human presence in what is now Oldham is attested by the discovery of Neolithic flint arrow-heads and workings found at Werneth and Besom Hill, implying habitation 7–10,000 years ago.[11] Evidence of later Roman and Celtic activity is confirmed by an ancient Roman road and Bronze Age archaeological relics found at various sites within the town.[11] Placenames of Celtic origin are still to be found in Oldham, Werneth derives from a Celtic personal name identical to the Gaulish vernetum and Glodwick contains the element clawd HP Pavilion DV6-1003tx Keyboard
which means "ditch" in Modern Welsh.[12] Chadderton is also pre-Anglo-Saxon in origin, from the Old Welsh cadeir, itself deriving from the Latin cathedra meaning "chair".[13] Although Anglo-Saxons occupied territory around the area centuries earlier,[11][14] Oldham as a permanent, named place of dwelling is believed to date from 865, when Danish invaders established a settlement called Aldehulme.[11][15]
From its founding in the 9th century until the Industrial Revolution, Oldham is believed to have HP Pavilion DV6-1004tx Keyboard
been little more than a scattering of small and insignificant settlements spread across the moorland and dirt tracks which linked Manchester to York.[11][16] Although not mentioned in the Domesday Book, Oldham does appear in legal documents from the Middle Ages, invariably recorded as territory under the control of minor ruling families and barons.[15] In the 13th century, Oldham was documented as a manor held from the Crown by a family surnamed Oldham, whose seat was at Werneth Hall.[10]
HP Pavilion DV6-1005ea Keyboard
Industrial Revolution and cotton
Oldham from Glodwick by James Howe Carse (1831), depicts the early skyline and industrial activities of Oldham. All the green space has since been urbanised.
Much of Oldham's history is concerned with textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution; HP Pavilion DV6-1005ez Keyboard
it has been said that "if ever the Industrial Revolution placed a town firmly and squarely on the map of the world, that town is Oldham."[6] Oldham's soils were too thin and poor to sustain crop growing, and so for decades prior to industrialisation the area was used for grazing sheep, which provided the raw material for a local woollen weaving trade.[10]
By 1756, Oldham had emerged as centre of the hatting industry in England. The rough felt used in the production process is the origin of the term "Owdham Roughyed" a nickname for people HP Pavilion DV6-1005tx Keyboard
from Oldham.[11] It was not until the last quarter of the 18th century that Oldham changed from being a cottage industry township producing woollen garments via domestic manual labour, to a sprawling industrial metropolis of textile factories.[10] The climate, geology, and topography of Oldham were unrelenting constraints upon the social and economic activities of the human inhabitants.[17] Located 700 feet (213 m) above sea level with no major river or visible natural resources, Oldham had poor geographic attributes compared with other settlements for investors HP Pavilion DV6-1006tx Keyboard
and their engineers. As a result, Oldham played no part in the initial period of the Industrial Revolution,[3][16] although it did later become seen as obvious territory to industrialise because of its convenient position between the labour forces of Manchester and southwest Yorkshire.[18]
Cotton spinning and milling were introduced to Oldham when its first mill, Lees Hall, was built by William Clegg in about 1778, the beginning of a spiralling process of urbanisation and socioeconomic transformation.[3] Within a year, 11 other mills had been constructed,[11] and by HP Pavilion DV6-1007tx Keyboard
1818 there were 19 – not a large number in comparison with other local settlements.[16] Oldham's small local population was greatly increased by the mass migration of workers from outlying villages,[11] resulting in a population increase from just over 12,000 in 1801 to 137,000 in 1901.[16] The speed of this urban growth meant that Oldham, with little pre-industrial history to speak of, was effectively born as a factory town.
HP Pavilion DV6-1008tx Keyboard
Royd mill, built in 1907,[3] and seen here in 1983, was one of Oldham's peak of 360 textile mills which operated night and day.
Oldham became the world's manufacturing centre for cotton spinning in the second half of the 19th century.[16] In 1851, over 30% of Oldham's population was employed within the textile sector, compared to 5% across Great Britain.[18] It overtook the major urban centres of HP Pavilion DV6-1009el Keyboard
Manchester and Bolton as the result of a mill building boom in the 1860s and 1870s, a period during which Oldham became the most productive cotton-spinning town in the world.[16] In 1871 Oldham had more spindles than any country in the world except the United States, and in 1909, was spinning more cotton than France and Germany combined.[5] By 1911 there were 16.4 million spindles in Oldham, compared with a total of 58 million in the United Kingdom and 143.5 million in the world; in 1928, with the construction of the UK's largest textile factory Oldham HP Pavilion DV6-1009tx Keyboard
reached its manufacturing zenith.[16] At its peak, there were over 360 mills, operating night and day;[19][20] Oldham's townscape was dominated by distinctive rectangular brick-built mills.[21] Oldham was hit hard by the Lancashire Cotton Famine of 1861–1865, when supplies of raw cotton from the United States were cut off. Wholly reliant upon the textile industry, the cotton famine created chronic unemployment in the town.[22] By 1863 a committee had been formed, and with aid from central government, land was purchased with the intention of employing local HP Pavilion DV6-1010ea Keyboard
cotton workers to construct Alexandra Park, which opened on 28 August 1865.[22] Said to have over-relied upon the textile sector,[6][15] as the importation of cheaper foreign yarns grew during the 20th century, Oldham's economy declined into a depression, although it was not until 1964 that Oldham ceased to be the largest centre of cotton spinning.[6][16][23] In spite of efforts to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of its production, the last cotton spun in the town was in 1998.[16]
HP Pavilion DV6-1010ed Keyboard
Engineering
Facilitated by its flourishing textile industry, Oldham developed extensive structural and mechanical engineering sectors during the 18th and 19th centuries. The manufacture of spinning and weaving machinery in Oldham belongs to the last decade of the 19th century, when it became a leading centre in the field of engineering.[11] The Platt Brothers, originated in nearby Dobcross village, but moved to Oldham. They were pioneers of cotton-spinning machinery, HP Pavilion DV6-1010ef Keyboard
developing innovatory products which enabled the mass-production of cotton yarn. Platt Brothers became the largest textile machine makers in the world, employing over 15,000 people in the 1890s,[24] twice the number of their nearest rivals Dobson & Barlow in Bolton and Asa Lees on Greenacres Moor.[20] They were keen investors in the local area and at one time, were supporting 42% of the population.[24] The centre of the company lay at the New Hartford Works in Werneth, a massive complex of buildings and internal railways on a site overlooking HP Pavilion DV6-1010et Keyboard
Manchester. The railway station which served this site later formed the basis of Oldham Werneth railway station, which together with the main building exists to this day. Platts gained prestigious awards from around the world,[22] and were heavily involved with local politics and civic pride in Oldham.[24] John and James Platt were the largest subscribers for promoting Oldham from a township to a Borough, pledging £100 (more than double the next largest sum) in advance towards any expenses which may have been incurred by the Royal Charter.[11] In 1854 John Platt HP Pavilion DV6-1010tx Keyboard
was made the (fourth) Mayor of Oldham, an office he was to hold twice more in 1855–56 and 1861–62.[25] John Platt was elected in 1865 to become Member of Parliament for Oldham, and was re-elected in 1868; he remained in office until his death in 1872.[11] A bronze statue of Platt existed in the town centre for years, though was moved to Alexandra Park. There have been recommendations for it to be returned to the town centre.[7]
Abraham Henthorn Stott, the son of a stonemason, was born in nearby Shaw and Crompton in HP Pavilion DV6-1011tx Keyboard
1822.[3] He served a seven-year apprenticeship with Sir Charles Barry, before starting a structural engineering practice in Oldham in 1847 that went on to become the pre-eminent mill architect firm in Lancashire.[3] Philip Sydney Stott, third son of Abraham and later titled as Sir Philip Stott, 1st Baronet, was the most prominent and famous of the Stott mill architects.[3] He established his own practice in 1883 and designed over a hundred mills in several countries. His factories, which improved upon his father's fireproof mills, accounted for a 40% increase in Oldham's HP Pavilion DV6-1012el Keyboard
spindles between 1887 and 1914.[3]
Although textile-related engineering declined with the processing industry, leading to the demise of both Stotts and Platts, other engineering firms existed, notably electrical and later electronic engineers Ferranti in 1896.[20] Ferranti went into receivership in 1993, but some of its former works continue in other hands. Part of the original Hollinwood site was operated by Siemens Metering and Semiconductor divisions.[20] The remainder of the site is occupied by Mirror HP Pavilion DV6-1012tx Keyboard
Colour Print Ltd; the printing division of the Trinity Mirror group, which prints and distributes thirty-six major newspapers, and employs five hundred staff.[26][27]
Coal mining
On the back of the Industrial Revolution, Oldham developed an extensive coal mining sector, correlated to supporting the local cotton industry and the town's inhabitants, though there is evidence of small scale coal mining in the area as early as the 16th century.[28] The Oldham HP Pavilion DV6-1013ea Keyboard
Coalfield stretched from Royton in the north to Bardsley in the south and in addition to Oldham, included the towns of Middleton and Chadderton to the west.[28] The Oldham Coalfield was the site of over 150 collieries during its recorded history.[28] Although some contemporary sources suggest there was coal mining in Oldham at a commercial scale by 1738,[28] older sources attribute the commercial expansion of coal mining with the arrival in the town of two Welsh labourers, John Evans and William Jones, around 1770.[11] Foreseeing the growth in demand for HP Pavilion DV6-1013tx Keyboard
coal as a source of motive and steam power, they acquired colliery rights for Oldham, which by 1771 had 14 colliers.[11] The mines were largely to the southwest of the town around Hollinwood and Werneth and provided enough coal to accelerate Oldham's rapid development at the centre of the cotton boom. At its height in the mid-19th century, when it was dominated by the Lees and Jones families, Oldham coal was mainly sourced from many small collieries whose lives varied from a few years to many decades, although two of the four largest collieries survived HP Pavilion DV6-1014el Keyboard
to nationalisation.[28][29] In 1851, collieries employed over 2,000 men in Oldham,[29] although the amount of coal in the town was somewhat overestimated however, and production began to decline even before that of the local spinning industry.[28] Today, the only visible remnants of the mines are disused shafts and boreholes.[28]
Social history
Oldham's social history, like that of other former unenfranchised towns, is marked by politicised HP Pavilion DV6-1014tx Keyboard
civil disturbances, as well as events related to the Luddite, Suffragette and other Labour movements from the working classes.[9][24] There has been a significant presence of "friendly societies".[11][30] It has been put that the people of Oldham became radical in politics in the early part of the 19th century, and movements suspected of sedition found patronage in the town.[9] Oldham was frequently disturbed by bread and labour riots, facilitated by periods of scarcity and the disturbance of employment following the introduction of cotton-spinning HP Pavilion DV6-1016el Keyboard
machinery.[9] On 20 April 1812, a "large crowd of riotous individuals" compelled local retailers to sell foods at a loss, whilst on the same day Luddites numbering in their thousands, many of whom were from Oldham, attacked a cotton mill in nearby Middleton.[10] On 16 August 1819, Oldham sent a contingent estimated at well above 10,000 to hear speakers in St Peter's Fields at Manchester discuss political reform.[31] It was the largest contingent sent to Manchester.[32] John Lees, a cotton operative and ex-soldier who had fought at Waterloo, was one of the fifteen HP Pavilion DV6-1016ez Keyboard
victims of the Peterloo Massacre which followed. The 'Oldham inquest' which proceeded the massacre was anxiously watched; the Court of King's Bench, however, decided that the proceedings were irregular, and the jury were discharged without giving a verdict.[9]
Annie Kenney, born in nearby Springhead, and who worked in Oldham's cotton mills, was a notable member of the Suffragette movement credited with sparking off suffragette militancy when she heckled Winston Churchill, and later (with Emmeline Pankhurst) the first Suffragist to HP Pavilion DV6-1018el Keyboard
be imprisoned. Oldham Women's Suffrage Society was established in 1910 with Margery Lees as president and quickly joined the Manchester and District Federation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.[33] The Chartist and Co-operative movements had strong support in the town, whilst many Oldhamers protested against the emancipation of slaves.[24] The Riot Act was read in 1852 on election day following a mass public brawl over the Reform Act,[34] and irregularities with parliamentary candidate nominations.[11]
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For three days in late May 2001, Oldham became the centre of national and international media attention. Following high profile race-related conflicts, and long-term underlying racial tensions between local White British and Asian communities, major riots broke out in the town. Occurring with particular intensity in the Glodwick area of the town, the Oldham riots were the worst racially motivated riots in the United Kingdom for fifteen years prior, briefly eclipsing the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland in the media.[35] At least 20 people were injured in the HP Pavilion DV6-1020ed Keyboard
riots, including 15 police officers, and 37 people were arrested. Similar riots took place in other towns in northern England over the following days and weeks. The 2001 riots prompted governmental and independent inquiries, which collectively agreed on community relations improvements and considerable regeneration schemes for the town.[35][36]
Governance
HP Pavilion DV6-1020ef Keyboard
Civic history
The coat of arms of the former County Borough of Oldham council, granted 7 November 1894, based upon those of an ancient local family surnamed Oldham. The owls suggest that the family, like the town, called itself 'Owdham', and adopted the birds in allusion to its name. The motto HP Pavilion DV6-1020ei Keyboard
"Sapere aude" refers to the owls.[11][37]
Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire since the early 12th century, Oldham was recorded in 1212 as being one of five parts of the thegnage estate of Kaskenmoor, which was held on behalf of King John by Roger de Montbegon and William de Nevill.[9][11] The other parts of this estate were Crompton, Glodwick, Sholver, and Werneth.[14] Oldham later formed a township within the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, in the hundred of HP Pavilion DV6-1020ej Keyboard
Salford.[1][9]
In 1826 commissioners for the social and economic improvement of Oldham were established.[1] The town was made part of a parliamentary borough, in 1832, though it was in 1849 when Oldham was incorporated as a municipal borough, giving it borough status in the United Kingdom,[1][11] and in 1850 the Borough Council obtained the powers of the improvement commissioners.[1] In 1880, parts of the Hollinwood and Crossbank areas of Chadderton and HP Pavilion DV6-1020ek Keyboard
Ashton-under-Lyne townships were added to the Borough of Oldham.[1] Oldham Above Town and Oldham Below Town were, from 1851 until c.1881, statistical units used for the gathering and organising of civil registration information, and output of census data.
The Local Government Act 1888 created elected county councils to administer services throughout England and Wales. Where a municipal borough had a population of more than 50,000 at the 1881 Census it was created a county borough, with the powers and duties of both a HP Pavilion DV6-1020el Keyboard
borough and county council.[38] As Oldham had an 1881 population of 111,343 it duly became a county borough on 1 April 1889. The borough, while independent of Lancashire County Council for local government, remained part of the county for purposes such as the administration of justice and lieutenancy.[1][39]
In 1951 parts of the Limehurst Rural District were added to the County Borough of Oldham, and in 1954 further parts of the same district added to it on its abolition.[38] Since 1961, Oldham has HP Pavilion DV6-1020eq Keyboard
been twinned with Kranj in Slovenia.[40] Under the Local Government Act 1972, the town's autonomous County borough status was abolished, and Oldham has, since 1 April 1974, formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, within the Metropolitan county of Greater Manchester.[1]
Parliamentary representation
The boundaries of two parliamentary constituencies divide Oldham: Oldham East and HP Pavilion DV6-1020es Keyboard
Saddleworth, and Oldham West and Royton (which includes the town centre), represented by Labour Members of Parliament Debbie Abrahams and Michael Meacher respectively.[41][42][43]
Created as a parliamentary borough in 1832, Oldham's first parliamentary representatives were the radicals William Cobbett and John Fielden.[44] Winston Churchill began his political career in Oldham. Although unsuccessful at his first attempt in 1899, Churchill was elected as the member of Parliament for the Oldham parliamentary borough constituency in the 1900 general HP Pavilion DV6-1020et Keyboard
election.[45] He held the constituency for the Conservative Party until the 1906 general election, when he won the election for Manchester North West as a Liberal MP. After he became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1940, Churchill was made a Honorary Freeman of the Borough of Oldham, on 2 April 1941.[11]
Geography
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Further information: Geography of Greater Manchester
Oldham
Climate chart (explanation)
J F M A M J J A S O N D
70 61
50 71
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60 93
50 124
60 157
70 1810
70 2012
80 2012
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70 1710
80 148
80 94
80 72
Average max. and min. temperatures in °C
Precipitation totals in mm
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Source: Records and averages, Yahoo! Weather, 2007
[show]Imperial conversion
A map of Oldham, and surrounding area.
At 53°32′39″N 2°7′0.8″W (53.5444°, −2.1169°), and 164 miles (264 km) north-northwest of HP Pavilion DV6-1025ef Keyboard
London, Oldham stands 700 feet (213 m) above sea level, 6.9 miles (11.1 km) northeast of Manchester city centre, on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock. Saddleworth and the South Pennines are close to the east, whilst on all other sides, Oldham is bound by smaller towns, including Ashton-under-Lyne, Chadderton, Failsworth, Royton and Shaw and Crompton, with little or no green space between them. Oldham experiences a temperate maritime climate, like much of the British Isles, with relatively cool summers and mild winters. HP Pavilion DV6-1025ei Keyboard
There is regular but generally light precipitation throughout the year.[17]
Oldham's topography is characterised by its rugged, elevated Pennine terrain.[3][46] It has an area of 6.91 square miles (17.90 km2).[8] The geology of Oldham is represented by the Millstone Grit and Coal Measures series of rocks.[17] The River Beal, flowing northwards, forms the boundary between Oldham on one side and Royton and Shaw and Crompton on the other.
To the east of this river the surface rises to a height of 1,225 feet (373 m) at Woodward Hill, on HP Pavilion DV6-1025em Keyboard
the border with the parish of Saddleworth.[9] The rest of the surface is hilly, the average height decreasing towards the southwest to Failsworth and the city of Manchester. The ridge called Oldham Edge, 800 feet (244 m) high, comes southward from Royton into the centre of the town.[9]
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Oldham's irregularly constructed built environment is characterised by its red-brick cotton mills and surrounding terraced houses.
Oldham's built environment is characterised by its 19th-century red-brick terraced houses, the infrastructure that was built to support these and the town's former cotton mills – which mark the town's skyline.[23] The urban structure of Oldham is irregular when compared to most towns in England, its form restricted in places by its hilly upland terrain.[9][46] There are irregularly HP Pavilion DV6-1027ef Keyboard
constructed residential dwellings and streets loosely centred around a central business district in the town centre, which is the local centre of commerce. In 1849, Angus Reach of Inverness said:
The visitor to Oldham will find it essentially a mean-looking straggling town, built upon both sides and crowning the ridge of one of the outlying spurs which branch from Manchester, the neighbouring 'backbone of England'. The whole place has a shabby underdone look. The general appearance of the operatives' houses is filthy and smouldering.[47]
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—Angus Reach, Morning Chronicle, 1849
In the 1870s, John Marius Wilson described Oldham as consisting of:
... numerous streets, and contains numerous fine buildings, both public and private; but, in a general view, is irregularly constructed, presents the dingy aspect of a crowded seat of manufacture, and is more notable for factories than for any other feature.[44]
—John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–1872)
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Although Oldham had a thriving economy during the 19th century, the local merchants were broadly reluctant to spend on civic institutions, and so the town lacks the grandeur seen in comparable nearby towns like Bolton or Huddersfield;[7][48] public expenditure was seen as an overhead that undermined the competitiveness of the town.[24] Subsequently, Oldham's architecture has been described as "mediocre".[48] The town has no listed buildings with a Grade I rating.[49]
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There is a mixture of high-density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Oldham. There is some permanent grassland but overwhelmingly the land use in the town is urban. The territory of Oldham is contiguous with other towns on all sides except for a small section along its eastern and southern boundaries, and for purposes of the Office for National Statistics, forms the fourth largest settlement of the Greater Manchester Urban Area,[50][51] the United Kingdom's third largest conurbation. The M60 motorway passes through the southwest of Oldham, through HP Pavilion DV6-1030eb Keyboard
Hollinwood, and a heavy rail line enters Oldham from the same direction, travelling northeast to the town centre before heading northwards through Derker towards Shaw and Crompton.
A panorama of Oldham looking from Hartshead Pike toward the south east.
Divisions and suburbs
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Fredrick Street, in Werneth. Much of Oldham's housing stock is two-up-two-down rows of terraced houses, a reminder of its mill town history.
Many of Oldham's present divisions and suburbs have origins as pre-industrial hamlets, manorial commons and ancient chapelries.[11] Some, such as Moorside, exist as recently constructed HP Pavilion DV6-1030ed Keyboard
residential suburbia, whilst places like Hollinwood exist as electoral wards[52] and thoroughly industrialised districts. Throughout most of its recorded history, Oldham was surrounded by large swathes of moorland, which is reflected in the placenames of Moorside, Greenacres moor, Littlemoor, Northmoor among others.
A large portion of Oldham's residences are "low value"[7] Victorian era Accrington red-brick terraced houses in a row formation,[24] built for the most part from 1870 to 1920, to house the HP Pavilion DV6-1030ef Keyboard
town's cotton mill workers.[34] There is more modern housing in the semi-rural east of the town, in areas such as Moorside,[53] although terraces are found in almost all parts of Oldham.
One of the oldest recorded named places of Oldham is Hathershaw, occurring in a deed for 1280 with the spelling Halselinechaw Clugh.[11] Existing as a manor in the 15th century, Hathershaw Hall was the home of a Royalist family in the 17th century who lost part of their possessions due to the English Civil War.[11] Waterhead, an upland area in the east of Oldham, traces its roots to HP Pavilion DV6-1030em Keyboard
a water cornmill over the border in Lees.[15]
Recorded originally as Watergate and Waterhead Milne, it was for a long time a hamlet in the parish of Oldham that formed a significant part of the Oldham Above Town registration sub-district. Derker was recorded as a place of residence in 1604 with the name Dirtcar.[11] Bound by Higginshaw to the north, Derker is the location of Derker railway station and, said to have terraced residencies "unsuited to modern needs", is currently being redeveloped as part of HP Pavilion DV6-1030eo Keyboard
the Housing Market Renewal Initiative.[54]
Coldhurst, an area along Oldham's northern boundary with Royton, was once a chapelry and the site of considerable industry and commerce, including coal mining, cotton spinning and hat manufacture.[55] It is said to have been the scene of an action in the English Civil War in which the Parliamentarians were defeated.[55]
Demography
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Further information: Demography of Greater Manchester
Oldham compared
UK Census 2001 Oldham[a] Oldham (Met. District) England
Total population 103,544[b] 217,273 49,138,831
Foreign born 15% 8.2% 9.2%
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White British 71% 86% 92%
Asian 27% 12% 4.6%
Black 0.9% 0.6% 2.3%
Christian 58% 73% 72%
Muslim 25% 11% 3.1%
Hindu 1.1% 0.1% 1.1%
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No religion 8.3% 8.9% 15%
Over 65 years old 12% 14% 16%
Unemployed 5.5% 3.7% 3.3%
According to data from the United Kingdom Census 2001, Oldham had a total resident population of 103,544, making it the 55th most populous settlement in England, and the 5th most populous settlement of the Greater Manchester Urban Area.[8] This figure in conjunction with its area HP Pavilion DV6-1039el Keyboard
provides Oldham with a population density of 3,998 people per square mile (1,544 per km²). The local population has been described as broadly "working class"; the middle classes tending to live in outlying settlements.[24]
Oldham, considered as a combination of the 2001 electoral wards of Alexandra,[56] Coldhurst,[57] Hollinwood,[58] St. James,[59] St. Marys,[60] St. Pauls,[61] Waterhead[62] and Werneth,[63] has an average age of 33.5, and compared against the average demography of the United Kingdom, HP Pavilion DV6-1040eb Keyboard
has a high level of people of South Asian heritage, particularly those with roots in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Due to the town's prevalence as an industrial centre and thus a hub for employment, Oldham attracted migrant workers throughout its history, including those from wider-England, Scotland, Ireland and Poland.[64]
During the 1950s and 1960s, in an attempt to fill the shortfall of workers and revitalise local industries, citizens of the wider Commonwealth of Nations were encouraged to migrate to HP Pavilion DV6-1040ed Keyboard
Oldham and other British towns.[64] Many came from the Caribbean and Indian subcontinent and settled throughout the Oldham borough.[64]
Today, Oldham has large communities with heritage from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and parts of the Caribbean.[64] At the time of the 2001 census, over one in four of its residents identified themselves as from a South Asian or British Asian ethnic group. Cultural divisions along ethnic backgrounds are strong within the town,[24] with poor cross-community integration and HP Pavilion DV6-1040ei Keyboard
cohesion along Asian and white backgrounds.[24]
With only a small local population during medieval times, as a result of the introduction of industry, mass migration of village workers into Oldham occurred,[11] resulting in a population change from under 2,000 in 1714[10][65] to 12,000 in 1801 to 137,000 in 1901.[16] In 1851 its population of 52,820 made Oldham the 12th most populous town in England.[66] The following is a table outlining the population change of the town since 1801, which demonstrates a trend of HP Pavilion DV6-1040ej Keyboard
rapid population growth in the 19th century and, after peaking at 147,483 people in 1911, a trend of general decline in population size during the 20th century.
Year 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1939 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001
Population 12,024 16,690 21,662 32,381 42,595 52,820 72,333 82,629HP Pavilion DV6-1040ek Keyboard
111,349 131,463 137,246 147,483 144,983 140,314 120,511 121,266 115,346 105,922 107,830 103,931 103,544
Sources:
A Vision of Britain through Time
Bateson, H. (1949), A Centenary History of Oldham, p. 232[11]
Economy
HP Pavilion DV6-1040el Keyboard
Although mass cotton spinning no longer takes place in Oldham, cotton mills mark its skyline, now used as processing and distribution centres.
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The stained glass roof of The Spindles, created by local artist Brian Clarke.
For years Oldham's economy was heavily dependent on manufacturing industry, especially textiles and mechanical engineering.[67][68] Since the deindustrialisation of Oldham in the mid-20th century, these industries have been replaced by home shopping, publishing, healthcare and food processing sectors, though factory-generated employment retains a significant HP Pavilion DV6-1040ez Keyboard
presence.[67] Many of the modern sectors are low-skill and low-wage.[24]
Park Cake Bakeries, recently sold as part of a large shake-up by the Northern Foods Group, have a large food processing centre in Hathershaw, which employs in excess of 1,600 people. Over 90% of the cakes produced go to Marks & Spencer.[69][70] Long existing as an industrial district, Hollinwood is home to the Northern Counties Housing Association,[71] and Mirror Colour Print Ltd; the printing division of the Trinity Mirror group, which prints and distributes 36 major HP Pavilion DV6-1042el Keyboard
newspapers, and employs 500 staff.[72]
Oldham's town centre contains the highest concentration of retailing, cultural facilities and employment in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham.[7] It has been extensively redeveloped during the last few decades, and its two shopping centres, Town Square and The Spindles, now provide one of the largest covered retail areas in Greater Manchester.[73] The Spindles (named HP Pavilion DV6-1044el Keyboard
with reference to textile spindles) is a modern shopping centre with over 40 retailers, banks, building societies and catering outlets. It houses one of Europe's largest stained glass roofs, created by local artist Brian Clarke in celebration of the music of one of Oldham's famous sons, composer and conductor Sir William Walton.[74]
Ferranti Technologies is an electronic, electromechanical and electrical engineering company based in Waterhead.[75]
HP Pavilion DV6-1045ee Keyboard
A number of culinary and medical advances have been developed in Oldham. There are claims that Oldham was the birthplace of the first chip shop.[76][77][78] The sometimes disputed claim of trade in deep-fried chipped potatoes is said to have been started in around 1858–60 from an outlet owned by a John Lees, on what is the present site of Oldham's Tommyfield Market.[78][79][80] In 1900 Oldham had the highest concentration of chip shops in the country; one for every 400 people.[78] Rag Pudding is a savoury dish said to be native to Oldham.[81] HP Pavilion DV6-1045ei Keyboard
Yates Wine Lodge was founded in Oldham by Peter and Simon Yates in 1884.[23]
The tubular bandage was invented and developed in Oldham in 1961.[82] That "vital contribution to advancing medical science" resulted from a collaboration between local firm Seton and a cotton manufacturer in the town.
Landmarks
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See also: List of Scheduled Monuments in Greater Manchester, Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester, Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester, and List of public art in Greater Manchester
Oldham's Old Town Hall, is an unused neo-classical town hall built in 1841.
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Oldham's war memorial was commissioned in 1919 to "symbolise the spirit of 1914–1918".
The Civic Centre is the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham's centre of local governance.
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Oldham Parish Church dates from 1830.
Town Hall
Oldham's Old Town Hall is a Grade II listed Georgian neo-classical town hall built in 1841,[83] eight years before Oldham received its borough status.[84] One of the last purpose built town HP Pavilion DV6-1050ef Keyboard
halls in northwest England,[24] it has a tetrastyle Ionic portico, copied from the temple of Ceres, on the River Ilissos, near Athens.[44] Winston Churchill made his inaugural acceptance speech from the steps of the town hall when he was first elected as a Conservative MP in 1900. A Blue Plaque on the exterior of the building commemorates the event.[85] Long existing as the political centre of the town, complete with courtrooms, the structure has stood empty since the mid-1980s and has regularly been earmarked for redevelopment as part of regeneration project HP Pavilion DV6-1050ei Keyboard
proposals; none have been actioned.[7][84][85][86]
In September 2008, it was reported that "Oldham Town Hall is only months away from a major roof collapse".[87] A tour taken by local councillors and media concluded with an account that "chunks of masonry are falling from the ceilings on a daily basis, [...] the floors are littered with dead pigeons and [...] revealed that the building is literally rotting away".[85][87] In October 2009 the Victorian Society, a charity responsible for the study and protection of Britain's Victorian and HP Pavilion DV6-1050en Keyboard
Edwardian architecture, declared Oldham Town Hall as the most endangered Victorian structure in England and Wales.[88][89][90]
War memorial
Erected as a permanent memorial to the men of Oldham who were killed in World War I, Oldham's war memorial consists of a granite base surmounted by a bronze sculpture depicting five soldiers making their way along the trenches in order to go into battle.[91] The main standing HP Pavilion DV6-1050eo Keyboard
figure, having climbed out of the trenches, is shown calling on his comrades to advance. The base serves to house books containing the roll of honour of the 1st, 10th and 24th Battalions, Manchester Regiment. The pedestal has two bronze doors at either side.[91]
Commissioned in 1919 by the Oldham War Memorial Committee, the memorial was designed and built by Albert Toft.[92] It was unveiled by General Sir Ian Hamilton on 28 April 1923, before a crowd estimated at over 10,000.[91] The monument was intended to symbolise the spirit of HP Pavilion DV6-1050ep Keyboard
1914–1918.[11]
The inscriptions on the memorial read:
Over doors: "Mors Januva Vitae, 1914–1918" (death is the gate of life)
Opposite side: "To God Be The Praise"
Civic Centre
The Civic Centre tower is the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham's centre of local governance. The HP Pavilion DV6-1050es Keyboard
15-storey white-brick building has housed the vast majority of the local government's offices since its completion in 1977. Standing at the summit of the town, the tower stands over 200 feet (61 m) high.[93] It was designed by Cecil Howitt & Partners,[7] and the topping out ceremony was held on 18 June 1976.[22] The Civic Centre can be seen as far away as Salford, Trafford, Wythenshawe and Winter Hill in Lancashire, and offers panoramic views across the city of Manchester and the Cheshire Plain.
HP Pavilion DV6-1050et Keyboard
Parish Church
See also: List of churches in Greater Manchester
The Oldham Parish Church of St. Mary with St. Peter, in its present form, dates from 1830 and was designed in the Gothic Revival Style by Richard Lane, a Manchester based architect.[65] It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building.[94] It was linked with the church of St Mary the Virgin, Prestwich and together the sites were principal churches of the HP Pavilion DV6-1050us Keyboard
ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham.[65]
A church building had existed on the site since 1280.[65] During this time, a small chapel stood on the site to serve the local townships of Oldham, Chadderton, Royton and Crompton. This was later replaced by an Early English Gothic church in the 15th century.[65] With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the population of Oldham increased at a rapid rate (from under 2,000 in 1714, to over 32,000 by 1831).[65] The rapid growth of the local population warranted that the HP Pavilion DV6-1053cl Keyboard
building be rebuilt in to the current structure. Though the budget was originally agreed at £5,000,[7] the final cost of building was £30,000, one third of which was spent on the crypt structure.[65] Alternative designs by Sir Charles Barry, the designer of the Palace of Westminster, although now regarded by some as superior, were rejected.[7][65] The Church, of the Anglican denomination, is in active use for worship, and forms part of the Diocese of Manchester.[65]
Transport
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The 409 to Rochdale, pictured in Oldham's town centre. First Greater Manchester has its headquarters in Oldham, operating bus services throughout Greater Manchester.
The geography of Oldham constrained the development of major transport infrastructure.[66] It HP Pavilion DV6-1055ee Keyboard
has been put that "if it had not grown substantially before the railway age it would surely have been overlooked".[66] Oldham has never been on a main line railway route, and canals too have only been able to serve it from a distance,[66] meaning that "Oldham has never had a train service worthy of a town of its size".[95]
A principal destination along the former Oldham Loop Line, Oldham once had seven railway stations but this was reduced to four once Clegg Street, Oldham Central and Glodwick Road HP Pavilion DV6-1055eo Keyboard
closed in the mid-20th century; Hollinwood, Oldham Werneth, Oldham Mumps and Derker closed on 3 October 2009.[96][97] Trains from Manchester Victoria station to Oldham had to climb steeply through much of its 6-mile (9.7 km) route, from around 100 feet (30.5 m) at Manchester city centre to around 600 feet (182.9 m) at Oldham Mumps.[66] The Werneth Incline, with its gradient of 1 in 27, made the Middleton Junction to Oldham Werneth route the steepest regular passenger line in the country.[95] The Werneth Incline route closed in 1963. It had been HP Pavilion DV6-1056el Keyboard
replaced as the main route to Manchester by the section of line built between Oldham Werneth Station and Thorpes Bridge Junction, Newton Heath in May 1880.[98] Oldham Mumps, the second oldest station on the line after Werneth,[96] took its name from its location in the Mumps area of Oldham, which itself probably derived from the archaic word "mumper" which was slang for a beggar.[99] The former Oldham Loop Line is to be converted for use with an expanded Manchester Metrolink tram network. The first section between Manchester Victoria and Oldham HP Pavilion DV6-1058el Keyboard
Mumps (temporary) Metrolink stops opened on Wednesday 13 June 2012.[7][96][97]
Oldham had electric tramways to Manchester in the early-20th century; the first tram was driven from Manchester into Oldham in 1900 by the Lord Mayor of Manchester.[22] The system came to an end on 3 August 1946, however.[11] There was also a short-lived Oldham trolleybus system, in 1925–26. The £3.3m Oldham Bus Station has frequent bus services to Manchester, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne and Middleton with other services to the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, HP Pavilion DV6-1060ek Keyboard
Tameside, and across the Pennines to Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.[100] The roof canopy is supported internally on two rows of steel trees. The extensive use of glass and stainless steel maximises visibility, and there is a carefully co-ordinated family of information fittings, posters and seating, using robust natural materials for floors and plinths.[100] The bus station is used by National Express coaches. First Greater Manchester, FirstGroup plc's bus operator for north-Greater Manchester, has its headquarters in Oldham.[101]
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Oldham is about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the major M62 motorway, but is linked to it by the M60 at Hollinwood, and A627(M) via Chadderton. There are major A roads to Ashton-under-Lyne, Huddersfield, Manchester, and Rochdale.[11]
The Hollinwood Branch of the Ashton Canal was a canal that ran from Fairfield in Droylsden, through Littlemoss and Daisy Nook Country Park to the Hollinwood area of Oldham, with a branch from Daisy Nook to the Fairbottom Branch Canal.[102] The canal was mainly used for the HP Pavilion DV6-1060eo Keyboard
haulage of coal until it fell into disuse for commercial traffic in the 1930s.[103] It included four aqueducts and a two-rise lock staircase.
Sports
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Boundary Park is Oldham's main sports stadium, and is used by Oldham Athletic A.F.C..
Oldham Roughyeds Rugby League Club was established in 1876 as Oldham Football Club,[24] and Oldham Athletic Football Club in 1895 as Pine Villa Football Club. Oldham Athletic have achieved both league and cup successes, particularly under Joe Royle in the 1990s.[24] They were Football League runners-up in the last season before the outbreak of the First World War, but were relegated from the Football League First Division in 1923. They reached the Football League Cup IBM 08K4729 Keyboard
final in 1990 and won the Football League Second Division title in 1991, ending 68 years outside the top flight.
They secured their top division status a year later to become founder members of the new Premier League,[82] but were relegated after two seasons despite reaching that year's FA Cup semi-finals. They are currently playing in Football League One, the third tier of the English league. After the sacking of John Sheridan in mid-March 2009, Dave Penney was appointed manager, but IBM 08K4757 Keyboard
was only to last for one season. The club's current manager is Paul Dickov the former Manchester City player.[104] Boundary Park, where the club has played since the early 20th Century, had been proposed for regeneration, but plans are currently ongoing for a move to a new ground to be built in neighbouring Failsworth.[24]
Oldham Boro Football Club was established in 1964 as Oldham Dew FC, and after many years playing under the name of Oldham Town adapted its present name in 2009. The team currently IBM 39T0550 Keyboard
plays in the North West Counties Football League Division Two.
Renamed in 1997 to Oldham Roughyeds, Oldham Rugby League Club has received several club honours during its history,[105] winning the Rugby Football League Championship five times and Challenge Cup three times.[105] They played at Watersheddings for years before joining Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park until 2010 when they moved to Oldham Borough's previous ground, Whitebank Stadium.[105] Oldham has league cricket teams with a number of semi-professional IBM 39T0581 Keyboard
league clubs including Oldham CC, and Werneth CC in the Central Lancashire League.
Education
See also: List of schools in Oldham
IBM 39T0928 Keyboard
The Oldham College is a centre for further education.
The Blue Coat School is one of Oldham's oldest schools, dating back to 1834.
Almost every part of Oldham is served by a school of some kind, some with religious affiliations. According to the Office for Standards in Education, schools within the town perform at mixed IBM 39T0958 Keyboard
levels. Oldham Hulme grammer schools, which dates from 1895,[106] is consistently Oldham's top performing secondary school for girls school and boys school 11- to 16-year-olds, and has a sixth form college of further education for 16- to 18-year-olds on the same site.
Oldham produced someone who is considered[6] to be one of the greatest benefactors of education for the nation, Hugh Oldham, who in 1504 was appointed as Bishop of Exeter, and later went on to found what is now Manchester Grammar School.
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University Centre Oldham is a centre for higher education and a sister campus of the University of Huddersfield. It was opened in May 2005 by actor Patrick Stewart, the centre's Chancellor.[107] The University Centre Oldham presented actress Shobna Gulati and artist, Brian Clarke (both born in Oldham) with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters at the Graduation Ceremony of November 2006, for their achievements and contributions to Oldham and its community.[107]
School Type/Status OfSTED Website
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The Blue Coat School Secondary School 105739 www.blue-coat.oldham.sch.uk
Breeze Hill School Secondary School 105731 www.breezehill.oldham.sch.uk
Counthill School Secondary School 105728 www.counthill.org.uk
Grange School Secondary School 105729 www.theoldhamacademynorth.com
Hulme Grammar School Grammar School N/A www.hulme-grammar.oldham.sch.uk
Kaskenmoor School Secondary School 105732 www.kaskenmoor.org.uk
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New Bridge School Secondary Special School 134517 www.newbridgeschool.net
Oldham Sixth Form College Sixth Form College 130506 www.osfc.ac.uk
The Oldham College Further education college 130505 www.oldham.ac.uk
University Centre Oldham Higher education college N/A www.oldham.hud.ac.uk
St Augustine of Canterbury R.C. High School Secondary School 105741 www.staugustine.oldham.sch.uk
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The Hathershaw College Secondary School 105730 www.hathershaw.org.uk
Public services
Home Office policing in Oldham is provided by the Greater Manchester Police. The force's "(Q) Division" have their headquarters for policing the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham at central Oldham. Public transport is co-ordinated by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport IBM 42T3167 Keyboard
Executive. Statutory emergency fire and rescue service is provided by the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, which has two stations in Oldham; at Hollins on Hollins Road,[108] and at Clarksfield on Lees Road.[109]
The Royal Oldham Hospital, at Oldham's northern boundary with Royton, is a large NHS hospital administrated by Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. It was opened under its existing name on 1 December 1989.[110] Formerly known as Oldham District and General, and occupying the site of IBM 42T3265 Keyboard
the town's former workhouse (named Oldham Union Workhouse in 1851),[110] the hospital is notable for being the birthplace of Louise Joy Brown – the world's first successful In vitro fertilised "test tube baby", on 25 July 1978.[111] The North West Ambulance Service provides emergency patient transport. Other forms of health care are provided for locally by several small clinics and surgeries.
Waste management is co-ordinated by the local authority via the Greater Manchester Waste IBM 42T3297 Keyboard
Disposal Authority.[112] Locally produced inert waste for disposal is sent to landfill at the Beal Valley.[113] Oldham's Distribution Network Operator for electricity is United Utilities;[114] there are no power stations in the town. United Utilities also manages Oldham's drinking and waste water;[114] water supplies being sourced from several local reservoirs, including Dovestones and Chew.[115] There is a water treatment works at Waterhead.[114]
Culture
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Oldham, though lacking in leisure and cultural amenities,[48] is historically notable for its theatrical culture.[116] Once having a peak of six "fine" theatres in 1908,[116] Oldham is home to the Oldham Coliseum Theatre and the Oldham Theatre Workshop, which have facilitated the early careers of notable actors and writers, including Eric Sykes,[116] Bernard Cribbins[117] and Anne Kirkbride,[117] daughter of acclaimed cartoonist Jack Kirkbride who worked for the Oldham IBM 42T3600 Keyboard
Evening Chronicle. Oldham Coliseum Theatre is one of Britain's last remaining repertory theatres; Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel performed there in the early 20th century, and contemporary actors such as Ralph Fiennes and Minnie Driver, among others, have appeared more recently.[118] In the nineteenth century, the circus was a popular entertainment in Oldham, with Pablo Fanque's circus, a regular visitor to town, filling a 3000-seat amphitheatre on Tommyfield in 1869.[119] Criticised for its lack of a cinema,[48] there are plans to develop an "Oldham West IBM 42T3638 Keyboard
End".[120] Oldham has a thriving bar and night club culture which attracts significant number of young people into the town centre.[7] Oldham's "hard binge drinking culture" has been criticised however for conveying a negative regional image of the town.[48]
Communal facilities
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The Lyceum is a Grade II listed building opened in 1856 as a "mutual improvement" centre for the working men of Oldham.
The Lyceum is a Grade II listed building[121][122] opened in 1856 at a cost of £6,500 as a "mutual improvement" centre for the working men of Oldham;[11] it replaced an earlier building constructed in 1839. The facilities provided to members included a library, a newsroom, and a series of lectures on geology, geography and education, microscopy and chemistry, female IBM 42T3704 Keyboard
education, and botany.[121] Instrumental music was introduced and there were soon 16 violinists and 3 'cellists. Eventually the building was extended to include a School of Science and Art. Music had always been important in the life of the Lyceum, and in 1892 a school of music was opened, with 39 students enrolled for the "theory and practice of music".
The Lyceum continued throughout the 20th century as a centre for the arts in Oldham, and in 1986 the local authority was invited by its directors and trustees to accept the building as a IBM 42T3737 Keyboard
gift.[121] The acceptance of the Lyceum building by the Education Committee provided the opportunity to re-locate The Music Centre and "further enhance the cultural activities of the town".[121] In 1989 the Oldham Metropolitan Borough Music Centre moved into the Lyceum building, which is now the home of the Oldham Lyceum School of Music.[121]
Oldham’s museum and gallery service dates back to 1883.[123] Since then it has established itself as a cultural focus for Oldham and has developed one of the largest and most varied permanent IBM 42T3961 Keyboard
collections in North West England. The current collection includes over 12,000 social and industrial history items, more than 2,000 works of art, about 1,000 items of decorative art, more than 80,000 natural history specimens, over 1,000 geological specimens, about 3,000 archaeological artefacts, 15,000 photographs and a large number of books, pamphlets and documents.[123]
Oldham is now home to a newly built state-of-the-art art gallery, Gallery Oldham, which was IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
completed in February 2002 as the first phase of the Oldham Cultural Quarter.[124] Later phases of the development saw the opening of an extended Oldham Library, a lifelong learning centre and there are plans to include a performing arts centre.[7]
Carnival
The annual Oldham Carnival started around 1900, although the tradition of carnivals in the town goes back much further, providing a "welcomed respite from the tedium of everyday life".[125] IBM 42T4090 Keyboard
The carnival parade was always held in mid-to-late summer, with the primary aim of raising money for charities.[125] It often featured local dignitaries or popular entertainers, in addition to brass, military and jazz bands, the Carnival Queen, people in fancy dress, dancers and decorated floats from local churches and businesses.[125] Whenever possible, local people who had attained national celebrity status were invited to join the cavalcade.[125] The carnival's route began in the town centre, wound its way along King Street, and ended with a party in Alexandra IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 Keyboard
Park.[125]
The carnival was a popular and prestigious event,[125] though it fell out of favour in the late 1990s.[126] The carnival was resurrected in 2006, rebranded the People's Carnival.[126]
Notable people
Main article: List of people from Oldham
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People from Oldham are called Oldhamers,[23] though "Roughyed" is a nickname from the 18th century when rough felt was used in Oldham to make hats.[11] The town has been the birthplace and home to notable people, of national and international acclaim. Edward Potts was a renowned architect who moved to Oldham from nearby Bury. He was the architect for fourteen new mills in the borough including the Bell mill (1904) and the Iris mill (1907).[127] Other notable persons of historic significance with a connection to Oldham are acclaimed composer Sir William IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1832 Keyboard
Walton, former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, and Louise Brown,[111] the world's first baby to be conceived by in vitro fertilisation. Notable Oldhamers from TV entertainment include comedy double act Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball, TV host Phillip Schofield,[82] actress Shobna Gulati and comedian, musician and actor Bernard Cribbins. Notable musicians from Oldham include the Inspiral Carpets, Drummer Simon Wright and Mark Owen of boyband Take That.[82] Notable sportsmen from Oldham include former England national football team captain IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1833 Keyboard
David Platt.[82] and Manchester United and former England footballer Paul Scholes
Historically a part of Lancashire, and with little early history to speak of, Oldham rose to HP Pavilion dv5z-1000 CTO Keyboard
prominence during the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and among the first ever industrialised towns, rapidly becoming "one of the most important centres of cotton and textile industries in England".[2] At its zenith, it was the most productive cotton spinning mill town in the world,[3][4] spinning more cotton than France and Germany combined.[5] Oldham's textile industry began to fall into decline during the mid-20th century, and its last mill closed in 1998.
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The demise of textile processing in Oldham depressed the local economy.[6] Today Oldham is a predominantly residential town, and a centre for further education and the performing arts.[7] It is, however, still distinguished architecturally by the surviving cotton mills and other buildings associated with that industry. The town's population of 103,544[8] lives in an area of around 26 square miles (67 km2).[9]
Contents [hide]
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1 History
1.1 Toponymy
1.2 Early history
1.3 Industrial Revolution and cotton
1.3.1 Engineering
1.3.2 Coal mining
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1.4 Social history
2 Governance
2.1 Civic history
2.2 Parliamentary representation
3 Geography
3.1 Divisions and suburbs
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4 Demography
5 Economy
6 Landmarks
6.1 Town Hall
6.2 War memorial
6.3 Civic Centre
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6.4 Parish Church
7 Transport
8 Sports
9 Education
10 Public services
11 Culture
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11.1 Communal facilities
11.2 Carnival
12 Notable people
13 References
14 Bibliography
15 External links
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History
Main article: History of Oldham
Toponymy
The toponymy of Oldham seems to imply "old village or place" from Eald (Saxon) signifying oldness or antiquity, and Ham (Saxon) a house, farm or hamlet.[10] However, Oldham is known to HP Pavilion DV6-1001xx Keyboard
be a derivative of Aldehulme; undoubtedly an Old Norse name.[11] It is believed to be derived from the Old English ald combined with the Old Norse holmi or holmr, meaning "old promontory or outcrop", possibly describing the town's hilltop position.[11] It has alternatively been suggested that it may mean "holm or hulme of a farmer named Alda".[11] The name is understood to date from 865, during the period of the Danelaw.[11]
Early history
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The earliest known evidence of a human presence in what is now Oldham is attested by the discovery of Neolithic flint arrow-heads and workings found at Werneth and Besom Hill, implying habitation 7–10,000 years ago.[11] Evidence of later Roman and Celtic activity is confirmed by an ancient Roman road and Bronze Age archaeological relics found at various sites within the town.[11] Placenames of Celtic origin are still to be found in Oldham, Werneth derives from a Celtic personal name identical to the Gaulish vernetum and Glodwick contains the element clawd HP Pavilion DV6-1003tx Keyboard
which means "ditch" in Modern Welsh.[12] Chadderton is also pre-Anglo-Saxon in origin, from the Old Welsh cadeir, itself deriving from the Latin cathedra meaning "chair".[13] Although Anglo-Saxons occupied territory around the area centuries earlier,[11][14] Oldham as a permanent, named place of dwelling is believed to date from 865, when Danish invaders established a settlement called Aldehulme.[11][15]
From its founding in the 9th century until the Industrial Revolution, Oldham is believed to have HP Pavilion DV6-1004tx Keyboard
been little more than a scattering of small and insignificant settlements spread across the moorland and dirt tracks which linked Manchester to York.[11][16] Although not mentioned in the Domesday Book, Oldham does appear in legal documents from the Middle Ages, invariably recorded as territory under the control of minor ruling families and barons.[15] In the 13th century, Oldham was documented as a manor held from the Crown by a family surnamed Oldham, whose seat was at Werneth Hall.[10]
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Industrial Revolution and cotton
Oldham from Glodwick by James Howe Carse (1831), depicts the early skyline and industrial activities of Oldham. All the green space has since been urbanised.
Much of Oldham's history is concerned with textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution; HP Pavilion DV6-1005ez Keyboard
it has been said that "if ever the Industrial Revolution placed a town firmly and squarely on the map of the world, that town is Oldham."[6] Oldham's soils were too thin and poor to sustain crop growing, and so for decades prior to industrialisation the area was used for grazing sheep, which provided the raw material for a local woollen weaving trade.[10]
By 1756, Oldham had emerged as centre of the hatting industry in England. The rough felt used in the production process is the origin of the term "Owdham Roughyed" a nickname for people HP Pavilion DV6-1005tx Keyboard
from Oldham.[11] It was not until the last quarter of the 18th century that Oldham changed from being a cottage industry township producing woollen garments via domestic manual labour, to a sprawling industrial metropolis of textile factories.[10] The climate, geology, and topography of Oldham were unrelenting constraints upon the social and economic activities of the human inhabitants.[17] Located 700 feet (213 m) above sea level with no major river or visible natural resources, Oldham had poor geographic attributes compared with other settlements for investors HP Pavilion DV6-1006tx Keyboard
and their engineers. As a result, Oldham played no part in the initial period of the Industrial Revolution,[3][16] although it did later become seen as obvious territory to industrialise because of its convenient position between the labour forces of Manchester and southwest Yorkshire.[18]
Cotton spinning and milling were introduced to Oldham when its first mill, Lees Hall, was built by William Clegg in about 1778, the beginning of a spiralling process of urbanisation and socioeconomic transformation.[3] Within a year, 11 other mills had been constructed,[11] and by HP Pavilion DV6-1007tx Keyboard
1818 there were 19 – not a large number in comparison with other local settlements.[16] Oldham's small local population was greatly increased by the mass migration of workers from outlying villages,[11] resulting in a population increase from just over 12,000 in 1801 to 137,000 in 1901.[16] The speed of this urban growth meant that Oldham, with little pre-industrial history to speak of, was effectively born as a factory town.
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Royd mill, built in 1907,[3] and seen here in 1983, was one of Oldham's peak of 360 textile mills which operated night and day.
Oldham became the world's manufacturing centre for cotton spinning in the second half of the 19th century.[16] In 1851, over 30% of Oldham's population was employed within the textile sector, compared to 5% across Great Britain.[18] It overtook the major urban centres of HP Pavilion DV6-1009el Keyboard
Manchester and Bolton as the result of a mill building boom in the 1860s and 1870s, a period during which Oldham became the most productive cotton-spinning town in the world.[16] In 1871 Oldham had more spindles than any country in the world except the United States, and in 1909, was spinning more cotton than France and Germany combined.[5] By 1911 there were 16.4 million spindles in Oldham, compared with a total of 58 million in the United Kingdom and 143.5 million in the world; in 1928, with the construction of the UK's largest textile factory Oldham HP Pavilion DV6-1009tx Keyboard
reached its manufacturing zenith.[16] At its peak, there were over 360 mills, operating night and day;[19][20] Oldham's townscape was dominated by distinctive rectangular brick-built mills.[21] Oldham was hit hard by the Lancashire Cotton Famine of 1861–1865, when supplies of raw cotton from the United States were cut off. Wholly reliant upon the textile industry, the cotton famine created chronic unemployment in the town.[22] By 1863 a committee had been formed, and with aid from central government, land was purchased with the intention of employing local HP Pavilion DV6-1010ea Keyboard
cotton workers to construct Alexandra Park, which opened on 28 August 1865.[22] Said to have over-relied upon the textile sector,[6][15] as the importation of cheaper foreign yarns grew during the 20th century, Oldham's economy declined into a depression, although it was not until 1964 that Oldham ceased to be the largest centre of cotton spinning.[6][16][23] In spite of efforts to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of its production, the last cotton spun in the town was in 1998.[16]
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Engineering
Facilitated by its flourishing textile industry, Oldham developed extensive structural and mechanical engineering sectors during the 18th and 19th centuries. The manufacture of spinning and weaving machinery in Oldham belongs to the last decade of the 19th century, when it became a leading centre in the field of engineering.[11] The Platt Brothers, originated in nearby Dobcross village, but moved to Oldham. They were pioneers of cotton-spinning machinery, HP Pavilion DV6-1010ef Keyboard
developing innovatory products which enabled the mass-production of cotton yarn. Platt Brothers became the largest textile machine makers in the world, employing over 15,000 people in the 1890s,[24] twice the number of their nearest rivals Dobson & Barlow in Bolton and Asa Lees on Greenacres Moor.[20] They were keen investors in the local area and at one time, were supporting 42% of the population.[24] The centre of the company lay at the New Hartford Works in Werneth, a massive complex of buildings and internal railways on a site overlooking HP Pavilion DV6-1010et Keyboard
Manchester. The railway station which served this site later formed the basis of Oldham Werneth railway station, which together with the main building exists to this day. Platts gained prestigious awards from around the world,[22] and were heavily involved with local politics and civic pride in Oldham.[24] John and James Platt were the largest subscribers for promoting Oldham from a township to a Borough, pledging £100 (more than double the next largest sum) in advance towards any expenses which may have been incurred by the Royal Charter.[11] In 1854 John Platt HP Pavilion DV6-1010tx Keyboard
was made the (fourth) Mayor of Oldham, an office he was to hold twice more in 1855–56 and 1861–62.[25] John Platt was elected in 1865 to become Member of Parliament for Oldham, and was re-elected in 1868; he remained in office until his death in 1872.[11] A bronze statue of Platt existed in the town centre for years, though was moved to Alexandra Park. There have been recommendations for it to be returned to the town centre.[7]
Abraham Henthorn Stott, the son of a stonemason, was born in nearby Shaw and Crompton in HP Pavilion DV6-1011tx Keyboard
1822.[3] He served a seven-year apprenticeship with Sir Charles Barry, before starting a structural engineering practice in Oldham in 1847 that went on to become the pre-eminent mill architect firm in Lancashire.[3] Philip Sydney Stott, third son of Abraham and later titled as Sir Philip Stott, 1st Baronet, was the most prominent and famous of the Stott mill architects.[3] He established his own practice in 1883 and designed over a hundred mills in several countries. His factories, which improved upon his father's fireproof mills, accounted for a 40% increase in Oldham's HP Pavilion DV6-1012el Keyboard
spindles between 1887 and 1914.[3]
Although textile-related engineering declined with the processing industry, leading to the demise of both Stotts and Platts, other engineering firms existed, notably electrical and later electronic engineers Ferranti in 1896.[20] Ferranti went into receivership in 1993, but some of its former works continue in other hands. Part of the original Hollinwood site was operated by Siemens Metering and Semiconductor divisions.[20] The remainder of the site is occupied by Mirror HP Pavilion DV6-1012tx Keyboard
Colour Print Ltd; the printing division of the Trinity Mirror group, which prints and distributes thirty-six major newspapers, and employs five hundred staff.[26][27]
Coal mining
On the back of the Industrial Revolution, Oldham developed an extensive coal mining sector, correlated to supporting the local cotton industry and the town's inhabitants, though there is evidence of small scale coal mining in the area as early as the 16th century.[28] The Oldham HP Pavilion DV6-1013ea Keyboard
Coalfield stretched from Royton in the north to Bardsley in the south and in addition to Oldham, included the towns of Middleton and Chadderton to the west.[28] The Oldham Coalfield was the site of over 150 collieries during its recorded history.[28] Although some contemporary sources suggest there was coal mining in Oldham at a commercial scale by 1738,[28] older sources attribute the commercial expansion of coal mining with the arrival in the town of two Welsh labourers, John Evans and William Jones, around 1770.[11] Foreseeing the growth in demand for HP Pavilion DV6-1013tx Keyboard
coal as a source of motive and steam power, they acquired colliery rights for Oldham, which by 1771 had 14 colliers.[11] The mines were largely to the southwest of the town around Hollinwood and Werneth and provided enough coal to accelerate Oldham's rapid development at the centre of the cotton boom. At its height in the mid-19th century, when it was dominated by the Lees and Jones families, Oldham coal was mainly sourced from many small collieries whose lives varied from a few years to many decades, although two of the four largest collieries survived HP Pavilion DV6-1014el Keyboard
to nationalisation.[28][29] In 1851, collieries employed over 2,000 men in Oldham,[29] although the amount of coal in the town was somewhat overestimated however, and production began to decline even before that of the local spinning industry.[28] Today, the only visible remnants of the mines are disused shafts and boreholes.[28]
Social history
Oldham's social history, like that of other former unenfranchised towns, is marked by politicised HP Pavilion DV6-1014tx Keyboard
civil disturbances, as well as events related to the Luddite, Suffragette and other Labour movements from the working classes.[9][24] There has been a significant presence of "friendly societies".[11][30] It has been put that the people of Oldham became radical in politics in the early part of the 19th century, and movements suspected of sedition found patronage in the town.[9] Oldham was frequently disturbed by bread and labour riots, facilitated by periods of scarcity and the disturbance of employment following the introduction of cotton-spinning HP Pavilion DV6-1016el Keyboard
machinery.[9] On 20 April 1812, a "large crowd of riotous individuals" compelled local retailers to sell foods at a loss, whilst on the same day Luddites numbering in their thousands, many of whom were from Oldham, attacked a cotton mill in nearby Middleton.[10] On 16 August 1819, Oldham sent a contingent estimated at well above 10,000 to hear speakers in St Peter's Fields at Manchester discuss political reform.[31] It was the largest contingent sent to Manchester.[32] John Lees, a cotton operative and ex-soldier who had fought at Waterloo, was one of the fifteen HP Pavilion DV6-1016ez Keyboard
victims of the Peterloo Massacre which followed. The 'Oldham inquest' which proceeded the massacre was anxiously watched; the Court of King's Bench, however, decided that the proceedings were irregular, and the jury were discharged without giving a verdict.[9]
Annie Kenney, born in nearby Springhead, and who worked in Oldham's cotton mills, was a notable member of the Suffragette movement credited with sparking off suffragette militancy when she heckled Winston Churchill, and later (with Emmeline Pankhurst) the first Suffragist to HP Pavilion DV6-1018el Keyboard
be imprisoned. Oldham Women's Suffrage Society was established in 1910 with Margery Lees as president and quickly joined the Manchester and District Federation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.[33] The Chartist and Co-operative movements had strong support in the town, whilst many Oldhamers protested against the emancipation of slaves.[24] The Riot Act was read in 1852 on election day following a mass public brawl over the Reform Act,[34] and irregularities with parliamentary candidate nominations.[11]
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For three days in late May 2001, Oldham became the centre of national and international media attention. Following high profile race-related conflicts, and long-term underlying racial tensions between local White British and Asian communities, major riots broke out in the town. Occurring with particular intensity in the Glodwick area of the town, the Oldham riots were the worst racially motivated riots in the United Kingdom for fifteen years prior, briefly eclipsing the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland in the media.[35] At least 20 people were injured in the HP Pavilion DV6-1020ed Keyboard
riots, including 15 police officers, and 37 people were arrested. Similar riots took place in other towns in northern England over the following days and weeks. The 2001 riots prompted governmental and independent inquiries, which collectively agreed on community relations improvements and considerable regeneration schemes for the town.[35][36]
Governance
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Civic history
The coat of arms of the former County Borough of Oldham council, granted 7 November 1894, based upon those of an ancient local family surnamed Oldham. The owls suggest that the family, like the town, called itself 'Owdham', and adopted the birds in allusion to its name. The motto HP Pavilion DV6-1020ei Keyboard
"Sapere aude" refers to the owls.[11][37]
Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire since the early 12th century, Oldham was recorded in 1212 as being one of five parts of the thegnage estate of Kaskenmoor, which was held on behalf of King John by Roger de Montbegon and William de Nevill.[9][11] The other parts of this estate were Crompton, Glodwick, Sholver, and Werneth.[14] Oldham later formed a township within the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, in the hundred of HP Pavilion DV6-1020ej Keyboard
Salford.[1][9]
In 1826 commissioners for the social and economic improvement of Oldham were established.[1] The town was made part of a parliamentary borough, in 1832, though it was in 1849 when Oldham was incorporated as a municipal borough, giving it borough status in the United Kingdom,[1][11] and in 1850 the Borough Council obtained the powers of the improvement commissioners.[1] In 1880, parts of the Hollinwood and Crossbank areas of Chadderton and HP Pavilion DV6-1020ek Keyboard
Ashton-under-Lyne townships were added to the Borough of Oldham.[1] Oldham Above Town and Oldham Below Town were, from 1851 until c.1881, statistical units used for the gathering and organising of civil registration information, and output of census data.
The Local Government Act 1888 created elected county councils to administer services throughout England and Wales. Where a municipal borough had a population of more than 50,000 at the 1881 Census it was created a county borough, with the powers and duties of both a HP Pavilion DV6-1020el Keyboard
borough and county council.[38] As Oldham had an 1881 population of 111,343 it duly became a county borough on 1 April 1889. The borough, while independent of Lancashire County Council for local government, remained part of the county for purposes such as the administration of justice and lieutenancy.[1][39]
In 1951 parts of the Limehurst Rural District were added to the County Borough of Oldham, and in 1954 further parts of the same district added to it on its abolition.[38] Since 1961, Oldham has HP Pavilion DV6-1020eq Keyboard
been twinned with Kranj in Slovenia.[40] Under the Local Government Act 1972, the town's autonomous County borough status was abolished, and Oldham has, since 1 April 1974, formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, within the Metropolitan county of Greater Manchester.[1]
Parliamentary representation
The boundaries of two parliamentary constituencies divide Oldham: Oldham East and HP Pavilion DV6-1020es Keyboard
Saddleworth, and Oldham West and Royton (which includes the town centre), represented by Labour Members of Parliament Debbie Abrahams and Michael Meacher respectively.[41][42][43]
Created as a parliamentary borough in 1832, Oldham's first parliamentary representatives were the radicals William Cobbett and John Fielden.[44] Winston Churchill began his political career in Oldham. Although unsuccessful at his first attempt in 1899, Churchill was elected as the member of Parliament for the Oldham parliamentary borough constituency in the 1900 general HP Pavilion DV6-1020et Keyboard
election.[45] He held the constituency for the Conservative Party until the 1906 general election, when he won the election for Manchester North West as a Liberal MP. After he became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1940, Churchill was made a Honorary Freeman of the Borough of Oldham, on 2 April 1941.[11]
Geography
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Further information: Geography of Greater Manchester
Oldham
Climate chart (explanation)
J F M A M J J A S O N D
70 61
50 71
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60 93
50 124
60 157
70 1810
70 2012
80 2012
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70 1710
80 148
80 94
80 72
Average max. and min. temperatures in °C
Precipitation totals in mm
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Source: Records and averages, Yahoo! Weather, 2007
[show]Imperial conversion
A map of Oldham, and surrounding area.
At 53°32′39″N 2°7′0.8″W (53.5444°, −2.1169°), and 164 miles (264 km) north-northwest of HP Pavilion DV6-1025ef Keyboard
London, Oldham stands 700 feet (213 m) above sea level, 6.9 miles (11.1 km) northeast of Manchester city centre, on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock. Saddleworth and the South Pennines are close to the east, whilst on all other sides, Oldham is bound by smaller towns, including Ashton-under-Lyne, Chadderton, Failsworth, Royton and Shaw and Crompton, with little or no green space between them. Oldham experiences a temperate maritime climate, like much of the British Isles, with relatively cool summers and mild winters. HP Pavilion DV6-1025ei Keyboard
There is regular but generally light precipitation throughout the year.[17]
Oldham's topography is characterised by its rugged, elevated Pennine terrain.[3][46] It has an area of 6.91 square miles (17.90 km2).[8] The geology of Oldham is represented by the Millstone Grit and Coal Measures series of rocks.[17] The River Beal, flowing northwards, forms the boundary between Oldham on one side and Royton and Shaw and Crompton on the other.
To the east of this river the surface rises to a height of 1,225 feet (373 m) at Woodward Hill, on HP Pavilion DV6-1025em Keyboard
the border with the parish of Saddleworth.[9] The rest of the surface is hilly, the average height decreasing towards the southwest to Failsworth and the city of Manchester. The ridge called Oldham Edge, 800 feet (244 m) high, comes southward from Royton into the centre of the town.[9]
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Oldham's irregularly constructed built environment is characterised by its red-brick cotton mills and surrounding terraced houses.
Oldham's built environment is characterised by its 19th-century red-brick terraced houses, the infrastructure that was built to support these and the town's former cotton mills – which mark the town's skyline.[23] The urban structure of Oldham is irregular when compared to most towns in England, its form restricted in places by its hilly upland terrain.[9][46] There are irregularly HP Pavilion DV6-1027ef Keyboard
constructed residential dwellings and streets loosely centred around a central business district in the town centre, which is the local centre of commerce. In 1849, Angus Reach of Inverness said:
The visitor to Oldham will find it essentially a mean-looking straggling town, built upon both sides and crowning the ridge of one of the outlying spurs which branch from Manchester, the neighbouring 'backbone of England'. The whole place has a shabby underdone look. The general appearance of the operatives' houses is filthy and smouldering.[47]
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—Angus Reach, Morning Chronicle, 1849
In the 1870s, John Marius Wilson described Oldham as consisting of:
... numerous streets, and contains numerous fine buildings, both public and private; but, in a general view, is irregularly constructed, presents the dingy aspect of a crowded seat of manufacture, and is more notable for factories than for any other feature.[44]
—John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–1872)
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Although Oldham had a thriving economy during the 19th century, the local merchants were broadly reluctant to spend on civic institutions, and so the town lacks the grandeur seen in comparable nearby towns like Bolton or Huddersfield;[7][48] public expenditure was seen as an overhead that undermined the competitiveness of the town.[24] Subsequently, Oldham's architecture has been described as "mediocre".[48] The town has no listed buildings with a Grade I rating.[49]
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There is a mixture of high-density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Oldham. There is some permanent grassland but overwhelmingly the land use in the town is urban. The territory of Oldham is contiguous with other towns on all sides except for a small section along its eastern and southern boundaries, and for purposes of the Office for National Statistics, forms the fourth largest settlement of the Greater Manchester Urban Area,[50][51] the United Kingdom's third largest conurbation. The M60 motorway passes through the southwest of Oldham, through HP Pavilion DV6-1030eb Keyboard
Hollinwood, and a heavy rail line enters Oldham from the same direction, travelling northeast to the town centre before heading northwards through Derker towards Shaw and Crompton.
A panorama of Oldham looking from Hartshead Pike toward the south east.
Divisions and suburbs
HP Pavilion DV6-1030ec Keyboard
Fredrick Street, in Werneth. Much of Oldham's housing stock is two-up-two-down rows of terraced houses, a reminder of its mill town history.
Many of Oldham's present divisions and suburbs have origins as pre-industrial hamlets, manorial commons and ancient chapelries.[11] Some, such as Moorside, exist as recently constructed HP Pavilion DV6-1030ed Keyboard
residential suburbia, whilst places like Hollinwood exist as electoral wards[52] and thoroughly industrialised districts. Throughout most of its recorded history, Oldham was surrounded by large swathes of moorland, which is reflected in the placenames of Moorside, Greenacres moor, Littlemoor, Northmoor among others.
A large portion of Oldham's residences are "low value"[7] Victorian era Accrington red-brick terraced houses in a row formation,[24] built for the most part from 1870 to 1920, to house the HP Pavilion DV6-1030ef Keyboard
town's cotton mill workers.[34] There is more modern housing in the semi-rural east of the town, in areas such as Moorside,[53] although terraces are found in almost all parts of Oldham.
One of the oldest recorded named places of Oldham is Hathershaw, occurring in a deed for 1280 with the spelling Halselinechaw Clugh.[11] Existing as a manor in the 15th century, Hathershaw Hall was the home of a Royalist family in the 17th century who lost part of their possessions due to the English Civil War.[11] Waterhead, an upland area in the east of Oldham, traces its roots to HP Pavilion DV6-1030em Keyboard
a water cornmill over the border in Lees.[15]
Recorded originally as Watergate and Waterhead Milne, it was for a long time a hamlet in the parish of Oldham that formed a significant part of the Oldham Above Town registration sub-district. Derker was recorded as a place of residence in 1604 with the name Dirtcar.[11] Bound by Higginshaw to the north, Derker is the location of Derker railway station and, said to have terraced residencies "unsuited to modern needs", is currently being redeveloped as part of HP Pavilion DV6-1030eo Keyboard
the Housing Market Renewal Initiative.[54]
Coldhurst, an area along Oldham's northern boundary with Royton, was once a chapelry and the site of considerable industry and commerce, including coal mining, cotton spinning and hat manufacture.[55] It is said to have been the scene of an action in the English Civil War in which the Parliamentarians were defeated.[55]
Demography
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Further information: Demography of Greater Manchester
Oldham compared
UK Census 2001 Oldham[a] Oldham (Met. District) England
Total population 103,544[b] 217,273 49,138,831
Foreign born 15% 8.2% 9.2%
HP Pavilion DV6-1030us Keyboard
White British 71% 86% 92%
Asian 27% 12% 4.6%
Black 0.9% 0.6% 2.3%
Christian 58% 73% 72%
Muslim 25% 11% 3.1%
Hindu 1.1% 0.1% 1.1%
HP Pavilion DV6-1038ca Keyboard
No religion 8.3% 8.9% 15%
Over 65 years old 12% 14% 16%
Unemployed 5.5% 3.7% 3.3%
According to data from the United Kingdom Census 2001, Oldham had a total resident population of 103,544, making it the 55th most populous settlement in England, and the 5th most populous settlement of the Greater Manchester Urban Area.[8] This figure in conjunction with its area HP Pavilion DV6-1039el Keyboard
provides Oldham with a population density of 3,998 people per square mile (1,544 per km²). The local population has been described as broadly "working class"; the middle classes tending to live in outlying settlements.[24]
Oldham, considered as a combination of the 2001 electoral wards of Alexandra,[56] Coldhurst,[57] Hollinwood,[58] St. James,[59] St. Marys,[60] St. Pauls,[61] Waterhead[62] and Werneth,[63] has an average age of 33.5, and compared against the average demography of the United Kingdom, HP Pavilion DV6-1040eb Keyboard
has a high level of people of South Asian heritage, particularly those with roots in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Due to the town's prevalence as an industrial centre and thus a hub for employment, Oldham attracted migrant workers throughout its history, including those from wider-England, Scotland, Ireland and Poland.[64]
During the 1950s and 1960s, in an attempt to fill the shortfall of workers and revitalise local industries, citizens of the wider Commonwealth of Nations were encouraged to migrate to HP Pavilion DV6-1040ed Keyboard
Oldham and other British towns.[64] Many came from the Caribbean and Indian subcontinent and settled throughout the Oldham borough.[64]
Today, Oldham has large communities with heritage from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and parts of the Caribbean.[64] At the time of the 2001 census, over one in four of its residents identified themselves as from a South Asian or British Asian ethnic group. Cultural divisions along ethnic backgrounds are strong within the town,[24] with poor cross-community integration and HP Pavilion DV6-1040ei Keyboard
cohesion along Asian and white backgrounds.[24]
With only a small local population during medieval times, as a result of the introduction of industry, mass migration of village workers into Oldham occurred,[11] resulting in a population change from under 2,000 in 1714[10][65] to 12,000 in 1801 to 137,000 in 1901.[16] In 1851 its population of 52,820 made Oldham the 12th most populous town in England.[66] The following is a table outlining the population change of the town since 1801, which demonstrates a trend of HP Pavilion DV6-1040ej Keyboard
rapid population growth in the 19th century and, after peaking at 147,483 people in 1911, a trend of general decline in population size during the 20th century.
Year 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1939 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001
Population 12,024 16,690 21,662 32,381 42,595 52,820 72,333 82,629HP Pavilion DV6-1040ek Keyboard
111,349 131,463 137,246 147,483 144,983 140,314 120,511 121,266 115,346 105,922 107,830 103,931 103,544
Sources:
A Vision of Britain through Time
Bateson, H. (1949), A Centenary History of Oldham, p. 232[11]
Economy
HP Pavilion DV6-1040el Keyboard
Although mass cotton spinning no longer takes place in Oldham, cotton mills mark its skyline, now used as processing and distribution centres.
HP Pavilion DV6-1040ev Keyboard
The stained glass roof of The Spindles, created by local artist Brian Clarke.
For years Oldham's economy was heavily dependent on manufacturing industry, especially textiles and mechanical engineering.[67][68] Since the deindustrialisation of Oldham in the mid-20th century, these industries have been replaced by home shopping, publishing, healthcare and food processing sectors, though factory-generated employment retains a significant HP Pavilion DV6-1040ez Keyboard
presence.[67] Many of the modern sectors are low-skill and low-wage.[24]
Park Cake Bakeries, recently sold as part of a large shake-up by the Northern Foods Group, have a large food processing centre in Hathershaw, which employs in excess of 1,600 people. Over 90% of the cakes produced go to Marks & Spencer.[69][70] Long existing as an industrial district, Hollinwood is home to the Northern Counties Housing Association,[71] and Mirror Colour Print Ltd; the printing division of the Trinity Mirror group, which prints and distributes 36 major HP Pavilion DV6-1042el Keyboard
newspapers, and employs 500 staff.[72]
Oldham's town centre contains the highest concentration of retailing, cultural facilities and employment in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham.[7] It has been extensively redeveloped during the last few decades, and its two shopping centres, Town Square and The Spindles, now provide one of the largest covered retail areas in Greater Manchester.[73] The Spindles (named HP Pavilion DV6-1044el Keyboard
with reference to textile spindles) is a modern shopping centre with over 40 retailers, banks, building societies and catering outlets. It houses one of Europe's largest stained glass roofs, created by local artist Brian Clarke in celebration of the music of one of Oldham's famous sons, composer and conductor Sir William Walton.[74]
Ferranti Technologies is an electronic, electromechanical and electrical engineering company based in Waterhead.[75]
HP Pavilion DV6-1045ee Keyboard
A number of culinary and medical advances have been developed in Oldham. There are claims that Oldham was the birthplace of the first chip shop.[76][77][78] The sometimes disputed claim of trade in deep-fried chipped potatoes is said to have been started in around 1858–60 from an outlet owned by a John Lees, on what is the present site of Oldham's Tommyfield Market.[78][79][80] In 1900 Oldham had the highest concentration of chip shops in the country; one for every 400 people.[78] Rag Pudding is a savoury dish said to be native to Oldham.[81] HP Pavilion DV6-1045ei Keyboard
Yates Wine Lodge was founded in Oldham by Peter and Simon Yates in 1884.[23]
The tubular bandage was invented and developed in Oldham in 1961.[82] That "vital contribution to advancing medical science" resulted from a collaboration between local firm Seton and a cotton manufacturer in the town.
Landmarks
HP Pavilion DV6-1045eo Keyboard
See also: List of Scheduled Monuments in Greater Manchester, Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester, Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester, and List of public art in Greater Manchester
Oldham's Old Town Hall, is an unused neo-classical town hall built in 1841.
HP Pavilion DV6-1045ez Keyboard
Oldham's war memorial was commissioned in 1919 to "symbolise the spirit of 1914–1918".
The Civic Centre is the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham's centre of local governance.
HP Pavilion DV6-1046el Keyboard
Oldham Parish Church dates from 1830.
Town Hall
Oldham's Old Town Hall is a Grade II listed Georgian neo-classical town hall built in 1841,[83] eight years before Oldham received its borough status.[84] One of the last purpose built town HP Pavilion DV6-1050ef Keyboard
halls in northwest England,[24] it has a tetrastyle Ionic portico, copied from the temple of Ceres, on the River Ilissos, near Athens.[44] Winston Churchill made his inaugural acceptance speech from the steps of the town hall when he was first elected as a Conservative MP in 1900. A Blue Plaque on the exterior of the building commemorates the event.[85] Long existing as the political centre of the town, complete with courtrooms, the structure has stood empty since the mid-1980s and has regularly been earmarked for redevelopment as part of regeneration project HP Pavilion DV6-1050ei Keyboard
proposals; none have been actioned.[7][84][85][86]
In September 2008, it was reported that "Oldham Town Hall is only months away from a major roof collapse".[87] A tour taken by local councillors and media concluded with an account that "chunks of masonry are falling from the ceilings on a daily basis, [...] the floors are littered with dead pigeons and [...] revealed that the building is literally rotting away".[85][87] In October 2009 the Victorian Society, a charity responsible for the study and protection of Britain's Victorian and HP Pavilion DV6-1050en Keyboard
Edwardian architecture, declared Oldham Town Hall as the most endangered Victorian structure in England and Wales.[88][89][90]
War memorial
Erected as a permanent memorial to the men of Oldham who were killed in World War I, Oldham's war memorial consists of a granite base surmounted by a bronze sculpture depicting five soldiers making their way along the trenches in order to go into battle.[91] The main standing HP Pavilion DV6-1050eo Keyboard
figure, having climbed out of the trenches, is shown calling on his comrades to advance. The base serves to house books containing the roll of honour of the 1st, 10th and 24th Battalions, Manchester Regiment. The pedestal has two bronze doors at either side.[91]
Commissioned in 1919 by the Oldham War Memorial Committee, the memorial was designed and built by Albert Toft.[92] It was unveiled by General Sir Ian Hamilton on 28 April 1923, before a crowd estimated at over 10,000.[91] The monument was intended to symbolise the spirit of HP Pavilion DV6-1050ep Keyboard
1914–1918.[11]
The inscriptions on the memorial read:
Over doors: "Mors Januva Vitae, 1914–1918" (death is the gate of life)
Opposite side: "To God Be The Praise"
Civic Centre
The Civic Centre tower is the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham's centre of local governance. The HP Pavilion DV6-1050es Keyboard
15-storey white-brick building has housed the vast majority of the local government's offices since its completion in 1977. Standing at the summit of the town, the tower stands over 200 feet (61 m) high.[93] It was designed by Cecil Howitt & Partners,[7] and the topping out ceremony was held on 18 June 1976.[22] The Civic Centre can be seen as far away as Salford, Trafford, Wythenshawe and Winter Hill in Lancashire, and offers panoramic views across the city of Manchester and the Cheshire Plain.
HP Pavilion DV6-1050et Keyboard
Parish Church
See also: List of churches in Greater Manchester
The Oldham Parish Church of St. Mary with St. Peter, in its present form, dates from 1830 and was designed in the Gothic Revival Style by Richard Lane, a Manchester based architect.[65] It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building.[94] It was linked with the church of St Mary the Virgin, Prestwich and together the sites were principal churches of the HP Pavilion DV6-1050us Keyboard
ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham.[65]
A church building had existed on the site since 1280.[65] During this time, a small chapel stood on the site to serve the local townships of Oldham, Chadderton, Royton and Crompton. This was later replaced by an Early English Gothic church in the 15th century.[65] With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the population of Oldham increased at a rapid rate (from under 2,000 in 1714, to over 32,000 by 1831).[65] The rapid growth of the local population warranted that the HP Pavilion DV6-1053cl Keyboard
building be rebuilt in to the current structure. Though the budget was originally agreed at £5,000,[7] the final cost of building was £30,000, one third of which was spent on the crypt structure.[65] Alternative designs by Sir Charles Barry, the designer of the Palace of Westminster, although now regarded by some as superior, were rejected.[7][65] The Church, of the Anglican denomination, is in active use for worship, and forms part of the Diocese of Manchester.[65]
Transport
HP Pavilion DV6-1054cl Keyboard
The 409 to Rochdale, pictured in Oldham's town centre. First Greater Manchester has its headquarters in Oldham, operating bus services throughout Greater Manchester.
The geography of Oldham constrained the development of major transport infrastructure.[66] It HP Pavilion DV6-1055ee Keyboard
has been put that "if it had not grown substantially before the railway age it would surely have been overlooked".[66] Oldham has never been on a main line railway route, and canals too have only been able to serve it from a distance,[66] meaning that "Oldham has never had a train service worthy of a town of its size".[95]
A principal destination along the former Oldham Loop Line, Oldham once had seven railway stations but this was reduced to four once Clegg Street, Oldham Central and Glodwick Road HP Pavilion DV6-1055eo Keyboard
closed in the mid-20th century; Hollinwood, Oldham Werneth, Oldham Mumps and Derker closed on 3 October 2009.[96][97] Trains from Manchester Victoria station to Oldham had to climb steeply through much of its 6-mile (9.7 km) route, from around 100 feet (30.5 m) at Manchester city centre to around 600 feet (182.9 m) at Oldham Mumps.[66] The Werneth Incline, with its gradient of 1 in 27, made the Middleton Junction to Oldham Werneth route the steepest regular passenger line in the country.[95] The Werneth Incline route closed in 1963. It had been HP Pavilion DV6-1056el Keyboard
replaced as the main route to Manchester by the section of line built between Oldham Werneth Station and Thorpes Bridge Junction, Newton Heath in May 1880.[98] Oldham Mumps, the second oldest station on the line after Werneth,[96] took its name from its location in the Mumps area of Oldham, which itself probably derived from the archaic word "mumper" which was slang for a beggar.[99] The former Oldham Loop Line is to be converted for use with an expanded Manchester Metrolink tram network. The first section between Manchester Victoria and Oldham HP Pavilion DV6-1058el Keyboard
Mumps (temporary) Metrolink stops opened on Wednesday 13 June 2012.[7][96][97]
Oldham had electric tramways to Manchester in the early-20th century; the first tram was driven from Manchester into Oldham in 1900 by the Lord Mayor of Manchester.[22] The system came to an end on 3 August 1946, however.[11] There was also a short-lived Oldham trolleybus system, in 1925–26. The £3.3m Oldham Bus Station has frequent bus services to Manchester, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne and Middleton with other services to the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, HP Pavilion DV6-1060ek Keyboard
Tameside, and across the Pennines to Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.[100] The roof canopy is supported internally on two rows of steel trees. The extensive use of glass and stainless steel maximises visibility, and there is a carefully co-ordinated family of information fittings, posters and seating, using robust natural materials for floors and plinths.[100] The bus station is used by National Express coaches. First Greater Manchester, FirstGroup plc's bus operator for north-Greater Manchester, has its headquarters in Oldham.[101]
HP Pavilion DV6-1060el Keyboard
Oldham is about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the major M62 motorway, but is linked to it by the M60 at Hollinwood, and A627(M) via Chadderton. There are major A roads to Ashton-under-Lyne, Huddersfield, Manchester, and Rochdale.[11]
The Hollinwood Branch of the Ashton Canal was a canal that ran from Fairfield in Droylsden, through Littlemoss and Daisy Nook Country Park to the Hollinwood area of Oldham, with a branch from Daisy Nook to the Fairbottom Branch Canal.[102] The canal was mainly used for the HP Pavilion DV6-1060eo Keyboard
haulage of coal until it fell into disuse for commercial traffic in the 1930s.[103] It included four aqueducts and a two-rise lock staircase.
Sports
HP Pavilion DV6-1060es Keyboard
Boundary Park is Oldham's main sports stadium, and is used by Oldham Athletic A.F.C..
Oldham Roughyeds Rugby League Club was established in 1876 as Oldham Football Club,[24] and Oldham Athletic Football Club in 1895 as Pine Villa Football Club. Oldham Athletic have achieved both league and cup successes, particularly under Joe Royle in the 1990s.[24] They were Football League runners-up in the last season before the outbreak of the First World War, but were relegated from the Football League First Division in 1923. They reached the Football League Cup IBM 08K4729 Keyboard
final in 1990 and won the Football League Second Division title in 1991, ending 68 years outside the top flight.
They secured their top division status a year later to become founder members of the new Premier League,[82] but were relegated after two seasons despite reaching that year's FA Cup semi-finals. They are currently playing in Football League One, the third tier of the English league. After the sacking of John Sheridan in mid-March 2009, Dave Penney was appointed manager, but IBM 08K4757 Keyboard
was only to last for one season. The club's current manager is Paul Dickov the former Manchester City player.[104] Boundary Park, where the club has played since the early 20th Century, had been proposed for regeneration, but plans are currently ongoing for a move to a new ground to be built in neighbouring Failsworth.[24]
Oldham Boro Football Club was established in 1964 as Oldham Dew FC, and after many years playing under the name of Oldham Town adapted its present name in 2009. The team currently IBM 39T0550 Keyboard
plays in the North West Counties Football League Division Two.
Renamed in 1997 to Oldham Roughyeds, Oldham Rugby League Club has received several club honours during its history,[105] winning the Rugby Football League Championship five times and Challenge Cup three times.[105] They played at Watersheddings for years before joining Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park until 2010 when they moved to Oldham Borough's previous ground, Whitebank Stadium.[105] Oldham has league cricket teams with a number of semi-professional IBM 39T0581 Keyboard
league clubs including Oldham CC, and Werneth CC in the Central Lancashire League.
Education
See also: List of schools in Oldham
IBM 39T0928 Keyboard
The Oldham College is a centre for further education.
The Blue Coat School is one of Oldham's oldest schools, dating back to 1834.
Almost every part of Oldham is served by a school of some kind, some with religious affiliations. According to the Office for Standards in Education, schools within the town perform at mixed IBM 39T0958 Keyboard
levels. Oldham Hulme grammer schools, which dates from 1895,[106] is consistently Oldham's top performing secondary school for girls school and boys school 11- to 16-year-olds, and has a sixth form college of further education for 16- to 18-year-olds on the same site.
Oldham produced someone who is considered[6] to be one of the greatest benefactors of education for the nation, Hugh Oldham, who in 1504 was appointed as Bishop of Exeter, and later went on to found what is now Manchester Grammar School.
IBM 39T0982 Keyboard
University Centre Oldham is a centre for higher education and a sister campus of the University of Huddersfield. It was opened in May 2005 by actor Patrick Stewart, the centre's Chancellor.[107] The University Centre Oldham presented actress Shobna Gulati and artist, Brian Clarke (both born in Oldham) with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters at the Graduation Ceremony of November 2006, for their achievements and contributions to Oldham and its community.[107]
School Type/Status OfSTED Website
IBM 39T7142 Keyboard
The Blue Coat School Secondary School 105739 www.blue-coat.oldham.sch.uk
Breeze Hill School Secondary School 105731 www.breezehill.oldham.sch.uk
Counthill School Secondary School 105728 www.counthill.org.uk
Grange School Secondary School 105729 www.theoldhamacademynorth.com
Hulme Grammar School Grammar School N/A www.hulme-grammar.oldham.sch.uk
Kaskenmoor School Secondary School 105732 www.kaskenmoor.org.uk
IBM 39T7265 Keyboard
New Bridge School Secondary Special School 134517 www.newbridgeschool.net
Oldham Sixth Form College Sixth Form College 130506 www.osfc.ac.uk
The Oldham College Further education college 130505 www.oldham.ac.uk
University Centre Oldham Higher education college N/A www.oldham.hud.ac.uk
St Augustine of Canterbury R.C. High School Secondary School 105741 www.staugustine.oldham.sch.uk
IBM 42T3133 Keyboard
The Hathershaw College Secondary School 105730 www.hathershaw.org.uk
Public services
Home Office policing in Oldham is provided by the Greater Manchester Police. The force's "(Q) Division" have their headquarters for policing the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham at central Oldham. Public transport is co-ordinated by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport IBM 42T3167 Keyboard
Executive. Statutory emergency fire and rescue service is provided by the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, which has two stations in Oldham; at Hollins on Hollins Road,[108] and at Clarksfield on Lees Road.[109]
The Royal Oldham Hospital, at Oldham's northern boundary with Royton, is a large NHS hospital administrated by Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. It was opened under its existing name on 1 December 1989.[110] Formerly known as Oldham District and General, and occupying the site of IBM 42T3265 Keyboard
the town's former workhouse (named Oldham Union Workhouse in 1851),[110] the hospital is notable for being the birthplace of Louise Joy Brown – the world's first successful In vitro fertilised "test tube baby", on 25 July 1978.[111] The North West Ambulance Service provides emergency patient transport. Other forms of health care are provided for locally by several small clinics and surgeries.
Waste management is co-ordinated by the local authority via the Greater Manchester Waste IBM 42T3297 Keyboard
Disposal Authority.[112] Locally produced inert waste for disposal is sent to landfill at the Beal Valley.[113] Oldham's Distribution Network Operator for electricity is United Utilities;[114] there are no power stations in the town. United Utilities also manages Oldham's drinking and waste water;[114] water supplies being sourced from several local reservoirs, including Dovestones and Chew.[115] There is a water treatment works at Waterhead.[114]
Culture
IBM 42T3567 Keyboard
Oldham, though lacking in leisure and cultural amenities,[48] is historically notable for its theatrical culture.[116] Once having a peak of six "fine" theatres in 1908,[116] Oldham is home to the Oldham Coliseum Theatre and the Oldham Theatre Workshop, which have facilitated the early careers of notable actors and writers, including Eric Sykes,[116] Bernard Cribbins[117] and Anne Kirkbride,[117] daughter of acclaimed cartoonist Jack Kirkbride who worked for the Oldham IBM 42T3600 Keyboard
Evening Chronicle. Oldham Coliseum Theatre is one of Britain's last remaining repertory theatres; Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel performed there in the early 20th century, and contemporary actors such as Ralph Fiennes and Minnie Driver, among others, have appeared more recently.[118] In the nineteenth century, the circus was a popular entertainment in Oldham, with Pablo Fanque's circus, a regular visitor to town, filling a 3000-seat amphitheatre on Tommyfield in 1869.[119] Criticised for its lack of a cinema,[48] there are plans to develop an "Oldham West IBM 42T3638 Keyboard
End".[120] Oldham has a thriving bar and night club culture which attracts significant number of young people into the town centre.[7] Oldham's "hard binge drinking culture" has been criticised however for conveying a negative regional image of the town.[48]
Communal facilities
IBM 42T3671 Keyboard
The Lyceum is a Grade II listed building opened in 1856 as a "mutual improvement" centre for the working men of Oldham.
The Lyceum is a Grade II listed building[121][122] opened in 1856 at a cost of £6,500 as a "mutual improvement" centre for the working men of Oldham;[11] it replaced an earlier building constructed in 1839. The facilities provided to members included a library, a newsroom, and a series of lectures on geology, geography and education, microscopy and chemistry, female IBM 42T3704 Keyboard
education, and botany.[121] Instrumental music was introduced and there were soon 16 violinists and 3 'cellists. Eventually the building was extended to include a School of Science and Art. Music had always been important in the life of the Lyceum, and in 1892 a school of music was opened, with 39 students enrolled for the "theory and practice of music".
The Lyceum continued throughout the 20th century as a centre for the arts in Oldham, and in 1986 the local authority was invited by its directors and trustees to accept the building as a IBM 42T3737 Keyboard
gift.[121] The acceptance of the Lyceum building by the Education Committee provided the opportunity to re-locate The Music Centre and "further enhance the cultural activities of the town".[121] In 1989 the Oldham Metropolitan Borough Music Centre moved into the Lyceum building, which is now the home of the Oldham Lyceum School of Music.[121]
Oldham’s museum and gallery service dates back to 1883.[123] Since then it has established itself as a cultural focus for Oldham and has developed one of the largest and most varied permanent IBM 42T3961 Keyboard
collections in North West England. The current collection includes over 12,000 social and industrial history items, more than 2,000 works of art, about 1,000 items of decorative art, more than 80,000 natural history specimens, over 1,000 geological specimens, about 3,000 archaeological artefacts, 15,000 photographs and a large number of books, pamphlets and documents.[123]
Oldham is now home to a newly built state-of-the-art art gallery, Gallery Oldham, which was IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
completed in February 2002 as the first phase of the Oldham Cultural Quarter.[124] Later phases of the development saw the opening of an extended Oldham Library, a lifelong learning centre and there are plans to include a performing arts centre.[7]
Carnival
The annual Oldham Carnival started around 1900, although the tradition of carnivals in the town goes back much further, providing a "welcomed respite from the tedium of everyday life".[125] IBM 42T4090 Keyboard
The carnival parade was always held in mid-to-late summer, with the primary aim of raising money for charities.[125] It often featured local dignitaries or popular entertainers, in addition to brass, military and jazz bands, the Carnival Queen, people in fancy dress, dancers and decorated floats from local churches and businesses.[125] Whenever possible, local people who had attained national celebrity status were invited to join the cavalcade.[125] The carnival's route began in the town centre, wound its way along King Street, and ended with a party in Alexandra IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 Keyboard
Park.[125]
The carnival was a popular and prestigious event,[125] though it fell out of favour in the late 1990s.[126] The carnival was resurrected in 2006, rebranded the People's Carnival.[126]
Notable people
Main article: List of people from Oldham
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People from Oldham are called Oldhamers,[23] though "Roughyed" is a nickname from the 18th century when rough felt was used in Oldham to make hats.[11] The town has been the birthplace and home to notable people, of national and international acclaim. Edward Potts was a renowned architect who moved to Oldham from nearby Bury. He was the architect for fourteen new mills in the borough including the Bell mill (1904) and the Iris mill (1907).[127] Other notable persons of historic significance with a connection to Oldham are acclaimed composer Sir William IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1832 Keyboard
Walton, former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, and Louise Brown,[111] the world's first baby to be conceived by in vitro fertilisation. Notable Oldhamers from TV entertainment include comedy double act Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball, TV host Phillip Schofield,[82] actress Shobna Gulati and comedian, musician and actor Bernard Cribbins. Notable musicians from Oldham include the Inspiral Carpets, Drummer Simon Wright and Mark Owen of boyband Take That.[82] Notable sportsmen from Oldham include former England national football team captain IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1833 Keyboard
David Platt.[82] and Manchester United and former England footballer Paul Scholes
An electrolyte
An electrolyte is a liquid or gel that contains ions and can be decomposed by electrolysis, e.g., that present in a battery.
Commonly, electrolytes are solutions of acids, bases, or salts. Furthermore, some gases may act as electrolytes under conditions of high temperature or low pressure. Electrolyte solutions can also result from the dissolution of some biological (e.g., DNA, polypeptides) and synthetic polymers (e.g., polystyrene sulfonate), termed polyelectrolytes, which contain charged functional Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
groups.
Electrolyte solutions are normally formed when a salt is placed into a solvent such as water and the individual components dissociate due to the thermodynamic interactions between solvent and solute molecules, in a process called solvation. For example, when table salt, NaCl, is placed in water, the salt (a solid) dissolves into its component ions, according to the dissociation reaction
NaCl(s) → Na+(aq) + Cl−(aq)
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It is also possible for substances to react with water producing ions, e.g., carbon dioxide gas dissolves in water to produce a solution which contains hydronium, carbonate, and hydrogen carbonate ions.
Note that molten salts can be electrolytes as well. For instance, when sodium chloride is molten, the liquid conducts electricity.
An electrolyte in a solution may be described as concentrated if it has a high concentration of Toshiba Satellite U305-S7477 Keyboard
ions, or dilute if it has a low concentration. If a high proportion of the solute dissociates to form free ions, the electrolyte is strong; if most of the solute does not dissociate, the electrolyte is weak. The properties of electrolytes may be exploited using electrolysis to extract constituent elements and compounds contained within the solution.
Contents [hide]
1 Physiological importance
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1.1 Measurement
1.2 Rehydration
2 Electrochemistry
3 Solid electrolyte
4 See also
5 References
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[edit]Physiological importance
In physiology, the primary ions of electrolytes are sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), chloride (Cl−), hydrogen phosphate (HPO42−), and hydrogen carbonate (HCO3−). The electric charge symbols of plus (+) and minus (−) indicate that the substance is ionic in nature and has an imbalanced distribution of electrons, the result of chemical dissociation. SToshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
odium is the main electrolyte found in extracellular fluid and is involved in fluid balance and blood pressure control.
All known higher lifeforms require a subtle and complex electrolyte balance between the intracellular and extracellular environment. In particular, the maintenance of precise osmotic gradients of electrolytes is important. Such gradients affect and regulate the hydration of the body as well as blood pH, and are critical for nerve and muscle function. Various mechanisms Toshiba Satellite pro 4280xdvd Keyboard
exist in living species that keep the concentrations of different electrolytes under tight control.
Both muscle tissue and neurons are considered electric tissues of the body. Muscles and neurons are activated by electrolyte activity between the extracellular fluid or interstitial fluid, and intracellular fluid. Electrolytes may enter or leave the cell membrane through specialized protein structures embedded in the plasma membrane called ion channels. For example, muscle contraction is dependent upon the presence of calcium (Ca2+), sodium (Na+), and potassium (K+). Toshiba Satellite P105-S6177 Keyboard
Without sufficient levels of these key electrolytes, muscle weakness or severe muscle contractions may occur.
Electrolyte balance is maintained by oral, or in emergencies, intravenous (IV) intake of electrolyte-containing substances, and is regulated by hormones, generally with the kidneys flushing out excess levels. In humans, electrolyte homeostasis is regulated by hormones such as antidiuretic hormone, aldosterone and parathyroid hormone. Serious electrolyte disturbances, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
such as dehydration and overhydration, may lead to cardiac and neurological complications and, unless they are rapidly resolved, will result in a medical emergency.
[edit]Measurement
Measurement of electrolytes is a commonly performed diagnostic procedure, performed via blood testing with ion selective electrodes or urinalysis by medical technologists. The interpretation of these values is somewhat meaningless without analysis of the clinical history Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
and is often impossible without parallel measurement of renal function. Electrolytes measured most often are sodium and potassium. Chloride levels are rarely measured except for arterial blood gas interpretation since they are inherently linked to sodium levels. One important test conducted on urine is the specific gravity test to determine the occurrence of electrolyte imbalance.
[edit]Rehydration
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In oral rehydration therapy, electrolyte drinks containing sodium and potassium salts replenish the body's water and electrolyte levels after dehydration caused by exercise, excessive alcohol consumption, diaphoresis, diarrhea, vomiting, intoxication or starvation. Athletes exercising in extreme conditions (for three or more hours continuously e.g. marathon or triathlon) who do not consume electrolytes risk dehydration (or hyponatremia).[1]
A simple electrolyte drink can be home-made by using the correct proportions of water, sugar, Toshiba Satellite L775-S7243 Keyboard
salt, salt substitute for potassium, and baking soda.[2]
Electrolytes are commonly found in fruit juices, coconut water, sports drinks, milk, and many fruits and vegetables (whole or in juice form) (e.g. potatoes, avocados).
[edit]Electrochemistry
Main article: electrolysis
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When electrodes are placed in an electrolyte and a voltage is applied, the electrolyte will conduct electricity. Lone electrons normally cannot pass through the electrolyte; instead, a chemical reaction occurs at the cathode consuming electrons from the anode. Another reaction occurs at the anode, producing electrons that are eventually transferred to the cathode. As a result, a negative charge cloud develops in the electrolyte around the cathode, and a positive charge develops around the anode. The ions in the electrolyte neutralize these charges, enabling the Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
electrons to keep flowing and the reactions to continue.
For example, in a solution of ordinary table salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) in water, the cathode reaction will be
2H2O + 2e− → 2OH− + H2
and hydrogen gas will bubble up; the anode reaction is
2NaCl → 2 Na+ + Cl2 + 2e−
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and chlorine gas will be liberated. The positively charged sodium ions Na+ will react towards the cathode neutralizing the negative charge of OH− there, and the negatively charged hydroxide ions OH− will react towards the anode neutralizing the positive charge of Na+ there. Without the ions from the electrolyte, the charges around the electrode would slow down continued electron flow; diffusion of H+ and OH− through water to the other electrode takes longer than movement of the much more prevalent salt ions.
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Also: Electrolytes dissociate in water because water molecules are dipoles and the dipoles orient in an energetically favorable manner to solvate the ions.
In other systems, the electrode reactions can involve the metals of the electrodes as well as the ions of the electrolyte.
Electrolytic conductors are used in electronic devices where the chemical reaction at a metal/electrolyte interface yields useful effects.
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In batteries, two materials with different electron affinities are used as electrodes; electrons flow from one electrode to the other outside of the battery, while inside the battery the circuit is closed by the electrolyte's ions. Here the electrode reactions convert chemical energy to electrical energy.[3]
In some fuel cells, a solid electrolyte or proton conductor connects the plates electrically while keeping the hydrogen and oxygen fuel gases separated.
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In electroplating tanks, the electrolyte simultaneously deposits metal onto the object to be plated, and electrically connects that object in the circuit.
In operation-hours gauges, two thin columns of mercury are separated by a small electrolyte-filled gap, and, as charge is passed through the device, the metal dissolves on one side and plates out on the other, causing the visible gap to slowly move along.
Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
In electrolytic capacitors the chemical effect is used to produce an extremely thin 'dielectric' or insulating coating, while the electrolyte layer behaves as one capacitor plate.
In some hygrometers the humidity of air is sensed by measuring the conductivity of a nearly dry electrolyte.
Hot, softened glass is an electrolytic conductor, and some glass manufacturers keep the glass molten by passing a large current through it.
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[edit]Solid electrolyte
Solid electrolytes can be mostly divided into three groups:
Gel electrolytes - they closely resemble liquid electrolytes. They are essentially liquids in a flexible Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
lattice framework. Various additives are often applied to increase the conductivity of such systems.[3][4]
Dry polymer electrolytes - they differ from liquid and gel electrolytes in the sense, that salt is dissolved directly into the solid medium. Usually it's a relatively high dielectric constant polymer (PEO, PMMA, PAN, polyphosphazenes, siloxanes etc.) and a salt with low lattice energy. In order to increase the mechanical strength and conductivity of such electrolytes, very often composites Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
are used, namely inert ceramic phase is introduced. There two major classes of such electrolytes: polymer-in-ceramic, and ceramic-in-polymer.[5][6][7]
Solid ceramic electrolytes - ions migrate through the ceramic phase by means of vacancies and/or interstitials within the lattice. There are also glassy-ceramic electrolytes.
Western Australia (abbreviated as WA[a]) is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
Indian Ocean to the south,[b] the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state and the second-largest subnational entity in the world. The state has approximately 2.3 million inhabitants (around 10% of the national total), the majority of whom live in the south-west corner of the state.
The first European to visit Western Australia was the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog, who visited the Western Australian coast in 1616. The British established a military outpost at King George Sound, Toshiba Satellite A305-S6839 Keyboard
near present-day Albany, in 1826, which was followed by the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, including the townsite of the present-day capital, Perth.
Western Australia achieved self-government in 1890, and later federated with the other British colonies in Australia in 1901. Today Western Australia's economy mainly relies on mining, agriculture, and tourism, with the state supplying 46% of Australia's exports.[3] Western Australia is the third-largest iron ore producer in the world.
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Contents
1 Geography
2 Natural history
2.1 Geology
2.2 Climate
2.3 Flora and fauna
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3 History
4 Demographics
5 Economy
6 Government
6.1 Secession
6.2 Local government
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7 Education
8 Media
8.1 Print
8.2 Television
8.3 Radio
9 Culture
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9.1 Wine
9.2 Sport
9.3 The arts
10 See also
11 Notes
12 References
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13 External links
[edit]Geography
Main article: Geography of Western Australia
Western Australia is bounded to the east by longitude 129°E, the meridian 129 degrees east of Greenwich, which defines the border with South Australia and the Northern Territory, and Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
bounded by the Indian Ocean to the west and north. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) designates the body of water south of the continent as part of the Indian Ocean, although it is officially gazetted as the Southern Ocean in Australia.[b][4]
The total length of the state's eastern border is 1,862 km (1,157 mi).[5] There are 20,781 km (12,913 mi) of coastline, including 7,892 km (4,904 mi) of island coastline.[6] The total land area occupied by the state is 2.5 million km2.[7]
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[edit]Natural history
[edit]Geology
The bulk of Western Australia consists of the extremely old Yilgarn craton and Pilbara craton which merged with the Deccan Plateau of India, Madagascar and the Karoo and Zimbabwe cratons of Southern Africa, in the Archean Eon to form Ur, one of the oldest supercontinents on EToshiba NB100 Keyboard
arth (3 – 3.2 billion years ago).
Because the only mountain-building since then has been of the Stirling Range with the rifting from Antarctica, the land is extremely eroded and ancient, with no part of the state above 1,245 metres (4,085 ft) AHD (at Mount Meharry in the Hamersley Range of the Pilbara region). Most parts of the state form a low plateau with an average elevation of about 400 metres (1,200 ft), very low relief, and no surface runoff. This descends relatively sharply to the coastal plains, in Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
some cases forming a sharp escarpment (as with the Darling Range/Darling Scarp near Perth).
Western Australian cities, towns, settlements and road network.
The extreme age of the landscape has meant that the soils are remarkably infertile and frequently laterised. Even soils derived from granitic bedrock contain an order of magnitude less Toshiba Mini NB 255 Series Keyboard
available phosphorus and only half as much nitrogen as soils in comparable climates in other continents. Soils derived from extensive sandplains or ironstone are even less fertile, being even more devoid of soluble phosphate and also deficient in zinc, copper, molybdenum and sometimes potassium and calcium.
The infertility of most of the soils has required heavy inputs of chemical fertilisers, particularly superphosphate, insecticides and herbicides, which—with the ensuing damage to invertebrate Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
and bacterial populations, and compaction of soils through heavy machinery and hoofed mammals—has done great damage to the fragile soils.
Large-scale land clearing for agriculture has damaged habitats for native flora and fauna. As a result, the South West region of the state has a higher concentration of rare, threatened or endangered flora and fauna than many areas of Australia, making it one of the world's biodiversity "hot spots". Large areas of the state's wheatbelt region have problems with dryland Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
salinity and the loss of fresh water.
[edit]Climate
The southwest coastal area has a Mediterranean climate and was originally heavily forested, including large stands of the karri, one of the tallest trees in the world.[8] This agricultural region of Western Australia is in the top nine terrestrial habitats for terrestrial biodiversity, with a higher proportion of endemic species than most other equivalent regions. Thanks to the offshore Thinkpad T420i
Leeuwin Current the area numbers in the top six regions for marine biodiversity, containing the most southerly coral reefs in the world.
Average annual rainfall varies from 300 millimetres (12 in) at the edge of the Wheatbelt region to 1,400 millimetres (55 in) in the wettest areas near Northcliffe, but in the months of November to March evaporation exceeds rainfall, and it is generally very dry. Plants must be adapted to this as well as the extreme poverty of all soils. A major reduction in winter rainfall has been observed ThinkPad Edge E520s
since the mid-1970s, with a greater number of extreme rainfall events in the summer months.[9]
The central four-fifths of the state is semiarid or desert and is lightly inhabited with the only significant activity being mining. Annual rainfall averages 200–250 millimetres (8–10 in), most of which occurs in sporadic torrential falls related to cyclone events in summer months.
An exception to this is the northern tropical regions. The Kimberley has an extremely hot monsoonal climate with average annual rainfall ranging from 500 to 1,500 millimetres (20–60 in), ThinkPad Edge E520
but there is a very long almost rainless season from April to November. Eighty-five percent of the state's runoff occurs in the Kimberley, but because it occurs in violent floods and because of the insurmountable poverty of the generally shallow soils, the only development has taken place along the Ord River.
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The Black Swan is the state bird of Western Australia
The Red and Green Kangaroo Paw is the floral emblem of Western Australia
Occurrence of snow in the state is rare, and typically only in the Stirling Range near Albany, as it is the only mountain range far enough south and with sufficient elevation. More rarely, snow can Sony VGN-FE865E/H Keyboard
fall on the nearby Porongurup Range. Snow outside these areas is a major event; it usually occurs in hilly areas of southwestern Australia. The most widespread low-level snow occurred on 26 June 1956 when snow was reported in the Perth Hills, as far north as Wongan Hills and as far east as Salmon Gums. However, even in the Stirling Range, snowfalls rarely exceed 5 cm (2 in) and rarely settle for more than one day.[10]
The highest observed maximum temperature of 50.5 °C (122.9 °F) was recorded at Mardie Sony VAIO VPCF12AFM/H Keyboard
Station on 19 February 1998. The lowest minimum temperature recorded was −7.2 °C (19.0 °F) at Eyre Bird Observatory on 17 August 2008.[11]
[edit]Flora and fauna
Western Australia is home to around 540 species of birds (depending on the taxonomy used). Of these around 15 are endemic to the state. The best areas for birds are the southwestern corner of the state and the area around Broome and the Kimberley.
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The Flora of Western Australia comprises 9437 published native vascular plant species of 1543 genera within 226 families, there are also 1171 naturalised alien or invasive plant species more commonly known as weeds.[12] In the southwest region are some of the largest numbers of plant species for its area in the world.
Specific ecoregions of Western Australia include: the sandstone gorges of The Kimberley on the northern coast and below that areas of dry grassland (Ord Victoria Plain) or semi-desert (Western Sony VAIO VGN-SZ660N/C Keyboard
Australian Mulga shrublands), with Tanami Desert inland from there. Following the coast south there is the Southwest Australia savanna and the Swan Coastal Plain around Perth, and then farther south the Warren on the southwest corner of the coast around the wine-growing area of Margaret River.
Going east along the Southern Ocean coast is the Goldfields-Esperance region including the Esperance grasslands and the Coolgardie grasslands inland around town of Coolgardie.
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[edit]History
Main article: History of Western Australia
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John Forrest was the first Premier of Western Australia.
The first inhabitants of Australia arrived from the north approximately 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Over thousands of years they eventually spread across the whole landmass. These Indigenous Australians were well established throughout Western Australia by the time European explorers began to arrive in the early seventeenth century.
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The first European to visit Western Australia was a Dutch explorer, Dirk Hartog who on 25 October 1616 landed at what is now known as Cape Inscription, Dirk Hartog Island. For the rest of the 17th century, other Dutch (and other nationalities) travellers encountered the coast, usually unintentionally, as many shipwrecks along the coast of ships that deviated (because of poor navigation and storms) from the Brouwer Route illustrate.[citation needed]. It was a further 200 years before it was proven that the Great Southern continent actually existed. By the late 18th Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/S Keyboard
century, British and French sailors had begun to explore the Western Australian coast.
The origins of the present state began with the establishment of a British settlement at King George Sound in 1826 (later named Albany from 1832). The settlement was founded in response to British concerns about the possibility of a French colony being established on the coast of Western Australia.
In 1829, the Swan River Colony was established on the Swan River by Captain James Stirling. By Sony VAIO VGN-NW11Z Keyboard
1832, the British settler population of the colony had reached around 1,500, and the official name of the colony was changed to Western Australia. The two separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle and the state's capital, Perth.
Population growth was very slow until significant discoveries of gold were made in the 1890s around Kalgoorlie.
In 1887, a new constitution was drafted, providing for the right of self-governance and in 1890, Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
the act granting self-government to the colony was passed by the British Parliament. John Forrest became the first Premier of Western Australia.
In 1896, the Western Australian Parliament authorised the raising of a loan to construct a pipeline to transport five million gallons of water per day to the Goldfields of Western Australia. The pipeline, known as the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, was completed in 1903. C.Y. O'Connor, Western Australia's first engineer-in-chief, designed and oversaw the construction of Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
the pipeline. It carries water 530 km (330 mi) from Perth to Kalgoorlie, and is attributed by historians as an important factor driving the state's population and economic growth.[13]
Following a campaign led by Forrest, residents of the colony of Western Australia (still informally called the Swan River Colony) voted in favour of federation, resulting in Western Australia officially becoming a state on 1 January 1901.
[edit]Demographics
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See also: Demographics of Australia
Western Australia's capital and largest city, Perth, from Kings Park. Its metropolitan area is home to 75% of the state's population.
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Distribution of the Western Australian population.
Europeans began to settle permanently in 1826 when Albany was claimed by Britain to forestall French claims to the western third of the continent. Perth was founded as the Swan River Colony Sony VAIO VGN-N38E/W Keyboard
in 1829 by British and Irish settlers, though the outpost languished, eventually requesting convict labour to augment its population. In the 1890s, interstate migration resulting from a mining boom in the Goldfields region resulted in a sharp population increase.
Western Australia did not receive significant flows of migrants from Britain, Ireland or elsewhere in the British Empire until the early 20th century when local projects—such as the Group Settlement Scheme of the 1920s which encouraged farmers to settle the southwest—increased Sony VAIO VGN-N250E/B Keyboard
awareness of Australia's western third as a destination for colonists.
Led by migrants from the British Isles, Western Australia's population developed at a faster rate during the twentieth century than it had previously. Along with the eastern states, Western Australia received large numbers of Italians, Croatians and Greeks after World War II. Despite this, Britain has contributed the greatest number of migrants to this day, and Western Australia—particularly Perth—has the highest proportion of British-born of any state: 10.6% in Sony VAIO VGN-N250E/B Keyboard
2006, compared to a national average of 5.3%. This group is heavily concentrated in certain parts where they account for a quarter of the population.
In terms of ethnicity, the 2001 census data reveals that 77.5% of Western Australia's population is of European descent: the largest single group was those reporting English ethnicity, accounting for 733,783 responses (32.7%), followed by Australian with 624,259 (27.8%), Irish with 171,667 (7.6%), Italian with 96,721 (4.3%), Scottish with 62,781 (2.8%), German with 51,672 (2.3%) and Sony VAIO VGN-N21Z Keyboard
Chinese with 48,894 responses (2.2%). There were 58,496 Indigenous Australians in Western Australia in 2001, forming 3.1% of the population.
In terms of birthplace, according to the 2006 census[14] 27.1% of the population were born overseas—higher than the Australian average of 22.2%. 8.9% of Western Australians were born in England, 2.4% in New Zealand, 1.2% in Scotland, 1.1% in South Africa, and 1.1% in Italy.
Perth's metropolitan area had an estimated population of 1.55 million in 2007 (75% of the state). Sony VAIO VGN-N130G/W Keyboard
Other significant population centres include Mandurah (78,612), Bunbury (32,499), Geraldton (31,553), Kalgoorlie (28,242), Albany (25,196), Broome (14,436), and Port Hedland (14,000).[15]
[edit]Economy
See also: Economy of Western Australia and Australian economy
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Aerial view of Fremantle Harbour, a major port in WA.
Western Australia's resource commodity mix, 2007.
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Major commodity mix, 2008–2009.
Western Australia's economy is largely driven by extraction and processing of a diverse range of mineral and petroleum commodities. The structure of the economy is closely linked to the abundance of natural resources found in the State, providing a comparative advantage in resource extraction and processing. As a consequence:
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Western Australia contributes an estimated 58% of Australia's Mineral and Energy Exports,[16] potentially earning up to 4.64% of Australia's total GDP.[17]
Gross state product per person ($70,009) is higher than any other state and well above the national average ($54,606).[18]
Diversification (i.e. a greater range of commodities) over the past 15 years has provided a more balanced production base and less reliance on just a few major export markets, insulating the Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Keyboard
economy from fluctuations in world prices to some extent.[citation needed]
There has been strong growth in the services (finance, insurance and property) and construction sector, which have increased their share of economic output.[19][broken citation]
Recent growth in global demand for minerals and petroleum, especially in China (iron-ore) and Japan (for LNG), has ensured economic growth above the national average.
Western Australia's overseas exports accounted for 46% of the nation's total.[3][20] The state's Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
major export commodities include iron-ore, alumina, nickel, gold, ammonia, wheat, wool, live sheep and cattle, and crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Western Australia is a major extractor of bauxite, which is also processed into alumina at four refineries providing more than 20% of total world production. It is the world's third-largest iron-ore producer (15% of the world's total) and extracts 75% of Australia's 240 tonnes of gold. Diamonds are extracted at Argyle diamond mine in far north of the Kimberley region. Coal mined Sony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
at Collie is the main fuel for baseload electricity generation in the state's south-west.
Agricultural production in WA is a major contributor to the state and national economy. Although tending to be highly seasonal, 2006–07 wheat production in WA was nearly 10 million tonnes, accounting for almost half the nation's total.[21] and providing $1.7 billion in export income.[22]
Other significant farm output includes barley, peas,[21] wool, lamb and beef. There is a high level of overseas demand live animals from WA, driven mainly by South East Asia's feedlots and Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
Middle Eastern countries, where cultural and religious traditions and a lack of storage and refrigeration facilities favour live animals over imports of processed meat. Approximately 50% of Australia's live cattle exports come from Western Australia.[23]
Resource sector growth in recent years has resulted in significant labour and skills shortages, leading to recent efforts by the state government to encourage interstate and overseas migration.[24] According to the 2006 census,[14] the median individual income was A$500 per Sony VAIO VGN-CR320D Keyboard
week in Western Australia (compared to A$466 in Australia as a whole). The median family income was A$1246 per week (compared to A$1171 for Australia). Recent growth has also contributed to significant rises in average property values in 2006, although values plateaued in 2007. Perth property prices are still the second highest in Australia behind Sydney, and high rental prices continue to be a problem.
Located south of Perth, the heavy industrial area of Kwinana has the nation's largest oil refinery Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
which produces petrol and diesel for local consumption,[25] along with iron, alumina, and nickel processing plants, port facilities for grain exports, and support industries for mining and petroleum such as heavy and light engineering, and metal fabrication. Shipbuilding (e.g. Austal Ships) and associated support industries are found at nearby Henderson, just south of Fremantle. Significant secondary industries include cement and building product manufacturing, flour milling, food processing, animal feed production, automotive body building, and printing.
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In recent years, tourism has grown in importance, with significant numbers of visitors to the state coming from the UK and Ireland (28%), other European countries (14%) Singapore (16%), Japan (10%) and Malaysia (8%).[22] Revenue from tourism is a strong economic driver in many of the smaller population centres outside of Perth, especially in coastal locations.
Western Australia has a significant fishing industry. Products for local consumption and export include Western Rock Lobsters, prawns, crabs, shark and tuna, as well as pearl fishing in the Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
Kimberley region of the state. Processing is conducted along the west coast. Whaling was a key marine industry but ceased at Albany in 1978.
[edit]Government
Main article: Government of Western Australia
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Government House, Western Australia
Western Australia was granted self-government in 1889 with a bicameral Parliament located in Perth, consisting of the Legislative Assembly (or lower house), which has 59 members; and the Legislative Council (or upper house), which has 36 members. Suffrage is universal and compulsory for citizens over 18 years of age.
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With the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, Western Australia became a state within Australia's federal structure; this involved ceding certain powers to the Commonwealth (or Federal) government in accordance with the Constitution; all powers not specifically granted to the Commonwealth remained solely with the State, however over time the Commonwealth has effectively expanded its powers through increasing control of taxation and financial distribution.
Whilst the sovereign of Western Australia is the Queen of Australia (Elizabeth II), and executive Sony Vaio PCG-K34FP Keyboard
power nominally vested in her State representative the Governor (currently Malcolm McCusker), executive power rests with the premier and ministers drawn from the party or coalition of parties holding a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly. The current Premier is Colin Barnett.
[edit]Secession
Main article: Secessionism in Western Australia
Secessionism has been a recurring feature of Western Australia's political landscape since shortly Sony Vaio PCG-K215Z Keyboard
after European settlement in 1826. Western Australia was the most reluctant participant in the Commonwealth of Australia.[26] Western Australia did not participate in the earliest federation conference. Longer-term residents of Western Australia were generally opposed to federation; however, the discovery of gold brought many immigrants from other parts of Australia. It was these residents, primarily in Kalgoorlie but also in Albany who voted to join the Commonwealth, and the proposal of these areas being admitted separately under the name Auralia was Sony V072078BS1 Keyboard
considered.
In a referendum in April 1933, 68% of voters voted for the state to leave the Commonwealth of Australia with the aim of returning to the British Empire as an autonomous territory. The State Government sent a delegation to Westminster, but the British Government refused to intervene and therefore no action was taken to implement this decision.[27]
[edit]Local government
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Western Australia is divided into 141 Local Government Areas, including Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Their mandate and operations are governed by the Local Government Act 1995.[28]
[edit]Education
Education in Western Australia consists of one year of pre-school at age 5, followed by seven SamsungR470 Keyboard
years of primary school education. At age 13, students begin five years of secondary education. The final two years of secondary education are now compulsory.[29] All students who completed Year 10 in 2005 were required to undertake further studies in Year 11. Students were required to complete the year in which they turn 16 (usually Year 11).
Since 2008, all students are required to complete 12 years of study before leaving school.[29] Students have the option to study at a TAFE college in their eleventh year or continue through SamsungR19 Keyboard
high school with a vocational course or a specific University entrance course.
The universities in Western Australia are Curtin University, Murdoch University, Edith Cowan University, University of Notre Dame and the University of Western Australia.
[edit]Media
[edit]Print
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For more information visit the page Western Australian Papers
Western Australia has two daily newspapers: the independent tabloid The West Australian, Countryman and The Kalgoorlie Miner. Also published is one Sunday tabloid newspaper, News Corporation's The Sunday Times. There are also 17 weekly Community Newspapers with distribution from Yanchep in the North to Mandurah in the South. The interstate broadsheet publication The Australian is also available, although with sales per capita lagging far behind SamsungNP-N145-JP01 Keyboard
those in other states. With the advent of the Internet, local news websites like WAtoday, which provide free access to their content, are becoming a popular alternative source of news. Other online publications from around the world like the New South Wales based The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian are also available.
[edit]Television
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ABC studios in East Perth
Metropolitan Perth has six broadcast television stations;
ABC WA. Produces nightly local news at 7 pm and local current affairs from 7:30 pm to 8 pm on Fridays. (digital and analogue) (callsign: ABW – Channel 2 Analogue, Channel 12 Digital)
SBS WA (digital and analogue) (callsign: SBS – Channel 28 Analogue, Channel 29 Digital)
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Seven Network Perth. Produces daily local news at 4:30 to 5:00, and news and current affairs from 6 pm to 7 pm. (digital and analogue) (callsign: TVW – Channel 7 Analogue, Channel 6 Digital)
Nine Network Perth. Produces daily local news at 4:30 to 5:00 and from 6 pm to 6:30 pm. (digital and analogue) (callsign: STW – Channel 9 Analogue, Channel 8 Digital)
Network Ten Perth. Produces weeknightly local news from 5 pm – 6.00 pm. (digital and analogue) (callsign: NEW – Channel 10 Analogue, Channel 11 Digital)
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West TV. A free-to-air digital only community television channel that began broadcasting in April 2010. (digital channel 44)
Access 31. Was a community service channel. (analogue-only) (callsign: ATW – Channel 31 Analogue) – ceased transmission in August 2008, with assets liquidated.[30][31]
In addition, broadcasters operate digital multichannels:
ABC2 (carried by ABW)
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ABC3 (carried by ABW)
ABC News 24 (carried by ABW)
SBS Two (carried by SBS)
SBS HD (carried by SBS)
7mate (carried by TVW)
7Two (carried by TVW)
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GEM (carried by STW)
GO! (carried by STW)
Eleven (carried by NEW)
One HD (carried by NEW)
Regional WA has a similar availability of stations, with the exception of West TV in all areas but Bunbury and Albany. The metropolitan commercial stations are affiliated with:
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Golden West Network (GWN7). Produces weeknightly local news from 5.30 pm to 6 pm, also airs Seven Perth news until 7 pm) (analogue only) (callsign: SSW South West, VEW Goldfields/Esperance, GTW Central West, WAW Statewide)
WIN Television WA. Also airs Nine News Western Australia at 4:30, and Nine News Perth from 6 pm – 6:30 pm. (analogue only) (callsign: WOW)
Ten West. A joint venture between GWN and WIN to provide Ten to regional WA. It is a direct IBM Thinkpad T61 Keyboard
feed of NEW-10 with local ads inserted. Most population centres now receive Ten West.
Pay TV services are provided by Foxtel, which acquired many of the assets and all the remaining subscribers of the insolvent Galaxy Television satellite service in 1998. Some metropolitan suburbs are serviced by Pay TV via cable; however, most of the metropolitan and rural areas can only access Pay TV via satellite.
[edit]Radio
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Perth has many radio stations on both AM and FM frequencies. ABC stations include ABC NewsRadio (6PB 585 am), 720 ABC Perth (6WF 720 am), ABC Radio National (6RN 810 am), ABC Classic FM (6ABC 97.7FM) and Triple J (6JJJ 99.3FM). The six commercial stations are: FM 92.9 (6PPM), Nova 93.7 (6PER), Mix 94.5 (6MIX), 96fm (6NOW), and AM 882 (6PR), and AM 1080 (6IX).
The leading community radio stations are 6RTR FM 92.1 and Sonshine FM 98.5 (6SON).
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[edit]Culture
[edit]Wine
Main article: West Australian wine
Winemaking regions are concentrated in the cooler climate of the south-western portion of the state. Western Australia produces less than 5% of the country's wine output, but in quality terms isIBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
considered to be very much near the top.[32][33][34][35] Major wine producing regions include: Margaret River, The Great Southern, Swan Valley as well as smaller districts including Blackwood Valley, Manjimup, Pemberton, Peel, Chittering Valley, Perth Hills, and Geographe.[34]
[edit]Sport
Main article: Sport in Western Australia
A number of national or international sporting teams and events are based in the state, including:
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Australian rules football: The West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers compete in the Australian Football League (AFL). The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is the main local football competition, but other local and amateur football leagues exist across the state.
Baseball: The Perth Heat compete in the Australian Baseball League.
Basketball: The Perth Wildcats (men) and West Coast Waves (women) compete in the National Basketball League and Women's National Basketball League, respectively.
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Cricket: Western Australia represent the state in first-class and List A domestic cricket, with the Perth Scorchers competing in the Twenty20 Big Bash League.
Field hockey: The Thundersticks (men) and Diamonds (women) compete in the Australian Hockey League.
Netball: The West Coast Fever compete in the ANZ Championship.
Rugby league: The WA Reds compete in the S. G. Ball Cup.
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Rugby union: The Western Force compete in the Super Rugby competition
Soccer: Perth Glory field men's and women's teams in the A-League and W-League, respectively.
International events hosted by Western Australia include the Hopman Cup, the Tom Hoad Cup, the Perth Cup, Red Bull Air Race and the Gravity Games, as well as the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.
[edit]The arts
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Western Australia is home to one of the country's leading performance training institutions, the acclaimed Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), as well as a burgeoning theatrical and musical scene. Notable musicians and bands to have been born in or lived in Western Australia include Adam Brand, Karnivool, Birds of Tokyo, Bon Scott, Eskimo Joe, Johnny Young, Gyroscope, the John Butler Trio, Tame Impala, Kevin Mitchell, The Kill Devil Hills, Pendulum, The Pigram Brothers, Rolf Harris and The Triffids. The West Australian Music Industry HP Pavilion G6-1212TX Keyboard
Awards (WAMis) have been awarded every year to the leading musicians and performers in WA since 2001.
Notable actors and television personalities from Western Australia include Heath Ledger, Hugh Jackman, Sam Worthington, Ernie Dingo, Jessica Marais, Megan Gale, Rove McManus, Isla Fisher, and Melissa George. Films and television series filmed or partly filmed in Western Australia include Cloudstreet, Australia, Bran Nu Dae, ABBA: the Movie and Last Train to Freo.
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The West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) is based at the Perth Concert Hall. Other concert and performance venues in Western Australia include His Majesty's Theatre and the defunct Perth Entertainment Centre. Perth Arena, set to open in 2012, will host concerts and
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indoor sporting events.
Commonly, electrolytes are solutions of acids, bases, or salts. Furthermore, some gases may act as electrolytes under conditions of high temperature or low pressure. Electrolyte solutions can also result from the dissolution of some biological (e.g., DNA, polypeptides) and synthetic polymers (e.g., polystyrene sulfonate), termed polyelectrolytes, which contain charged functional Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
groups.
Electrolyte solutions are normally formed when a salt is placed into a solvent such as water and the individual components dissociate due to the thermodynamic interactions between solvent and solute molecules, in a process called solvation. For example, when table salt, NaCl, is placed in water, the salt (a solid) dissolves into its component ions, according to the dissociation reaction
NaCl(s) → Na+(aq) + Cl−(aq)
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It is also possible for substances to react with water producing ions, e.g., carbon dioxide gas dissolves in water to produce a solution which contains hydronium, carbonate, and hydrogen carbonate ions.
Note that molten salts can be electrolytes as well. For instance, when sodium chloride is molten, the liquid conducts electricity.
An electrolyte in a solution may be described as concentrated if it has a high concentration of Toshiba Satellite U305-S7477 Keyboard
ions, or dilute if it has a low concentration. If a high proportion of the solute dissociates to form free ions, the electrolyte is strong; if most of the solute does not dissociate, the electrolyte is weak. The properties of electrolytes may be exploited using electrolysis to extract constituent elements and compounds contained within the solution.
Contents [hide]
1 Physiological importance
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1.1 Measurement
1.2 Rehydration
2 Electrochemistry
3 Solid electrolyte
4 See also
5 References
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[edit]Physiological importance
In physiology, the primary ions of electrolytes are sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), chloride (Cl−), hydrogen phosphate (HPO42−), and hydrogen carbonate (HCO3−). The electric charge symbols of plus (+) and minus (−) indicate that the substance is ionic in nature and has an imbalanced distribution of electrons, the result of chemical dissociation. SToshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
odium is the main electrolyte found in extracellular fluid and is involved in fluid balance and blood pressure control.
All known higher lifeforms require a subtle and complex electrolyte balance between the intracellular and extracellular environment. In particular, the maintenance of precise osmotic gradients of electrolytes is important. Such gradients affect and regulate the hydration of the body as well as blood pH, and are critical for nerve and muscle function. Various mechanisms Toshiba Satellite pro 4280xdvd Keyboard
exist in living species that keep the concentrations of different electrolytes under tight control.
Both muscle tissue and neurons are considered electric tissues of the body. Muscles and neurons are activated by electrolyte activity between the extracellular fluid or interstitial fluid, and intracellular fluid. Electrolytes may enter or leave the cell membrane through specialized protein structures embedded in the plasma membrane called ion channels. For example, muscle contraction is dependent upon the presence of calcium (Ca2+), sodium (Na+), and potassium (K+). Toshiba Satellite P105-S6177 Keyboard
Without sufficient levels of these key electrolytes, muscle weakness or severe muscle contractions may occur.
Electrolyte balance is maintained by oral, or in emergencies, intravenous (IV) intake of electrolyte-containing substances, and is regulated by hormones, generally with the kidneys flushing out excess levels. In humans, electrolyte homeostasis is regulated by hormones such as antidiuretic hormone, aldosterone and parathyroid hormone. Serious electrolyte disturbances, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
such as dehydration and overhydration, may lead to cardiac and neurological complications and, unless they are rapidly resolved, will result in a medical emergency.
[edit]Measurement
Measurement of electrolytes is a commonly performed diagnostic procedure, performed via blood testing with ion selective electrodes or urinalysis by medical technologists. The interpretation of these values is somewhat meaningless without analysis of the clinical history Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
and is often impossible without parallel measurement of renal function. Electrolytes measured most often are sodium and potassium. Chloride levels are rarely measured except for arterial blood gas interpretation since they are inherently linked to sodium levels. One important test conducted on urine is the specific gravity test to determine the occurrence of electrolyte imbalance.
[edit]Rehydration
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In oral rehydration therapy, electrolyte drinks containing sodium and potassium salts replenish the body's water and electrolyte levels after dehydration caused by exercise, excessive alcohol consumption, diaphoresis, diarrhea, vomiting, intoxication or starvation. Athletes exercising in extreme conditions (for three or more hours continuously e.g. marathon or triathlon) who do not consume electrolytes risk dehydration (or hyponatremia).[1]
A simple electrolyte drink can be home-made by using the correct proportions of water, sugar, Toshiba Satellite L775-S7243 Keyboard
salt, salt substitute for potassium, and baking soda.[2]
Electrolytes are commonly found in fruit juices, coconut water, sports drinks, milk, and many fruits and vegetables (whole or in juice form) (e.g. potatoes, avocados).
[edit]Electrochemistry
Main article: electrolysis
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When electrodes are placed in an electrolyte and a voltage is applied, the electrolyte will conduct electricity. Lone electrons normally cannot pass through the electrolyte; instead, a chemical reaction occurs at the cathode consuming electrons from the anode. Another reaction occurs at the anode, producing electrons that are eventually transferred to the cathode. As a result, a negative charge cloud develops in the electrolyte around the cathode, and a positive charge develops around the anode. The ions in the electrolyte neutralize these charges, enabling the Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
electrons to keep flowing and the reactions to continue.
For example, in a solution of ordinary table salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) in water, the cathode reaction will be
2H2O + 2e− → 2OH− + H2
and hydrogen gas will bubble up; the anode reaction is
2NaCl → 2 Na+ + Cl2 + 2e−
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and chlorine gas will be liberated. The positively charged sodium ions Na+ will react towards the cathode neutralizing the negative charge of OH− there, and the negatively charged hydroxide ions OH− will react towards the anode neutralizing the positive charge of Na+ there. Without the ions from the electrolyte, the charges around the electrode would slow down continued electron flow; diffusion of H+ and OH− through water to the other electrode takes longer than movement of the much more prevalent salt ions.
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Also: Electrolytes dissociate in water because water molecules are dipoles and the dipoles orient in an energetically favorable manner to solvate the ions.
In other systems, the electrode reactions can involve the metals of the electrodes as well as the ions of the electrolyte.
Electrolytic conductors are used in electronic devices where the chemical reaction at a metal/electrolyte interface yields useful effects.
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In batteries, two materials with different electron affinities are used as electrodes; electrons flow from one electrode to the other outside of the battery, while inside the battery the circuit is closed by the electrolyte's ions. Here the electrode reactions convert chemical energy to electrical energy.[3]
In some fuel cells, a solid electrolyte or proton conductor connects the plates electrically while keeping the hydrogen and oxygen fuel gases separated.
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In electroplating tanks, the electrolyte simultaneously deposits metal onto the object to be plated, and electrically connects that object in the circuit.
In operation-hours gauges, two thin columns of mercury are separated by a small electrolyte-filled gap, and, as charge is passed through the device, the metal dissolves on one side and plates out on the other, causing the visible gap to slowly move along.
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In electrolytic capacitors the chemical effect is used to produce an extremely thin 'dielectric' or insulating coating, while the electrolyte layer behaves as one capacitor plate.
In some hygrometers the humidity of air is sensed by measuring the conductivity of a nearly dry electrolyte.
Hot, softened glass is an electrolytic conductor, and some glass manufacturers keep the glass molten by passing a large current through it.
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[edit]Solid electrolyte
Solid electrolytes can be mostly divided into three groups:
Gel electrolytes - they closely resemble liquid electrolytes. They are essentially liquids in a flexible Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
lattice framework. Various additives are often applied to increase the conductivity of such systems.[3][4]
Dry polymer electrolytes - they differ from liquid and gel electrolytes in the sense, that salt is dissolved directly into the solid medium. Usually it's a relatively high dielectric constant polymer (PEO, PMMA, PAN, polyphosphazenes, siloxanes etc.) and a salt with low lattice energy. In order to increase the mechanical strength and conductivity of such electrolytes, very often composites Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
are used, namely inert ceramic phase is introduced. There two major classes of such electrolytes: polymer-in-ceramic, and ceramic-in-polymer.[5][6][7]
Solid ceramic electrolytes - ions migrate through the ceramic phase by means of vacancies and/or interstitials within the lattice. There are also glassy-ceramic electrolytes.
Western Australia (abbreviated as WA[a]) is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
Indian Ocean to the south,[b] the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state and the second-largest subnational entity in the world. The state has approximately 2.3 million inhabitants (around 10% of the national total), the majority of whom live in the south-west corner of the state.
The first European to visit Western Australia was the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog, who visited the Western Australian coast in 1616. The British established a military outpost at King George Sound, Toshiba Satellite A305-S6839 Keyboard
near present-day Albany, in 1826, which was followed by the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, including the townsite of the present-day capital, Perth.
Western Australia achieved self-government in 1890, and later federated with the other British colonies in Australia in 1901. Today Western Australia's economy mainly relies on mining, agriculture, and tourism, with the state supplying 46% of Australia's exports.[3] Western Australia is the third-largest iron ore producer in the world.
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Contents
1 Geography
2 Natural history
2.1 Geology
2.2 Climate
2.3 Flora and fauna
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3 History
4 Demographics
5 Economy
6 Government
6.1 Secession
6.2 Local government
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7 Education
8 Media
8.1 Print
8.2 Television
8.3 Radio
9 Culture
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9.1 Wine
9.2 Sport
9.3 The arts
10 See also
11 Notes
12 References
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13 External links
[edit]Geography
Main article: Geography of Western Australia
Western Australia is bounded to the east by longitude 129°E, the meridian 129 degrees east of Greenwich, which defines the border with South Australia and the Northern Territory, and Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
bounded by the Indian Ocean to the west and north. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) designates the body of water south of the continent as part of the Indian Ocean, although it is officially gazetted as the Southern Ocean in Australia.[b][4]
The total length of the state's eastern border is 1,862 km (1,157 mi).[5] There are 20,781 km (12,913 mi) of coastline, including 7,892 km (4,904 mi) of island coastline.[6] The total land area occupied by the state is 2.5 million km2.[7]
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[edit]Natural history
[edit]Geology
The bulk of Western Australia consists of the extremely old Yilgarn craton and Pilbara craton which merged with the Deccan Plateau of India, Madagascar and the Karoo and Zimbabwe cratons of Southern Africa, in the Archean Eon to form Ur, one of the oldest supercontinents on EToshiba NB100 Keyboard
arth (3 – 3.2 billion years ago).
Because the only mountain-building since then has been of the Stirling Range with the rifting from Antarctica, the land is extremely eroded and ancient, with no part of the state above 1,245 metres (4,085 ft) AHD (at Mount Meharry in the Hamersley Range of the Pilbara region). Most parts of the state form a low plateau with an average elevation of about 400 metres (1,200 ft), very low relief, and no surface runoff. This descends relatively sharply to the coastal plains, in Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
some cases forming a sharp escarpment (as with the Darling Range/Darling Scarp near Perth).
Western Australian cities, towns, settlements and road network.
The extreme age of the landscape has meant that the soils are remarkably infertile and frequently laterised. Even soils derived from granitic bedrock contain an order of magnitude less Toshiba Mini NB 255 Series Keyboard
available phosphorus and only half as much nitrogen as soils in comparable climates in other continents. Soils derived from extensive sandplains or ironstone are even less fertile, being even more devoid of soluble phosphate and also deficient in zinc, copper, molybdenum and sometimes potassium and calcium.
The infertility of most of the soils has required heavy inputs of chemical fertilisers, particularly superphosphate, insecticides and herbicides, which—with the ensuing damage to invertebrate Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
and bacterial populations, and compaction of soils through heavy machinery and hoofed mammals—has done great damage to the fragile soils.
Large-scale land clearing for agriculture has damaged habitats for native flora and fauna. As a result, the South West region of the state has a higher concentration of rare, threatened or endangered flora and fauna than many areas of Australia, making it one of the world's biodiversity "hot spots". Large areas of the state's wheatbelt region have problems with dryland Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
salinity and the loss of fresh water.
[edit]Climate
The southwest coastal area has a Mediterranean climate and was originally heavily forested, including large stands of the karri, one of the tallest trees in the world.[8] This agricultural region of Western Australia is in the top nine terrestrial habitats for terrestrial biodiversity, with a higher proportion of endemic species than most other equivalent regions. Thanks to the offshore Thinkpad T420i
Leeuwin Current the area numbers in the top six regions for marine biodiversity, containing the most southerly coral reefs in the world.
Average annual rainfall varies from 300 millimetres (12 in) at the edge of the Wheatbelt region to 1,400 millimetres (55 in) in the wettest areas near Northcliffe, but in the months of November to March evaporation exceeds rainfall, and it is generally very dry. Plants must be adapted to this as well as the extreme poverty of all soils. A major reduction in winter rainfall has been observed ThinkPad Edge E520s
since the mid-1970s, with a greater number of extreme rainfall events in the summer months.[9]
The central four-fifths of the state is semiarid or desert and is lightly inhabited with the only significant activity being mining. Annual rainfall averages 200–250 millimetres (8–10 in), most of which occurs in sporadic torrential falls related to cyclone events in summer months.
An exception to this is the northern tropical regions. The Kimberley has an extremely hot monsoonal climate with average annual rainfall ranging from 500 to 1,500 millimetres (20–60 in), ThinkPad Edge E520
but there is a very long almost rainless season from April to November. Eighty-five percent of the state's runoff occurs in the Kimberley, but because it occurs in violent floods and because of the insurmountable poverty of the generally shallow soils, the only development has taken place along the Ord River.
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The Black Swan is the state bird of Western Australia
The Red and Green Kangaroo Paw is the floral emblem of Western Australia
Occurrence of snow in the state is rare, and typically only in the Stirling Range near Albany, as it is the only mountain range far enough south and with sufficient elevation. More rarely, snow can Sony VGN-FE865E/H Keyboard
fall on the nearby Porongurup Range. Snow outside these areas is a major event; it usually occurs in hilly areas of southwestern Australia. The most widespread low-level snow occurred on 26 June 1956 when snow was reported in the Perth Hills, as far north as Wongan Hills and as far east as Salmon Gums. However, even in the Stirling Range, snowfalls rarely exceed 5 cm (2 in) and rarely settle for more than one day.[10]
The highest observed maximum temperature of 50.5 °C (122.9 °F) was recorded at Mardie Sony VAIO VPCF12AFM/H Keyboard
Station on 19 February 1998. The lowest minimum temperature recorded was −7.2 °C (19.0 °F) at Eyre Bird Observatory on 17 August 2008.[11]
[edit]Flora and fauna
Western Australia is home to around 540 species of birds (depending on the taxonomy used). Of these around 15 are endemic to the state. The best areas for birds are the southwestern corner of the state and the area around Broome and the Kimberley.
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The Flora of Western Australia comprises 9437 published native vascular plant species of 1543 genera within 226 families, there are also 1171 naturalised alien or invasive plant species more commonly known as weeds.[12] In the southwest region are some of the largest numbers of plant species for its area in the world.
Specific ecoregions of Western Australia include: the sandstone gorges of The Kimberley on the northern coast and below that areas of dry grassland (Ord Victoria Plain) or semi-desert (Western Sony VAIO VGN-SZ660N/C Keyboard
Australian Mulga shrublands), with Tanami Desert inland from there. Following the coast south there is the Southwest Australia savanna and the Swan Coastal Plain around Perth, and then farther south the Warren on the southwest corner of the coast around the wine-growing area of Margaret River.
Going east along the Southern Ocean coast is the Goldfields-Esperance region including the Esperance grasslands and the Coolgardie grasslands inland around town of Coolgardie.
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[edit]History
Main article: History of Western Australia
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John Forrest was the first Premier of Western Australia.
The first inhabitants of Australia arrived from the north approximately 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Over thousands of years they eventually spread across the whole landmass. These Indigenous Australians were well established throughout Western Australia by the time European explorers began to arrive in the early seventeenth century.
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The first European to visit Western Australia was a Dutch explorer, Dirk Hartog who on 25 October 1616 landed at what is now known as Cape Inscription, Dirk Hartog Island. For the rest of the 17th century, other Dutch (and other nationalities) travellers encountered the coast, usually unintentionally, as many shipwrecks along the coast of ships that deviated (because of poor navigation and storms) from the Brouwer Route illustrate.[citation needed]. It was a further 200 years before it was proven that the Great Southern continent actually existed. By the late 18th Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/S Keyboard
century, British and French sailors had begun to explore the Western Australian coast.
The origins of the present state began with the establishment of a British settlement at King George Sound in 1826 (later named Albany from 1832). The settlement was founded in response to British concerns about the possibility of a French colony being established on the coast of Western Australia.
In 1829, the Swan River Colony was established on the Swan River by Captain James Stirling. By Sony VAIO VGN-NW11Z Keyboard
1832, the British settler population of the colony had reached around 1,500, and the official name of the colony was changed to Western Australia. The two separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle and the state's capital, Perth.
Population growth was very slow until significant discoveries of gold were made in the 1890s around Kalgoorlie.
In 1887, a new constitution was drafted, providing for the right of self-governance and in 1890, Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
the act granting self-government to the colony was passed by the British Parliament. John Forrest became the first Premier of Western Australia.
In 1896, the Western Australian Parliament authorised the raising of a loan to construct a pipeline to transport five million gallons of water per day to the Goldfields of Western Australia. The pipeline, known as the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, was completed in 1903. C.Y. O'Connor, Western Australia's first engineer-in-chief, designed and oversaw the construction of Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
the pipeline. It carries water 530 km (330 mi) from Perth to Kalgoorlie, and is attributed by historians as an important factor driving the state's population and economic growth.[13]
Following a campaign led by Forrest, residents of the colony of Western Australia (still informally called the Swan River Colony) voted in favour of federation, resulting in Western Australia officially becoming a state on 1 January 1901.
[edit]Demographics
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See also: Demographics of Australia
Western Australia's capital and largest city, Perth, from Kings Park. Its metropolitan area is home to 75% of the state's population.
Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
Distribution of the Western Australian population.
Europeans began to settle permanently in 1826 when Albany was claimed by Britain to forestall French claims to the western third of the continent. Perth was founded as the Swan River Colony Sony VAIO VGN-N38E/W Keyboard
in 1829 by British and Irish settlers, though the outpost languished, eventually requesting convict labour to augment its population. In the 1890s, interstate migration resulting from a mining boom in the Goldfields region resulted in a sharp population increase.
Western Australia did not receive significant flows of migrants from Britain, Ireland or elsewhere in the British Empire until the early 20th century when local projects—such as the Group Settlement Scheme of the 1920s which encouraged farmers to settle the southwest—increased Sony VAIO VGN-N250E/B Keyboard
awareness of Australia's western third as a destination for colonists.
Led by migrants from the British Isles, Western Australia's population developed at a faster rate during the twentieth century than it had previously. Along with the eastern states, Western Australia received large numbers of Italians, Croatians and Greeks after World War II. Despite this, Britain has contributed the greatest number of migrants to this day, and Western Australia—particularly Perth—has the highest proportion of British-born of any state: 10.6% in Sony VAIO VGN-N250E/B Keyboard
2006, compared to a national average of 5.3%. This group is heavily concentrated in certain parts where they account for a quarter of the population.
In terms of ethnicity, the 2001 census data reveals that 77.5% of Western Australia's population is of European descent: the largest single group was those reporting English ethnicity, accounting for 733,783 responses (32.7%), followed by Australian with 624,259 (27.8%), Irish with 171,667 (7.6%), Italian with 96,721 (4.3%), Scottish with 62,781 (2.8%), German with 51,672 (2.3%) and Sony VAIO VGN-N21Z Keyboard
Chinese with 48,894 responses (2.2%). There were 58,496 Indigenous Australians in Western Australia in 2001, forming 3.1% of the population.
In terms of birthplace, according to the 2006 census[14] 27.1% of the population were born overseas—higher than the Australian average of 22.2%. 8.9% of Western Australians were born in England, 2.4% in New Zealand, 1.2% in Scotland, 1.1% in South Africa, and 1.1% in Italy.
Perth's metropolitan area had an estimated population of 1.55 million in 2007 (75% of the state). Sony VAIO VGN-N130G/W Keyboard
Other significant population centres include Mandurah (78,612), Bunbury (32,499), Geraldton (31,553), Kalgoorlie (28,242), Albany (25,196), Broome (14,436), and Port Hedland (14,000).[15]
[edit]Economy
See also: Economy of Western Australia and Australian economy
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Aerial view of Fremantle Harbour, a major port in WA.
Western Australia's resource commodity mix, 2007.
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Major commodity mix, 2008–2009.
Western Australia's economy is largely driven by extraction and processing of a diverse range of mineral and petroleum commodities. The structure of the economy is closely linked to the abundance of natural resources found in the State, providing a comparative advantage in resource extraction and processing. As a consequence:
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Western Australia contributes an estimated 58% of Australia's Mineral and Energy Exports,[16] potentially earning up to 4.64% of Australia's total GDP.[17]
Gross state product per person ($70,009) is higher than any other state and well above the national average ($54,606).[18]
Diversification (i.e. a greater range of commodities) over the past 15 years has provided a more balanced production base and less reliance on just a few major export markets, insulating the Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Keyboard
economy from fluctuations in world prices to some extent.[citation needed]
There has been strong growth in the services (finance, insurance and property) and construction sector, which have increased their share of economic output.[19][broken citation]
Recent growth in global demand for minerals and petroleum, especially in China (iron-ore) and Japan (for LNG), has ensured economic growth above the national average.
Western Australia's overseas exports accounted for 46% of the nation's total.[3][20] The state's Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
major export commodities include iron-ore, alumina, nickel, gold, ammonia, wheat, wool, live sheep and cattle, and crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Western Australia is a major extractor of bauxite, which is also processed into alumina at four refineries providing more than 20% of total world production. It is the world's third-largest iron-ore producer (15% of the world's total) and extracts 75% of Australia's 240 tonnes of gold. Diamonds are extracted at Argyle diamond mine in far north of the Kimberley region. Coal mined Sony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
at Collie is the main fuel for baseload electricity generation in the state's south-west.
Agricultural production in WA is a major contributor to the state and national economy. Although tending to be highly seasonal, 2006–07 wheat production in WA was nearly 10 million tonnes, accounting for almost half the nation's total.[21] and providing $1.7 billion in export income.[22]
Other significant farm output includes barley, peas,[21] wool, lamb and beef. There is a high level of overseas demand live animals from WA, driven mainly by South East Asia's feedlots and Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
Middle Eastern countries, where cultural and religious traditions and a lack of storage and refrigeration facilities favour live animals over imports of processed meat. Approximately 50% of Australia's live cattle exports come from Western Australia.[23]
Resource sector growth in recent years has resulted in significant labour and skills shortages, leading to recent efforts by the state government to encourage interstate and overseas migration.[24] According to the 2006 census,[14] the median individual income was A$500 per Sony VAIO VGN-CR320D Keyboard
week in Western Australia (compared to A$466 in Australia as a whole). The median family income was A$1246 per week (compared to A$1171 for Australia). Recent growth has also contributed to significant rises in average property values in 2006, although values plateaued in 2007. Perth property prices are still the second highest in Australia behind Sydney, and high rental prices continue to be a problem.
Located south of Perth, the heavy industrial area of Kwinana has the nation's largest oil refinery Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
which produces petrol and diesel for local consumption,[25] along with iron, alumina, and nickel processing plants, port facilities for grain exports, and support industries for mining and petroleum such as heavy and light engineering, and metal fabrication. Shipbuilding (e.g. Austal Ships) and associated support industries are found at nearby Henderson, just south of Fremantle. Significant secondary industries include cement and building product manufacturing, flour milling, food processing, animal feed production, automotive body building, and printing.
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In recent years, tourism has grown in importance, with significant numbers of visitors to the state coming from the UK and Ireland (28%), other European countries (14%) Singapore (16%), Japan (10%) and Malaysia (8%).[22] Revenue from tourism is a strong economic driver in many of the smaller population centres outside of Perth, especially in coastal locations.
Western Australia has a significant fishing industry. Products for local consumption and export include Western Rock Lobsters, prawns, crabs, shark and tuna, as well as pearl fishing in the Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
Kimberley region of the state. Processing is conducted along the west coast. Whaling was a key marine industry but ceased at Albany in 1978.
[edit]Government
Main article: Government of Western Australia
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Government House, Western Australia
Western Australia was granted self-government in 1889 with a bicameral Parliament located in Perth, consisting of the Legislative Assembly (or lower house), which has 59 members; and the Legislative Council (or upper house), which has 36 members. Suffrage is universal and compulsory for citizens over 18 years of age.
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With the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, Western Australia became a state within Australia's federal structure; this involved ceding certain powers to the Commonwealth (or Federal) government in accordance with the Constitution; all powers not specifically granted to the Commonwealth remained solely with the State, however over time the Commonwealth has effectively expanded its powers through increasing control of taxation and financial distribution.
Whilst the sovereign of Western Australia is the Queen of Australia (Elizabeth II), and executive Sony Vaio PCG-K34FP Keyboard
power nominally vested in her State representative the Governor (currently Malcolm McCusker), executive power rests with the premier and ministers drawn from the party or coalition of parties holding a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly. The current Premier is Colin Barnett.
[edit]Secession
Main article: Secessionism in Western Australia
Secessionism has been a recurring feature of Western Australia's political landscape since shortly Sony Vaio PCG-K215Z Keyboard
after European settlement in 1826. Western Australia was the most reluctant participant in the Commonwealth of Australia.[26] Western Australia did not participate in the earliest federation conference. Longer-term residents of Western Australia were generally opposed to federation; however, the discovery of gold brought many immigrants from other parts of Australia. It was these residents, primarily in Kalgoorlie but also in Albany who voted to join the Commonwealth, and the proposal of these areas being admitted separately under the name Auralia was Sony V072078BS1 Keyboard
considered.
In a referendum in April 1933, 68% of voters voted for the state to leave the Commonwealth of Australia with the aim of returning to the British Empire as an autonomous territory. The State Government sent a delegation to Westminster, but the British Government refused to intervene and therefore no action was taken to implement this decision.[27]
[edit]Local government
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Western Australia is divided into 141 Local Government Areas, including Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Their mandate and operations are governed by the Local Government Act 1995.[28]
[edit]Education
Education in Western Australia consists of one year of pre-school at age 5, followed by seven SamsungR470 Keyboard
years of primary school education. At age 13, students begin five years of secondary education. The final two years of secondary education are now compulsory.[29] All students who completed Year 10 in 2005 were required to undertake further studies in Year 11. Students were required to complete the year in which they turn 16 (usually Year 11).
Since 2008, all students are required to complete 12 years of study before leaving school.[29] Students have the option to study at a TAFE college in their eleventh year or continue through SamsungR19 Keyboard
high school with a vocational course or a specific University entrance course.
The universities in Western Australia are Curtin University, Murdoch University, Edith Cowan University, University of Notre Dame and the University of Western Australia.
[edit]Media
[edit]Print
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For more information visit the page Western Australian Papers
Western Australia has two daily newspapers: the independent tabloid The West Australian, Countryman and The Kalgoorlie Miner. Also published is one Sunday tabloid newspaper, News Corporation's The Sunday Times. There are also 17 weekly Community Newspapers with distribution from Yanchep in the North to Mandurah in the South. The interstate broadsheet publication The Australian is also available, although with sales per capita lagging far behind SamsungNP-N145-JP01 Keyboard
those in other states. With the advent of the Internet, local news websites like WAtoday, which provide free access to their content, are becoming a popular alternative source of news. Other online publications from around the world like the New South Wales based The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian are also available.
[edit]Television
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ABC studios in East Perth
Metropolitan Perth has six broadcast television stations;
ABC WA. Produces nightly local news at 7 pm and local current affairs from 7:30 pm to 8 pm on Fridays. (digital and analogue) (callsign: ABW – Channel 2 Analogue, Channel 12 Digital)
SBS WA (digital and analogue) (callsign: SBS – Channel 28 Analogue, Channel 29 Digital)
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Seven Network Perth. Produces daily local news at 4:30 to 5:00, and news and current affairs from 6 pm to 7 pm. (digital and analogue) (callsign: TVW – Channel 7 Analogue, Channel 6 Digital)
Nine Network Perth. Produces daily local news at 4:30 to 5:00 and from 6 pm to 6:30 pm. (digital and analogue) (callsign: STW – Channel 9 Analogue, Channel 8 Digital)
Network Ten Perth. Produces weeknightly local news from 5 pm – 6.00 pm. (digital and analogue) (callsign: NEW – Channel 10 Analogue, Channel 11 Digital)
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West TV. A free-to-air digital only community television channel that began broadcasting in April 2010. (digital channel 44)
Access 31. Was a community service channel. (analogue-only) (callsign: ATW – Channel 31 Analogue) – ceased transmission in August 2008, with assets liquidated.[30][31]
In addition, broadcasters operate digital multichannels:
ABC2 (carried by ABW)
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ABC3 (carried by ABW)
ABC News 24 (carried by ABW)
SBS Two (carried by SBS)
SBS HD (carried by SBS)
7mate (carried by TVW)
7Two (carried by TVW)
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GEM (carried by STW)
GO! (carried by STW)
Eleven (carried by NEW)
One HD (carried by NEW)
Regional WA has a similar availability of stations, with the exception of West TV in all areas but Bunbury and Albany. The metropolitan commercial stations are affiliated with:
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Golden West Network (GWN7). Produces weeknightly local news from 5.30 pm to 6 pm, also airs Seven Perth news until 7 pm) (analogue only) (callsign: SSW South West, VEW Goldfields/Esperance, GTW Central West, WAW Statewide)
WIN Television WA. Also airs Nine News Western Australia at 4:30, and Nine News Perth from 6 pm – 6:30 pm. (analogue only) (callsign: WOW)
Ten West. A joint venture between GWN and WIN to provide Ten to regional WA. It is a direct IBM Thinkpad T61 Keyboard
feed of NEW-10 with local ads inserted. Most population centres now receive Ten West.
Pay TV services are provided by Foxtel, which acquired many of the assets and all the remaining subscribers of the insolvent Galaxy Television satellite service in 1998. Some metropolitan suburbs are serviced by Pay TV via cable; however, most of the metropolitan and rural areas can only access Pay TV via satellite.
[edit]Radio
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Perth has many radio stations on both AM and FM frequencies. ABC stations include ABC NewsRadio (6PB 585 am), 720 ABC Perth (6WF 720 am), ABC Radio National (6RN 810 am), ABC Classic FM (6ABC 97.7FM) and Triple J (6JJJ 99.3FM). The six commercial stations are: FM 92.9 (6PPM), Nova 93.7 (6PER), Mix 94.5 (6MIX), 96fm (6NOW), and AM 882 (6PR), and AM 1080 (6IX).
The leading community radio stations are 6RTR FM 92.1 and Sonshine FM 98.5 (6SON).
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[edit]Culture
[edit]Wine
Main article: West Australian wine
Winemaking regions are concentrated in the cooler climate of the south-western portion of the state. Western Australia produces less than 5% of the country's wine output, but in quality terms isIBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
considered to be very much near the top.[32][33][34][35] Major wine producing regions include: Margaret River, The Great Southern, Swan Valley as well as smaller districts including Blackwood Valley, Manjimup, Pemberton, Peel, Chittering Valley, Perth Hills, and Geographe.[34]
[edit]Sport
Main article: Sport in Western Australia
A number of national or international sporting teams and events are based in the state, including:
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Australian rules football: The West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers compete in the Australian Football League (AFL). The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is the main local football competition, but other local and amateur football leagues exist across the state.
Baseball: The Perth Heat compete in the Australian Baseball League.
Basketball: The Perth Wildcats (men) and West Coast Waves (women) compete in the National Basketball League and Women's National Basketball League, respectively.
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Cricket: Western Australia represent the state in first-class and List A domestic cricket, with the Perth Scorchers competing in the Twenty20 Big Bash League.
Field hockey: The Thundersticks (men) and Diamonds (women) compete in the Australian Hockey League.
Netball: The West Coast Fever compete in the ANZ Championship.
Rugby league: The WA Reds compete in the S. G. Ball Cup.
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Rugby union: The Western Force compete in the Super Rugby competition
Soccer: Perth Glory field men's and women's teams in the A-League and W-League, respectively.
International events hosted by Western Australia include the Hopman Cup, the Tom Hoad Cup, the Perth Cup, Red Bull Air Race and the Gravity Games, as well as the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.
[edit]The arts
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Western Australia is home to one of the country's leading performance training institutions, the acclaimed Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), as well as a burgeoning theatrical and musical scene. Notable musicians and bands to have been born in or lived in Western Australia include Adam Brand, Karnivool, Birds of Tokyo, Bon Scott, Eskimo Joe, Johnny Young, Gyroscope, the John Butler Trio, Tame Impala, Kevin Mitchell, The Kill Devil Hills, Pendulum, The Pigram Brothers, Rolf Harris and The Triffids. The West Australian Music Industry HP Pavilion G6-1212TX Keyboard
Awards (WAMis) have been awarded every year to the leading musicians and performers in WA since 2001.
Notable actors and television personalities from Western Australia include Heath Ledger, Hugh Jackman, Sam Worthington, Ernie Dingo, Jessica Marais, Megan Gale, Rove McManus, Isla Fisher, and Melissa George. Films and television series filmed or partly filmed in Western Australia include Cloudstreet, Australia, Bran Nu Dae, ABBA: the Movie and Last Train to Freo.
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The West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) is based at the Perth Concert Hall. Other concert and performance venues in Western Australia include His Majesty's Theatre and the defunct Perth Entertainment Centre. Perth Arena, set to open in 2012, will host concerts and
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indoor sporting events.
The Church
The Church is an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980. Initially associated with new wave and the neo-psychedelic sound of the mid 1980s, their music later became more reminiscent of progressive rock, featuring long instrumental jams and complex guitar interplay. Founding members are Steve Kilbey on lead vocals and bass guitar, and Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper on guitars, while Tim Powles has played on drums since 1994. Three of the members recorded material as The Refo:mation in 1997.
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The Church's debut album, Of Skins and Heart (1981), delivered their first radio hit "The Unguarded Moment". They were signed to major labels in Australia, Europe and the United States. However, the US label was dissatisfied with their second album and dropped the band without releasing it. This put a dent in their international success, but they returned to the charts in 1988, with the album Starfish and the US Top 40 hit "Under the Milky Way". Subsequent commercial success proved elusive, however, and the band weathered several line-up changes in 0A62075
the early 1990s. The last decade has seen them settle on their current line-up. On 27 October 2010, The Church were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in Sydney.
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Early days to first album (1980–1981)
1.2 Establishing their sound: The Blurred Crusade (1982)
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1.3 Introspection & atmosphere: Seance & Remote Luxury (1983–1985)
1.4 Rejuvenation: Heyday (1986–1987)
1.5 Into the mainstream: Starfish (1988)
1.6 "One straight from the factory...": Gold Afternoon Fix (1989–1990)
1.7 The Magnum Opus: Priest=Aura (1991–1992)
1.8 Instability: Sometime Anywhere & Magician Among the Spirits (1993–1996)
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1.9 Restoration: Hologram of Baal & A Box of Birds (1997–1999)
1.10 Reconsolidation: 2000–2008
1.11 2009 and beyond
2 Lyrics
3 Members
4 Discography
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5 References
6 External links
[edit]History
[edit]Early days to first album (1980–1981)
From the early 1970s, lead vocalist and bass guitarist Steve Kilbey (ex-The Tactics) played in Acer Aspire 5024WLM Keyboard
covers band Baby Grand in Canberra, Australia.[1][2] He first played with guitarist Peter Koppes in glam rock band Precious Little in the mid-1970s. By 1977, Kilbey had purchased a four-track reel-to-reel tape deck.[2] In March 1980, they formed a three-piece band, Limosine, in Sydney with Nick Ward on drums and began performing.[3][4] A month later Marty Willson-Piper (originally from Liverpool, United Kingdom) joined on guitar, they were named The Church.[4][5] Supposedly, the name was chosen as it was unclaimed, but later allusions to spiritual interests by Acer Aspire 5024WLMi Keyboard
Kilbey hint that it was less coincidental. Initially, only Koppes was a fully proficient musician, Kilbey was an erratic bass guitarist and Willson-Piper was searching for his guitar style. Both musicians would later refer to this period as the "wilderness years."
A four-song demo was recorded in Kilbey's bedroom studio.[6] Thanks to contacts from his former band Baby Grand, they sent the tape to Australian record label ATV Northern.[4] The song "Chrome Injury" attracted the attention of publisher Chris Gilbey who heard it played to Don Acer Aspire 5670 Keyboard
Bruner, his professional manager. Gilbey signed the band to his recently formed record production company in association with EMI Records in Australia and the resurrected Parlophone label.[7] Gilbey went to band rehearsals and helped shape their sound – he bought Willson-Piper a 12 string Rickenbacker guitar and equipped Koppes with an Echolette tape delay. These purchases assisted the development of the musical direction of the two guitarists and complemented Kilbey's vocal and bass guitar style. Of the four demos, only "Chrome Injury" was Acer Aspire 5685WLMi Keyboard
officially released.
Their debut album, Of Skins and Heart, was recorded late in 1980, co-produced by Gilbey and Bob Clearmountain.[5] Seven of the nine tracks were written solely by Kilbey and two co-written with others. The first single, "She Never Said", was released in November, but did not chart.[8] At the start of 1981, Ward was replaced on drums by Richard Ploog.[4] He was recruited by their manager, Michael Chugg, after hearing of his reputation in Adelaide, Ploog's arrival established Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
The Church's first stable line-up.[7] The second single, "The Unguarded Moment", was issued alongside the album in March 1981, but initially only in Australia. "The Unguarded Moment" reached No. 22 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart while Of Skins and Heart achieved the same position on the related Albums Chart.[8] To promote their releases, the band undertook their first national tour.[7]
The first recordings with Ploog were released as a five-track double single / extended play (EP), Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
Too Fast for You in July.[4] It included the first collectively written track, "Sisters". Another track, "Tear It All Away", later released as a separate single, showed a development towards more elaborate guitar structures – regarded as typical The Church sound. Their image evoked comparisons with 1960s psychedelic groups with tight jeans and paisley shirts.[7]
Of Skins and Heart's commercial success enabled Gilbey to present the release to Freddie Cannon of UK label Carrere and Rupert Perry of United States label Capitol. Both labels released the Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
album in 1982, renamed as The Church, with repackaged and altered track listings – including songs from Too Fast for You.[5] The Church peaked at No. 7 in the New Zealand Albums Chart and No. 13 in Sweden.[9][10] Ploog was incorrectly credited as the sole drummer on the US release, despite only playing on three tracks. Capitol also released an edited single version of "The Unguarded Moment" which was a minute shorter – a decision which displeased the band.[7]
[edit]Establishing their sound: The Blurred Crusade (1982)
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The second album The Blurred Crusade, issued in March 1982, was mixed and produced by Clearmountain.[4][5] Stylistically more complex than their debut, it is "a smoother, fuller release".[4] "With its mystical lyrics the second album ... brought the group's own style more into focus".[6] The album peaked at No. 10 and its first single, "Almost with You" resulted in a second Top 30 hit, peaking at No. 21.[8]
The Church undertook a second Australian tour, while Carrere released the album in Europe, Acer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
bringing enough sales to tour there in October.[4] Capitol declined to release The Blurred Crusade in North America and demanded they write more radio-friendly material – as exemplified by stable mates, Little River Band – which horrified group members.[7] After another recording session, five demos were offered but the US label was unimpressed and dropped the group. Chugg arranged a UK tour supporting pop band, Duran Duran, but after five gigs The Church pulled out – he later recalled, "They were hard work. All four of them were strong-willed Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
and had their own ideas of how things should be".[7]
Rather than see the demos disappear, Kilbey pushed to have them released in December 1982 as an EP, Sing-songs, which charted into the Top 100 of the Albums Chart.[8] The Church produced all five tracks and included their cover version of Simon & Garfunkel's hit "I Am a Rock" which was co-produced with Clearmountain.[4] Compared with The Blurred Crusade, the EP was recorded and mixed quickly and sparsely. Public reception was cool and it was deleted from their catalogue Acer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
to became a collector's item until re-released on CD in 2001.
[edit]Introspection & atmosphere: Seance & Remote Luxury (1983–1985)
In May 1983, the band released their third album, Seance, co-produced by The Church with John Bee (Hoodoo Gurus, Icehouse, The Divinyls), which peaked at No. 18.[4][5][8] It used more keyboards and synthesisers and was described as "That stark release explored the band's darker side, and tracks ... were awash with strings and other effects".[4] The accompanying live shows Acer Aspire One AOA150-1001 Keyboard
included a guest keyboardist, Melbourne-based session player Dean Walliss.
For Seance the band employed mixing engineer, Nick Launay (Midnight Oil). The result was a distorted, noise-gated drum sound that particularly stood out on the staccato-like snare. Unsatisfied with the sound, the band asked Launay to redo the mix, but the effect was only lightened. The first single, "Electric Lash," featured this sound prominently – some fans likened it to a "machine gun". Despite dissatisfaction over the mix, Seance featured a lusher, more Acer Aspire One D250-1326 Keyboard
atmospheric The Church with highlights, "Now I Wonder Why" and "Fly." Internationally, the album sold poorly, being considered dark and cryptic, and the general public seemed to lose interest. Some critics in Europe and US liked the album, with Creem hailing them as "one of the best in the world".
Seance was dominated by Kilbey's song writing. Some 20 songs were put together on his home 4-track with other band members presenting material. However, only one band composition Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
made the album: the experimental "Travel by Thought". Kilbey and Willson-Piper had co-written another track, "10,000 Miles", but the label rejected it. Kilbey was upset by the label's interference, finding the track essential to their set – it was included on their next EP, Remote Luxury.
Foregoing a full album, in 1984 the band released two EPs, Remote Luxury in March and Persia in August, but only in Australia and New Zealand. Both EPs reached the Top 50 on the Australian Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
Albums Chart.[8] Again, almost all tracks were written by Kilbey, but compared to Seance, the atmosphere was lighter and less gloomy. Persia had the band's trademark guitar sound complemented by the keyboards of guest musicians Davey Ray Moor (from The Crystal Set, which included Kilbey's brother Russell) and by Craig Hooper (The Reels) who joined as an auxiliary member.[4] Hooper left to form The Mullanes by early 1985.
Internationally the two EPs were repackaged as a single album titled Remote Luxury. Its US Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
release on Warner Bros. Records was the first there since the band's debut – though The Blurred Crusade and Seance had sold on import. Due to the interest raised in the US, they left Michael Chugg Management in Sydney and signed with Malibu Management's owner John Lee. The band toured in October and November, venues in New York and Los Angeles saw audiences of about 1000 people, but other gigs had as few as 50. In financial terms the tour went poorly and the band lost thousands of dollars a week.
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The band had reached a nadir in 1984, unable to repeat the success of the first two albums, there was a perception that their creativity was declining. Kilbey later said: "I think we released a few dud records that weren't as good as they should have been, after The Blurred Crusade ... The band was just drifting along in a sea of apathy, I was writing not-so-good songs and the band wasn't playing them very well, so everyone's enthusiasm just waned". 1985 was a quiet year for the band as different members spent time apart in Stockholm, Sydney and Jamaica. Kilbey's Acer eMachines G640 Keyboard
debut solo single "This Asphalt Eden" was released by EMI Parlophone and he was producer on a single, "Benefit of the Doubt", for The Crystal Set.[1]
[edit]Rejuvenation: Heyday (1986–1987)
Steve Kilbey, California, 1986
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After a short hiatus, The Church reconvened at Studios 301 in late 1985 to work on their next album. Their first single in almost two years, "Already Yesterday" appeared in October and just made the Top 100.[4][8] Unlike previously, the resulting recordings were more of a group affair. Released in January 1986, Heyday, produced by Peter Walsh (Simple Minds, Scott Walker, Peter Gabriel),[5] brought in a new stylistic element with the addition of strings and horns, creating a warm, organic sound. The songs "were among the richest moments in The Church canon".[4]
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Released in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the US, the album was warmly received by fans. In Australia it peaked at No. 19,[8] and appeared on the US Billboard 200.[11] A promotional tour started in April, with concerts both at home and abroad. Unexpectedly, Willson-Piper suddenly quit mid-tour after rising in-band tensions. On 10 July, The Church performed as a three-piece in Hamburg, Germany; Willson-Piper returned within a week after Kilbey agreed that future releases would contain more group efforts.[4]
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Despite the charged atmosphere and warm press, low sales for the album's singles in Australia prompted EMI to drop them. Plans for a double live album, Bootleg were also scrapped. The band had greater sales overseas than in Australia, they decided to record in a studio abroad and opted for a four album deal with US label Arista Records in 1987. For Australian releases they signed with Mushroom Records / Festival Records.[4]
[edit]Into the mainstream: Starfish (1988)
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Recording sessions in Los Angeles, with producers Waddy Wachtel (Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Robbie Williams) and Greg Ladanyi (Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac),[4][5] were a new challenge according to Kilbey, "It was Australian hippies versus West Coast guys who know the way they like to do things. We were a bit more undisciplined than they would have liked". Personality clashes occurred as the two sides bickered over guitar sounds, song structures and work ethic. Under pressure from the producers, Kilbey took vocal lessons, an experience he later Acer NSK-AF31D Keyboard
regarded as valuable.
The stress of living in the US influenced their recording, and left Kilbey feeling out of place:
"The Church came to L.A. and really reacted against the place because none of us liked it. I hated where I was living. I hated driving this horrible little red car around on the wrong side of the road. I hate that there's no one walking on the streets and I missed my home. All the billboards, conversations I'd overhear, TV shows, everything that was happening to us was going into the Acer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
music".
Album tracks such as "North, South, East and West," "Lost," "Reptile" and "Destination" bore the imprint of the faces, scenery and daily life of the group's new, temporary home.
Four weeks of gruelling rehearsal resulted in Starfish, which focused on capturing the band's core sound. Bright, spacious and uncluttered, the recording was a departure from the layered orchestrations of Heyday. The group wanted as live and dynamic an album as possible, Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
Willson-Piper said that trying to record a live atmosphere lacked a real gig's sense of "being there". They found the results bare and simplistic; however, the public reception was unexpected.
Released in February 1988, Starfish found its way into the mainstream, it reached No. 11 in Australia and Top 50 in the US.[8][11] The album was awarded a gold record in December 1992 by the Recording Industry Association of America.[12] Also released in February, "Under the Acer NSK-H361D Keyboard
Milky Way" reached Top 30 in Australia, Canadian Top 100 and US Hot 100 – it peaked at No. 2 on Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks.[8][13][14] The track was written by Kilbey and then-girlfriend Karin Jansson (ex-Pink Champagne).[15] The warmth of the melancholic melody shone through on the 12-string-based progression, accented by light keyboards and minimalist electric guitar. Kilbey's baritone vocal, "Wish I knew what you were looking for, might have known what you would find" made the chorus distinctive, providing an abstract, but striking emotional Acer PK1301K0100 Keyboard
centrepiece. A near-five minute video received airtime on music television programs. "Under the Milky Way" won an ARIA Award in 1989 for 'Single of the Year'.[16] In 2008, readers of The Australian voted it the best Australian song for the last 20 years, in response Kilbey said, "it's not really about anything at all. I just wanted to create an atmosphere and I didn't even put a lot of thought into that. History has given it something that it never really had".[15]
A second single from Starfish, "Reptile", charted on the Australian Top 100 in August and Acer PK130AE1000 Keyboard
Billboard Mainstream charts.[8][14] EMI issued a greatest hits double-album, Hindsight 1980–1987, which peaked into the ARIA Top 40 Albums Chart in July.[5][17]
[edit]"One straight from the factory...": Gold Afternoon Fix (1989–1990)
The Church promoted Starfish, with a nine-month tour before they returned to the studio for a follow-up. With a US Top 50 album under their belt, there was pressure from Arista to create another. The band started negotiations with former Led Zeppelin keyboardist and bass guitarist, Acer PK130AE3000 Keyboard
John Paul Jones, who had a reputation as a sophisticated producer. Despite enthusiasm by all four members, the company and management vetoed their suggestion. To duplicate Starfish’s success, The Church returned to LA with Wachtel producing.
While the previous sessions were tense, these were volatile. Already unenthusiastic about the forced pairing, they had the stress of having to create another hit album, and the external demand for perfection took its toll. All members were outspoken about the role that drugs Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
played in The Church’s creative process,[18] but drummer, Ploog, began to retreat further into his own habit as pressure increased.[19] Recording takes numbered into multiple double digits, Ploog's relationship with Kilbey deteriorated - accentuated by Wachtel's demands for a consistently reliable tempo. Eventually Ploog's isolation led to exclusion, his drum tracks were sampled out and replaced by a rigid, but meter-perfect drum machine. Initially intended to last for a year, his "temporarily excommunicated" status became permanent.
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The resulting album, Gold Afternoon Fix, while different from its predecessor, reached No.12 on Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Chart.[17] While Starfish focused on a raw, live sound, Gold Afternoon Fix employed more ambient aspects, including piano, acoustic guitars and keyboards. On some tracks, the music was punctuated by clanging metal, rustling wind or sharp, industrial sounds. It "was a disappointment, despite heady moments with the singles".[4]
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Gold Afternoon Fix was heavily backed by a marketing and promotion campaign from Arista. The band went on tour for almost two years, hiring Patti Smith's drummer Jay Dee Daugherty to replace Ploog. With the company push, the album spawned a hit single "Metropolis" (No. 19 in Australia, No. 11 on Mainstream Rock) but no charting for "You're Still Beautiful". In the US, sales fell noticeably short of Starfish. Strong commercial pressure and private affairs left their mark. Press was mixed and interviews tended towards incoherence or peevishness. The band –Acer TravelMate 3040 Keyboard
particularly Kilbey – would later dismiss the album as "lousy", "hashed together" and "hideous".
[edit]The Magnum Opus: Priest=Aura (1991–1992)
After the dust had settled following the Gold Afternoon Fix misadventure and subsequent tour, The Church returned to their old haunts at Sydney's Studios 301 to commence work on their next album. With lowered commercial expectations and pressure from Arista, the atmosphere was more relaxed. Bringing in Scottish producer Gavin MacKillop (Barenaked Ladies, Toad the Wet Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
Sprocket, Straitjacket Fits) to supervise the sessions,[5] the band began to improvise the framework for the next set of songs. From fragments and chord changes, songs crystallised and were elaborated upon. The relatively stress-free environment and free flow of ideas (as well as drugs - allegedly opium was a favourite mind-enhancer during the recordings)[citation needed] saw the material take on a far more expansive and surreal quality.[20] New influences took effect: Daugherty's jazz-like approach on drums brought a fresh change, with his contributions extending Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
to keyboards and other instruments. Willson-Piper, having recently worked with All About Eve, had expanded his own sound with his guitars now soaring in crescendos from his new volume pedal.
Priest=Aura titled from Kilbey's misreading of a Spanish fan's English vocabulary notes ('priest' = 'cura'), contains fourteen songs, many over six minutes long, its length surpassed all previous releases. With song concepts derived from cryptic, one-word working titles (an idea originally Apple ibook g4 14 inch Keyboard
proposed by Willson-Piper), the lyrics leaned towards the abstract and esoteric. Emphasising free association and undirected coincidence between music and motif, Kilbey declined to define their meanings. Sonically, the music had numerous layers, courtesy of guitar overdubs and MacKillop's rich production. The interplay between Koppes and Willson-Piper dominated throughout, especially on tracks such as "Ripple," "Kings," and the epic, aptly titled "Chaos". Chaos lyrics were a reflection of Steve Kilbey's rocky lifestyle at the time.
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Upon its release on 10 March 1992, however, Priest=Aura was given a mixed reception. It peaked in the ARIA Top 30,[17] reviews were varied, some critical, with many uncertain how to react. Unlike Gold Afternoon Fix, which was supported by a steady marketing campaign, Priest=Aura had less promotion and dropped below the radar in an international climate with the emergence of grunge and mainstream alternative. Sales were lacklustre and the band went on only a limited tour, confined to Australia, as Kilbey prepared for the birth of his twin daughters. Adding to the Asus A9Rp Keyboard
decline in The Church's outlook was the announcement by Koppes of his departure. Despite a completely sold-out tour, increasing personality conflicts within the band especially with Willson-Piper and frustration over the band's lack of success made the situation intolerable. Priest=Aura is considered by both the band and fan base to be an artistic climax.
[edit]Instability: Sometime Anywhere & Magician Among the Spirits (1993–1996)
With The Church's future uncertain, members took time off to focus on other projects. Koppes Asus F3Jr Keyboard
began to establish a solo career with his new group, the Well (including former band mate Ploog). Kilbey turned towards another Jack Frost collaboration with Grant McLennan (of The Go-Betweens) and Willson-Piper returned to the studio with All About Eve to record their album, Ultraviolet.
Despite the loss of Koppes, Arista stood by their contract and backed another recording session. Upon finishing their side projects, Kilbey and Willson-Piper decided to write new material. Initial Asus F6E Keyboard
attempts to recreate 'The Church sound' with Daugherty bore little result, and it became clear that he had no intention of staying on as a permanent member. Parting ways after the fruitless sessions, the remaining two began to approach their music from a different angle. Abandoning the long-established roles and stylistic elements, Kilbey and Willson-Piper started a creative process more based in experimentation, spontaneity and electronica.
Early in 1994, the two hired additional musicians and brought in Willson-Piper's childhood friend Asus F80L Keyboard
Andy Mason to produce, and expanded their sound into hitherto uncharted areas. New Zealand drummer Tim Powles was hired for the sessions, after having already played on Jack Frost's project with Kilbey. Song structure was freer, with each musician playing multiple tracks on various instruments, to be cut down and refined as pieces later. The two likened the approach to a sculptor's creative process, gradually taking shape as work went on. Although considered temporary at the time, by 1996 Powles became a permanent band member.[2]
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The resulting album, Sometime Anywhere, released in May 1994, was generally well received and peaked into the Top 30.[17] It is described as a "rich, dark, epic release picked up where Priest left off with lush, lengthy tracks".[4] Gone were the guitar-based soundscapes, replaced instead by Eastern tinges, electronic effects and experimental fusion. Sales, however, were paltry and the first single, "Two Places at Once", went nowhere. Promotion fell flat as Arista saw no commercial promise in the release. With yet another consecutive flop on their hands, Arista refused to renew Asus F82 Keyboard
The Church's contract and pulled financial support for a tour. Ambitious plans to have fully accompanied, electric shows were quickly scaled back by Kilbey and Willson-Piper to a short run of acoustic gigs as a duo.
Without a recording deal, the band's future looked bleak, Kilbey and Willson-Piper began work on new recordings in 1995. Although under the concept of a two-man project, the new material saw input from drummer Powles and hired violinist Linda Neil. Renewed contact between Kilbey Asus X53 Keyboard
and Koppes led to the latter agreeing to guest on several songs - a welcome surprise for fans. Simon Polinski (Yothu Yindi) was drafted in to produce the sessions, leading to a sound more akin to an ambient project. The music saw a return to guitar-based material, this time infused with definite krautrock and art rock influences. A 15-minute atmospheric piece dominated the sessions, featuring split Kilbey and Willson-Piper vocals (as previously on "Two Places at Once"). Additional contributions by Utungun Percussion added a new, primal aspect to several songs.
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The album was released on the band's own Deep Karma label as Magician Among the Spirits (inspired by the 15-minute, epic title track). Due to financial constraints, the band had to arrange outside distribution for markets in North America and Europe. This limitation almost doomed the album from the beginning, but worse events were to come. Within a short time, the U.S. distributor went bankrupt, leaving the band stripped of its earnings from North American sales. Although exact figures
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remain unknown due to disputes, up to A$250,000 worth of merchandise Asus X53S Keyboard
(some 25,000 discs) was lost. For a band already on shaky foundations, this was nearly the death knell. Comments by Kilbey in May of that year summed up the situation: "There's no immediate future for The Church.....Our management, the whole thing is broken down.....We don't really have a label. We're owed lots and lots of money and we're broke. We're trying to Compaq Presario C709LA Keyboard
pursue lawyers to get our money back. Marty and I aren't having any communication. There's no one really managing us so.....that could have been the last record."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kilbey later went on to disown Magician Among the Spirits as "a load of tripe." Though now viewed largely as a transitional album, it received mixed reviews by the fanbase, despite the guitar rock hook of its single, "Comedown." The album also showed a re-emerging band, with Powles now adopted more as a full-time member and Koppes dabbling Compaq Presario CQ40-139TU Keyboard
with the group again. Nevertheless, the circumstances following the album's release unfortunately led to perhaps the lowest point of the band's career.
[edit]Restoration: Hologram of Baal & A Box of Birds (1997–1999)
After Koppes' departure in 1992, the band members turned their attention to outside projects in 1996 and 1997. Willson-Piper saw collaborations with Brix Smith (The Fall), Adult Net, Linda Perry (4 Non Blondes) and Cinerama, while also beginning a side project with ex-All About Eve Compaq Presario CQ41-209AU Keyboard
bandmates (titled Seeing Stars) and writing new solo material. Kilbey wrote the score for Australian film Blackrock and recorded an ambient, instrumental album, Gilt Trip, with brother Russell P. Kilbey.
In the absence of any new work as 'The Church', Kilbey, Powles and Koppes spent some studio time together as well. The resulting material - released under the guise of The Refo:mation (initially The Reformation, but altered upon Powles' request as a courtesy to Willson-Piper) was Compaq Presario CQ42-227TU Keyboard
largely put together in a few quick recording sessions. Loose in feel, but richly atmospheric, the eccentrically titled Pharmakoi/Distance-Crunching Honchos With Echo Units saw a greater focus on concise, guitar-dominated songs, rather than the uncontrolled experimentation of Magician Among the Spirits.
Group tensions for the Church proper were still simmering, however. More than anyone else, it was new drummer Tim Powles that tried to alleviate the outstanding disagreements. While Compaq Presario CQ50-130US Keyboard
Koppes and Willson-Piper had already had differences for some time, Kilbey and Willson-Piper's relationship was also strained from recent problems. Kilbey began to declare a formal, impending end to the band: after a final, worthy swan song (with the working title Au Revoir Por Favor), the Church would be put to rest. Despite this, the four agreed to play a string of fully electric concerts around Australia, which were extremely successful. The roaring success of the intended "final concert" in Sydney put a quick end to talk concerning the band's demise.
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The results of new recording sessions saw a return to the band's roots. Incorporating 1970s influences as well as ambient, radio effects, the material was thoroughly based around Koppes and Willson-Piper's guitar interplay. For the first time also, the band completely produced itself (under Powles' aegis). Originally given the name Bastard Universe, the forthcoming album was retitled Hologram of Allah after Willson-Piper found the former too negative. Concerns about fundamentalist Muslim reaction to a potentially blasphemous title made the band opt for the Compaq Presario CQ56-140SI Keyboard
more neutral Hologram of Baal (from the Canaanite god). Released under a new contract with UK independent Cooking Vinyl, the album was distributed in the U.S. under agreement with Thirsty Ear. A limited edition of the album featured a bonus disc with a nearly 80-minute, continuous jam session (given the shelved title Bastard Universe).
The newly rejuvenated (and reformed) band went on their first fully electric tour of the U.S., Australia and Europe in years. A plan to release a live album called Bag of Bones was put into Compaq Presario CQ56-160EB Keyboard
motion and then later cancelled. Instead, a collection of cover songs was recorded, shedding light on the band's influences. Arriving in August 1999 - less than a year after Hologram of Baal - A Box of Birds contained an unusual selection of songs from Ultravox and Iggy Pop to The Monkees and Neil Young. The insert to the CD was designed as interchangeable, with 10 separate sleeve designs created by fans. As with Hologram of Baal, a tour followed the album's release. New drama hit the band mid-tour in New York City when Kilbey was arrested for trying to purchase Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
heroin. The band was forced to improvise a set after he failed to show, with Willson-Piper covering vocals. A night in jail and a day's sentencing to community service in the Manhattan subway resulted from the bust. "A drug bust is something every aging rock star should have under his belt," Kilbey was later quoted.
[edit]Reconsolidation: 2000–2008
Recordings for a follow-up album turned out to be painstakingly slow due to numerous side Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
projects and simple geography (with Kilbey in Sweden, Willson-Piper in England and the others in Australia). While taking time off in between to focus on solo efforts and other engagements (including a brief reunion with All About Eve for Willson-Piper), the bandmates met across several separate sessions. Partially recorded in both Sweden and Australia, the resulting After Everything Now This in January 2002 saw a focus on the softer elements of the band. With only three obvious "rock" tracks out of ten, calm soundscapes predominated. The successive world tour had Compaq Presario CQ60-310eq Keyboard
the band in a more subtle setting as well, with most tracks performed primarily acoustic alongside guest David Lane on piano.
Fans would not wait long again for another group release - by late 2002, a double-disc compilation called Parallel Universe hit stores. Unique among the band's catalog, the first disc, subtitled 'Mixture', featured a reshuffled, remixed version of the After Everything Now This album, the result of Tim Powles' collaboration with Sydney musicians. The second disc was an Compaq Presario CQ71 Series Keyboard
added bonus, compiled from the remaining songs of the After Everything Now This recording sessions.
Around the time of Parallel Universe's release, the Church returned to the studio to record another album, eventually entitled Forget Yourself. Rather than fleshing the songs out over a long, gradual process, the band decided to keep the music as close to the original jam-based material as possible. Stylistically, this made for a much rawer sound, primarily recorded live and with Compaq Presario CQ71-413SG Keyboard
minimal overdubs. As had become routine since Sometime Anywhere, songs saw numerous instrument changes between members, with Powles playing guitar on "Sealine" and Willson-Piper switching to drums on "Maya." Forget Yourself was released in Australia in October 2003, and in the U.S. in February 2004.
The prolific nature of the band continued throughout 2004. Under the guidance of manager Kevin Lane Keller - an American fan and marketing professor that had been working with them Compaq Presario V6305AU Keyboard
since 2001 - the Church began capitalizing on the advantages offered by the internet and independent music industry. Following up on Hologram of Baal's bonus Bastard Universe, the band released the first of a planned series of jam session CDs, Jammed, through its website in September. A collection of outtakes from the Forget Yourself sessions followed soon after, with the tongue-in-cheek title Beside Yourself.
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Koppes, Kilbey, Powles, Willson-Piper on-stage.
Park West, Chicago. 18 August 2006.
Within only about a month's time, yet another album followed. This time, the band decided to revisit past material in an all-acoustic setting, along with the inclusion of several new songs. For the first time in years, they also performed "The Unguarded Moment" (albeit in strongly modified Dell 0PVDG3 Keyboard
form), an early hit from which they had long distanced themselves. As a nod to the song's reappearance, they titled the album El Momento Descuidado - a rough Spanish translation of its name. A short all-acoustic tour followed the release in late 2004, and the album itself was eventually nominated in 2005 for "Best Adult Contemporary Album" in the Australian ARIA Awards, though it did not win.
A second internet-only release of songs saw the light in 2005. Unlike Jammed, the album Back Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
With Two Beasts featured shorter, more structured vocal songs.
In March 2006, the band performed "Under the Milky Way" as part of the 2006 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. A new studio album, Uninvited, Like the Clouds, was released on 17 April 2006. Following in 2007 was El Momento Siguiente, a second album of acoustic re-interpretations of earlier songs and a few new compositions.
[edit]2009 and beyond
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In early 2009, Second Motion Records released multiple albums from Church band members in North America. Singer Steve Kilbey's record Painkiller was released on 17 February (preorders starting in mid-Jan), and Marty Willson-Piper's album Nightjar was released (on digipak) on 3 March.
2009 also proved to be a busy year for the band as a whole. In 2007, new music was recorded to soundtrack a short film based on Jeff Vandermeer's book Shriek: An Afterword;[21] the band Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
released Shriek: Excerpts From The Soundtrack on their own Unorthodox Records in January 2009.
In February, The Church released the EP Coffee Hounds, essentially a double A-sided single featuring the original composition "The Coffee Song" as well as a cover of Kate Bush's classic "Hounds Of Love". The following month, the band released the Pangaea EP, the title track serving as a teaser for their upcoming album. The remaining three tracks were all unique to this EP.[22]
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Unorthodox Records and Second Motion Records released the album Untitled No. 23 through MGM in March (Australia) to coincide with Australian tour dates. Second Motion Records released it rest of world shortly thereafter. Technically the 23rd Australian Church release of original studio material (counting EPs), Kilbey has also alluded to the mystical significance of the number 23 in a recent interview with music publication Music Feeds.[23] All of the EP's and albums are available in CD, Limited Edition 2xLP 180 gram Vinyl and Digital Format via Second Dell Latitude D400 Keyboard
Motion Records website http://www.secondmotionrecords.com.
Coinciding with the "Untitled No. 23" US tour, a book titled "No Certainty Attached: Steve Kilbey and The Church" by Robert Dean Lurie was published in Australia, the US, and the UK by Verse Chorus Press. While primarily a biography of Kilbey, the book also traced the evolution of the band from his perspective. This was not an official band project but Kilbey, Koppes, and various friends and family members participated.
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In February 2010, the band announced a string of U.S. tour dates, calling it "An Intimate Space 30th Anniversary North American Tour 2010".[24] In a unique and unusual execution, the band chose one song from each of their considerable album releases and performed them in reverse chronological order. This original show opened with a track from "Untitled No. 23" before embarking on a fantastic voyage through time ultimately arriving at their first Australian album, "Of Skins And Heart".
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In April, the band performed "Under the Milky Way" on KUSI News in San Diego, CA. The group was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame, on 27 October by media commentator, George Negus, while young pop singer, Washington, performed "The Unguarded Moment".[25][26] After their acceptance speech, the band performed "Under the Milky Way" and "Tantalized".[26]
In October 2010 Second Motion Records started to re-release the entire back catalog of The Dell V119525BS1 Keyboard
Church with extensive liner notes from guitarist Marty Willson-Piper. Deep In The Shallows is the first ever 30 year singles collection (2xCD) and was released in October along with reissues of their debut Of Skins & Heart and The Blurred Crusade (all with bonus tracks). In November 2010, Seance and Heyday were released also with liner notes from MWP and extra tracks.
In early 2011 Second Motion will reissue Starfish (2xCD), Gold Afternoon Fix 2xCD), Priest = Aura and Sometime Anywhere as well as a limited edition "EP" Box Set. The band toured the US in Feb Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
2011 playing select cities and are performing three albums (Untitled#23, Priest=Aura & Starfish) in their entirety.[27]
The Church was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame at the 2010 Aria Awards and performed two songs live onstage.
The Church celebrated their 30th Anniversary with a special show entitled "A Psychedelic Symphony" on 10 April 2011 at the Sydney Opera House. They were accompanied by George Ellis Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
(conductor) and the Symphony Orchestra of the University of Sydney. The concert was filmed for a future release on DVD and also televised on MAX TV during October 2011.
[edit]Lyrics
Most of The Church's lyrics are written by Steve Kilbey, who was the sole songwriter on all albums up to Remote Luxury. Until then, Kilbey brought basically completed/demoed songs to tDell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
he sessions while the arrangement was a group effort, mostly done by Peter Koppes. This changed since with Heyday in 1985. Now, the songs are results of expanded jam sessions. The music is first written in the studio, after which Kilbey writes the lyrics. His lyrics and poems are often described as surreal, though Kilbey flatly rejects any fixed meaning of his poetry, categorizing them as art pour l'art. Surveying his body of work, several recurring themes can be noticed: myths, legends, dreams and nightmares, visions, drug fantasies, orientalisms, biblical Dell Vostro 3450 Keyboard
(not exclusively Christian) motifs. These thematic circles are linked, using numerous word plays and references. More recently, Kilbey has stated (about his latest collection, "Eden") his poetry questions "the fabric of love and fear, temptation and creation and our eternal quest for meaning." Often he tries to sketch with few strokes and hints a complete epic course, leaving the details to the listener's imagination.
The Church handle their lyrics to some extent subversively. Strikingly, since the release of 1988's SDell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
tarfish they have refused to provide lyric sheets to the albums, on the idea that sung lyrics should be listened to, not read. Kilbey likes the idea of a lyric emerging in a person's head, spawning lots of new and unforeseen meanings. This intent notwithstanding, complete collections of Church lyrics can be found on the internet.
Most Church albums have at least one song in which the lyrics and vocals are written and sung by FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
either Peter Koppes or Marty Willson-Piper.
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The Church's debut album, Of Skins and Heart (1981), delivered their first radio hit "The Unguarded Moment". They were signed to major labels in Australia, Europe and the United States. However, the US label was dissatisfied with their second album and dropped the band without releasing it. This put a dent in their international success, but they returned to the charts in 1988, with the album Starfish and the US Top 40 hit "Under the Milky Way". Subsequent commercial success proved elusive, however, and the band weathered several line-up changes in 0A62075
the early 1990s. The last decade has seen them settle on their current line-up. On 27 October 2010, The Church were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in Sydney.
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Early days to first album (1980–1981)
1.2 Establishing their sound: The Blurred Crusade (1982)
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1.3 Introspection & atmosphere: Seance & Remote Luxury (1983–1985)
1.4 Rejuvenation: Heyday (1986–1987)
1.5 Into the mainstream: Starfish (1988)
1.6 "One straight from the factory...": Gold Afternoon Fix (1989–1990)
1.7 The Magnum Opus: Priest=Aura (1991–1992)
1.8 Instability: Sometime Anywhere & Magician Among the Spirits (1993–1996)
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1.9 Restoration: Hologram of Baal & A Box of Birds (1997–1999)
1.10 Reconsolidation: 2000–2008
1.11 2009 and beyond
2 Lyrics
3 Members
4 Discography
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5 References
6 External links
[edit]History
[edit]Early days to first album (1980–1981)
From the early 1970s, lead vocalist and bass guitarist Steve Kilbey (ex-The Tactics) played in Acer Aspire 5024WLM Keyboard
covers band Baby Grand in Canberra, Australia.[1][2] He first played with guitarist Peter Koppes in glam rock band Precious Little in the mid-1970s. By 1977, Kilbey had purchased a four-track reel-to-reel tape deck.[2] In March 1980, they formed a three-piece band, Limosine, in Sydney with Nick Ward on drums and began performing.[3][4] A month later Marty Willson-Piper (originally from Liverpool, United Kingdom) joined on guitar, they were named The Church.[4][5] Supposedly, the name was chosen as it was unclaimed, but later allusions to spiritual interests by Acer Aspire 5024WLMi Keyboard
Kilbey hint that it was less coincidental. Initially, only Koppes was a fully proficient musician, Kilbey was an erratic bass guitarist and Willson-Piper was searching for his guitar style. Both musicians would later refer to this period as the "wilderness years."
A four-song demo was recorded in Kilbey's bedroom studio.[6] Thanks to contacts from his former band Baby Grand, they sent the tape to Australian record label ATV Northern.[4] The song "Chrome Injury" attracted the attention of publisher Chris Gilbey who heard it played to Don Acer Aspire 5670 Keyboard
Bruner, his professional manager. Gilbey signed the band to his recently formed record production company in association with EMI Records in Australia and the resurrected Parlophone label.[7] Gilbey went to band rehearsals and helped shape their sound – he bought Willson-Piper a 12 string Rickenbacker guitar and equipped Koppes with an Echolette tape delay. These purchases assisted the development of the musical direction of the two guitarists and complemented Kilbey's vocal and bass guitar style. Of the four demos, only "Chrome Injury" was Acer Aspire 5685WLMi Keyboard
officially released.
Their debut album, Of Skins and Heart, was recorded late in 1980, co-produced by Gilbey and Bob Clearmountain.[5] Seven of the nine tracks were written solely by Kilbey and two co-written with others. The first single, "She Never Said", was released in November, but did not chart.[8] At the start of 1981, Ward was replaced on drums by Richard Ploog.[4] He was recruited by their manager, Michael Chugg, after hearing of his reputation in Adelaide, Ploog's arrival established Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
The Church's first stable line-up.[7] The second single, "The Unguarded Moment", was issued alongside the album in March 1981, but initially only in Australia. "The Unguarded Moment" reached No. 22 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart while Of Skins and Heart achieved the same position on the related Albums Chart.[8] To promote their releases, the band undertook their first national tour.[7]
The first recordings with Ploog were released as a five-track double single / extended play (EP), Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
Too Fast for You in July.[4] It included the first collectively written track, "Sisters". Another track, "Tear It All Away", later released as a separate single, showed a development towards more elaborate guitar structures – regarded as typical The Church sound. Their image evoked comparisons with 1960s psychedelic groups with tight jeans and paisley shirts.[7]
Of Skins and Heart's commercial success enabled Gilbey to present the release to Freddie Cannon of UK label Carrere and Rupert Perry of United States label Capitol. Both labels released the Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
album in 1982, renamed as The Church, with repackaged and altered track listings – including songs from Too Fast for You.[5] The Church peaked at No. 7 in the New Zealand Albums Chart and No. 13 in Sweden.[9][10] Ploog was incorrectly credited as the sole drummer on the US release, despite only playing on three tracks. Capitol also released an edited single version of "The Unguarded Moment" which was a minute shorter – a decision which displeased the band.[7]
[edit]Establishing their sound: The Blurred Crusade (1982)
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The second album The Blurred Crusade, issued in March 1982, was mixed and produced by Clearmountain.[4][5] Stylistically more complex than their debut, it is "a smoother, fuller release".[4] "With its mystical lyrics the second album ... brought the group's own style more into focus".[6] The album peaked at No. 10 and its first single, "Almost with You" resulted in a second Top 30 hit, peaking at No. 21.[8]
The Church undertook a second Australian tour, while Carrere released the album in Europe, Acer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
bringing enough sales to tour there in October.[4] Capitol declined to release The Blurred Crusade in North America and demanded they write more radio-friendly material – as exemplified by stable mates, Little River Band – which horrified group members.[7] After another recording session, five demos were offered but the US label was unimpressed and dropped the group. Chugg arranged a UK tour supporting pop band, Duran Duran, but after five gigs The Church pulled out – he later recalled, "They were hard work. All four of them were strong-willed Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
and had their own ideas of how things should be".[7]
Rather than see the demos disappear, Kilbey pushed to have them released in December 1982 as an EP, Sing-songs, which charted into the Top 100 of the Albums Chart.[8] The Church produced all five tracks and included their cover version of Simon & Garfunkel's hit "I Am a Rock" which was co-produced with Clearmountain.[4] Compared with The Blurred Crusade, the EP was recorded and mixed quickly and sparsely. Public reception was cool and it was deleted from their catalogue Acer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
to became a collector's item until re-released on CD in 2001.
[edit]Introspection & atmosphere: Seance & Remote Luxury (1983–1985)
In May 1983, the band released their third album, Seance, co-produced by The Church with John Bee (Hoodoo Gurus, Icehouse, The Divinyls), which peaked at No. 18.[4][5][8] It used more keyboards and synthesisers and was described as "That stark release explored the band's darker side, and tracks ... were awash with strings and other effects".[4] The accompanying live shows Acer Aspire One AOA150-1001 Keyboard
included a guest keyboardist, Melbourne-based session player Dean Walliss.
For Seance the band employed mixing engineer, Nick Launay (Midnight Oil). The result was a distorted, noise-gated drum sound that particularly stood out on the staccato-like snare. Unsatisfied with the sound, the band asked Launay to redo the mix, but the effect was only lightened. The first single, "Electric Lash," featured this sound prominently – some fans likened it to a "machine gun". Despite dissatisfaction over the mix, Seance featured a lusher, more Acer Aspire One D250-1326 Keyboard
atmospheric The Church with highlights, "Now I Wonder Why" and "Fly." Internationally, the album sold poorly, being considered dark and cryptic, and the general public seemed to lose interest. Some critics in Europe and US liked the album, with Creem hailing them as "one of the best in the world".
Seance was dominated by Kilbey's song writing. Some 20 songs were put together on his home 4-track with other band members presenting material. However, only one band composition Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
made the album: the experimental "Travel by Thought". Kilbey and Willson-Piper had co-written another track, "10,000 Miles", but the label rejected it. Kilbey was upset by the label's interference, finding the track essential to their set – it was included on their next EP, Remote Luxury.
Foregoing a full album, in 1984 the band released two EPs, Remote Luxury in March and Persia in August, but only in Australia and New Zealand. Both EPs reached the Top 50 on the Australian Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
Albums Chart.[8] Again, almost all tracks were written by Kilbey, but compared to Seance, the atmosphere was lighter and less gloomy. Persia had the band's trademark guitar sound complemented by the keyboards of guest musicians Davey Ray Moor (from The Crystal Set, which included Kilbey's brother Russell) and by Craig Hooper (The Reels) who joined as an auxiliary member.[4] Hooper left to form The Mullanes by early 1985.
Internationally the two EPs were repackaged as a single album titled Remote Luxury. Its US Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
release on Warner Bros. Records was the first there since the band's debut – though The Blurred Crusade and Seance had sold on import. Due to the interest raised in the US, they left Michael Chugg Management in Sydney and signed with Malibu Management's owner John Lee. The band toured in October and November, venues in New York and Los Angeles saw audiences of about 1000 people, but other gigs had as few as 50. In financial terms the tour went poorly and the band lost thousands of dollars a week.
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The band had reached a nadir in 1984, unable to repeat the success of the first two albums, there was a perception that their creativity was declining. Kilbey later said: "I think we released a few dud records that weren't as good as they should have been, after The Blurred Crusade ... The band was just drifting along in a sea of apathy, I was writing not-so-good songs and the band wasn't playing them very well, so everyone's enthusiasm just waned". 1985 was a quiet year for the band as different members spent time apart in Stockholm, Sydney and Jamaica. Kilbey's Acer eMachines G640 Keyboard
debut solo single "This Asphalt Eden" was released by EMI Parlophone and he was producer on a single, "Benefit of the Doubt", for The Crystal Set.[1]
[edit]Rejuvenation: Heyday (1986–1987)
Steve Kilbey, California, 1986
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After a short hiatus, The Church reconvened at Studios 301 in late 1985 to work on their next album. Their first single in almost two years, "Already Yesterday" appeared in October and just made the Top 100.[4][8] Unlike previously, the resulting recordings were more of a group affair. Released in January 1986, Heyday, produced by Peter Walsh (Simple Minds, Scott Walker, Peter Gabriel),[5] brought in a new stylistic element with the addition of strings and horns, creating a warm, organic sound. The songs "were among the richest moments in The Church canon".[4]
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Released in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the US, the album was warmly received by fans. In Australia it peaked at No. 19,[8] and appeared on the US Billboard 200.[11] A promotional tour started in April, with concerts both at home and abroad. Unexpectedly, Willson-Piper suddenly quit mid-tour after rising in-band tensions. On 10 July, The Church performed as a three-piece in Hamburg, Germany; Willson-Piper returned within a week after Kilbey agreed that future releases would contain more group efforts.[4]
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Despite the charged atmosphere and warm press, low sales for the album's singles in Australia prompted EMI to drop them. Plans for a double live album, Bootleg were also scrapped. The band had greater sales overseas than in Australia, they decided to record in a studio abroad and opted for a four album deal with US label Arista Records in 1987. For Australian releases they signed with Mushroom Records / Festival Records.[4]
[edit]Into the mainstream: Starfish (1988)
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Recording sessions in Los Angeles, with producers Waddy Wachtel (Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Robbie Williams) and Greg Ladanyi (Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac),[4][5] were a new challenge according to Kilbey, "It was Australian hippies versus West Coast guys who know the way they like to do things. We were a bit more undisciplined than they would have liked". Personality clashes occurred as the two sides bickered over guitar sounds, song structures and work ethic. Under pressure from the producers, Kilbey took vocal lessons, an experience he later Acer NSK-AF31D Keyboard
regarded as valuable.
The stress of living in the US influenced their recording, and left Kilbey feeling out of place:
"The Church came to L.A. and really reacted against the place because none of us liked it. I hated where I was living. I hated driving this horrible little red car around on the wrong side of the road. I hate that there's no one walking on the streets and I missed my home. All the billboards, conversations I'd overhear, TV shows, everything that was happening to us was going into the Acer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
music".
Album tracks such as "North, South, East and West," "Lost," "Reptile" and "Destination" bore the imprint of the faces, scenery and daily life of the group's new, temporary home.
Four weeks of gruelling rehearsal resulted in Starfish, which focused on capturing the band's core sound. Bright, spacious and uncluttered, the recording was a departure from the layered orchestrations of Heyday. The group wanted as live and dynamic an album as possible, Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
Willson-Piper said that trying to record a live atmosphere lacked a real gig's sense of "being there". They found the results bare and simplistic; however, the public reception was unexpected.
Released in February 1988, Starfish found its way into the mainstream, it reached No. 11 in Australia and Top 50 in the US.[8][11] The album was awarded a gold record in December 1992 by the Recording Industry Association of America.[12] Also released in February, "Under the Acer NSK-H361D Keyboard
Milky Way" reached Top 30 in Australia, Canadian Top 100 and US Hot 100 – it peaked at No. 2 on Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks.[8][13][14] The track was written by Kilbey and then-girlfriend Karin Jansson (ex-Pink Champagne).[15] The warmth of the melancholic melody shone through on the 12-string-based progression, accented by light keyboards and minimalist electric guitar. Kilbey's baritone vocal, "Wish I knew what you were looking for, might have known what you would find" made the chorus distinctive, providing an abstract, but striking emotional Acer PK1301K0100 Keyboard
centrepiece. A near-five minute video received airtime on music television programs. "Under the Milky Way" won an ARIA Award in 1989 for 'Single of the Year'.[16] In 2008, readers of The Australian voted it the best Australian song for the last 20 years, in response Kilbey said, "it's not really about anything at all. I just wanted to create an atmosphere and I didn't even put a lot of thought into that. History has given it something that it never really had".[15]
A second single from Starfish, "Reptile", charted on the Australian Top 100 in August and Acer PK130AE1000 Keyboard
Billboard Mainstream charts.[8][14] EMI issued a greatest hits double-album, Hindsight 1980–1987, which peaked into the ARIA Top 40 Albums Chart in July.[5][17]
[edit]"One straight from the factory...": Gold Afternoon Fix (1989–1990)
The Church promoted Starfish, with a nine-month tour before they returned to the studio for a follow-up. With a US Top 50 album under their belt, there was pressure from Arista to create another. The band started negotiations with former Led Zeppelin keyboardist and bass guitarist, Acer PK130AE3000 Keyboard
John Paul Jones, who had a reputation as a sophisticated producer. Despite enthusiasm by all four members, the company and management vetoed their suggestion. To duplicate Starfish’s success, The Church returned to LA with Wachtel producing.
While the previous sessions were tense, these were volatile. Already unenthusiastic about the forced pairing, they had the stress of having to create another hit album, and the external demand for perfection took its toll. All members were outspoken about the role that drugs Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
played in The Church’s creative process,[18] but drummer, Ploog, began to retreat further into his own habit as pressure increased.[19] Recording takes numbered into multiple double digits, Ploog's relationship with Kilbey deteriorated - accentuated by Wachtel's demands for a consistently reliable tempo. Eventually Ploog's isolation led to exclusion, his drum tracks were sampled out and replaced by a rigid, but meter-perfect drum machine. Initially intended to last for a year, his "temporarily excommunicated" status became permanent.
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The resulting album, Gold Afternoon Fix, while different from its predecessor, reached No.12 on Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Chart.[17] While Starfish focused on a raw, live sound, Gold Afternoon Fix employed more ambient aspects, including piano, acoustic guitars and keyboards. On some tracks, the music was punctuated by clanging metal, rustling wind or sharp, industrial sounds. It "was a disappointment, despite heady moments with the singles".[4]
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Gold Afternoon Fix was heavily backed by a marketing and promotion campaign from Arista. The band went on tour for almost two years, hiring Patti Smith's drummer Jay Dee Daugherty to replace Ploog. With the company push, the album spawned a hit single "Metropolis" (No. 19 in Australia, No. 11 on Mainstream Rock) but no charting for "You're Still Beautiful". In the US, sales fell noticeably short of Starfish. Strong commercial pressure and private affairs left their mark. Press was mixed and interviews tended towards incoherence or peevishness. The band –Acer TravelMate 3040 Keyboard
particularly Kilbey – would later dismiss the album as "lousy", "hashed together" and "hideous".
[edit]The Magnum Opus: Priest=Aura (1991–1992)
After the dust had settled following the Gold Afternoon Fix misadventure and subsequent tour, The Church returned to their old haunts at Sydney's Studios 301 to commence work on their next album. With lowered commercial expectations and pressure from Arista, the atmosphere was more relaxed. Bringing in Scottish producer Gavin MacKillop (Barenaked Ladies, Toad the Wet Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
Sprocket, Straitjacket Fits) to supervise the sessions,[5] the band began to improvise the framework for the next set of songs. From fragments and chord changes, songs crystallised and were elaborated upon. The relatively stress-free environment and free flow of ideas (as well as drugs - allegedly opium was a favourite mind-enhancer during the recordings)[citation needed] saw the material take on a far more expansive and surreal quality.[20] New influences took effect: Daugherty's jazz-like approach on drums brought a fresh change, with his contributions extending Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
to keyboards and other instruments. Willson-Piper, having recently worked with All About Eve, had expanded his own sound with his guitars now soaring in crescendos from his new volume pedal.
Priest=Aura titled from Kilbey's misreading of a Spanish fan's English vocabulary notes ('priest' = 'cura'), contains fourteen songs, many over six minutes long, its length surpassed all previous releases. With song concepts derived from cryptic, one-word working titles (an idea originally Apple ibook g4 14 inch Keyboard
proposed by Willson-Piper), the lyrics leaned towards the abstract and esoteric. Emphasising free association and undirected coincidence between music and motif, Kilbey declined to define their meanings. Sonically, the music had numerous layers, courtesy of guitar overdubs and MacKillop's rich production. The interplay between Koppes and Willson-Piper dominated throughout, especially on tracks such as "Ripple," "Kings," and the epic, aptly titled "Chaos". Chaos lyrics were a reflection of Steve Kilbey's rocky lifestyle at the time.
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Upon its release on 10 March 1992, however, Priest=Aura was given a mixed reception. It peaked in the ARIA Top 30,[17] reviews were varied, some critical, with many uncertain how to react. Unlike Gold Afternoon Fix, which was supported by a steady marketing campaign, Priest=Aura had less promotion and dropped below the radar in an international climate with the emergence of grunge and mainstream alternative. Sales were lacklustre and the band went on only a limited tour, confined to Australia, as Kilbey prepared for the birth of his twin daughters. Adding to the Asus A9Rp Keyboard
decline in The Church's outlook was the announcement by Koppes of his departure. Despite a completely sold-out tour, increasing personality conflicts within the band especially with Willson-Piper and frustration over the band's lack of success made the situation intolerable. Priest=Aura is considered by both the band and fan base to be an artistic climax.
[edit]Instability: Sometime Anywhere & Magician Among the Spirits (1993–1996)
With The Church's future uncertain, members took time off to focus on other projects. Koppes Asus F3Jr Keyboard
began to establish a solo career with his new group, the Well (including former band mate Ploog). Kilbey turned towards another Jack Frost collaboration with Grant McLennan (of The Go-Betweens) and Willson-Piper returned to the studio with All About Eve to record their album, Ultraviolet.
Despite the loss of Koppes, Arista stood by their contract and backed another recording session. Upon finishing their side projects, Kilbey and Willson-Piper decided to write new material. Initial Asus F6E Keyboard
attempts to recreate 'The Church sound' with Daugherty bore little result, and it became clear that he had no intention of staying on as a permanent member. Parting ways after the fruitless sessions, the remaining two began to approach their music from a different angle. Abandoning the long-established roles and stylistic elements, Kilbey and Willson-Piper started a creative process more based in experimentation, spontaneity and electronica.
Early in 1994, the two hired additional musicians and brought in Willson-Piper's childhood friend Asus F80L Keyboard
Andy Mason to produce, and expanded their sound into hitherto uncharted areas. New Zealand drummer Tim Powles was hired for the sessions, after having already played on Jack Frost's project with Kilbey. Song structure was freer, with each musician playing multiple tracks on various instruments, to be cut down and refined as pieces later. The two likened the approach to a sculptor's creative process, gradually taking shape as work went on. Although considered temporary at the time, by 1996 Powles became a permanent band member.[2]
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The resulting album, Sometime Anywhere, released in May 1994, was generally well received and peaked into the Top 30.[17] It is described as a "rich, dark, epic release picked up where Priest left off with lush, lengthy tracks".[4] Gone were the guitar-based soundscapes, replaced instead by Eastern tinges, electronic effects and experimental fusion. Sales, however, were paltry and the first single, "Two Places at Once", went nowhere. Promotion fell flat as Arista saw no commercial promise in the release. With yet another consecutive flop on their hands, Arista refused to renew Asus F82 Keyboard
The Church's contract and pulled financial support for a tour. Ambitious plans to have fully accompanied, electric shows were quickly scaled back by Kilbey and Willson-Piper to a short run of acoustic gigs as a duo.
Without a recording deal, the band's future looked bleak, Kilbey and Willson-Piper began work on new recordings in 1995. Although under the concept of a two-man project, the new material saw input from drummer Powles and hired violinist Linda Neil. Renewed contact between Kilbey Asus X53 Keyboard
and Koppes led to the latter agreeing to guest on several songs - a welcome surprise for fans. Simon Polinski (Yothu Yindi) was drafted in to produce the sessions, leading to a sound more akin to an ambient project. The music saw a return to guitar-based material, this time infused with definite krautrock and art rock influences. A 15-minute atmospheric piece dominated the sessions, featuring split Kilbey and Willson-Piper vocals (as previously on "Two Places at Once"). Additional contributions by Utungun Percussion added a new, primal aspect to several songs.
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The album was released on the band's own Deep Karma label as Magician Among the Spirits (inspired by the 15-minute, epic title track). Due to financial constraints, the band had to arrange outside distribution for markets in North America and Europe. This limitation almost doomed the album from the beginning, but worse events were to come. Within a short time, the U.S. distributor went bankrupt, leaving the band stripped of its earnings from North American sales. Although exact figures
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remain unknown due to disputes, up to A$250,000 worth of merchandise Asus X53S Keyboard
(some 25,000 discs) was lost. For a band already on shaky foundations, this was nearly the death knell. Comments by Kilbey in May of that year summed up the situation: "There's no immediate future for The Church.....Our management, the whole thing is broken down.....We don't really have a label. We're owed lots and lots of money and we're broke. We're trying to Compaq Presario C709LA Keyboard
pursue lawyers to get our money back. Marty and I aren't having any communication. There's no one really managing us so.....that could have been the last record."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kilbey later went on to disown Magician Among the Spirits as "a load of tripe." Though now viewed largely as a transitional album, it received mixed reviews by the fanbase, despite the guitar rock hook of its single, "Comedown." The album also showed a re-emerging band, with Powles now adopted more as a full-time member and Koppes dabbling Compaq Presario CQ40-139TU Keyboard
with the group again. Nevertheless, the circumstances following the album's release unfortunately led to perhaps the lowest point of the band's career.
[edit]Restoration: Hologram of Baal & A Box of Birds (1997–1999)
After Koppes' departure in 1992, the band members turned their attention to outside projects in 1996 and 1997. Willson-Piper saw collaborations with Brix Smith (The Fall), Adult Net, Linda Perry (4 Non Blondes) and Cinerama, while also beginning a side project with ex-All About Eve Compaq Presario CQ41-209AU Keyboard
bandmates (titled Seeing Stars) and writing new solo material. Kilbey wrote the score for Australian film Blackrock and recorded an ambient, instrumental album, Gilt Trip, with brother Russell P. Kilbey.
In the absence of any new work as 'The Church', Kilbey, Powles and Koppes spent some studio time together as well. The resulting material - released under the guise of The Refo:mation (initially The Reformation, but altered upon Powles' request as a courtesy to Willson-Piper) was Compaq Presario CQ42-227TU Keyboard
largely put together in a few quick recording sessions. Loose in feel, but richly atmospheric, the eccentrically titled Pharmakoi/Distance-Crunching Honchos With Echo Units saw a greater focus on concise, guitar-dominated songs, rather than the uncontrolled experimentation of Magician Among the Spirits.
Group tensions for the Church proper were still simmering, however. More than anyone else, it was new drummer Tim Powles that tried to alleviate the outstanding disagreements. While Compaq Presario CQ50-130US Keyboard
Koppes and Willson-Piper had already had differences for some time, Kilbey and Willson-Piper's relationship was also strained from recent problems. Kilbey began to declare a formal, impending end to the band: after a final, worthy swan song (with the working title Au Revoir Por Favor), the Church would be put to rest. Despite this, the four agreed to play a string of fully electric concerts around Australia, which were extremely successful. The roaring success of the intended "final concert" in Sydney put a quick end to talk concerning the band's demise.
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The results of new recording sessions saw a return to the band's roots. Incorporating 1970s influences as well as ambient, radio effects, the material was thoroughly based around Koppes and Willson-Piper's guitar interplay. For the first time also, the band completely produced itself (under Powles' aegis). Originally given the name Bastard Universe, the forthcoming album was retitled Hologram of Allah after Willson-Piper found the former too negative. Concerns about fundamentalist Muslim reaction to a potentially blasphemous title made the band opt for the Compaq Presario CQ56-140SI Keyboard
more neutral Hologram of Baal (from the Canaanite god). Released under a new contract with UK independent Cooking Vinyl, the album was distributed in the U.S. under agreement with Thirsty Ear. A limited edition of the album featured a bonus disc with a nearly 80-minute, continuous jam session (given the shelved title Bastard Universe).
The newly rejuvenated (and reformed) band went on their first fully electric tour of the U.S., Australia and Europe in years. A plan to release a live album called Bag of Bones was put into Compaq Presario CQ56-160EB Keyboard
motion and then later cancelled. Instead, a collection of cover songs was recorded, shedding light on the band's influences. Arriving in August 1999 - less than a year after Hologram of Baal - A Box of Birds contained an unusual selection of songs from Ultravox and Iggy Pop to The Monkees and Neil Young. The insert to the CD was designed as interchangeable, with 10 separate sleeve designs created by fans. As with Hologram of Baal, a tour followed the album's release. New drama hit the band mid-tour in New York City when Kilbey was arrested for trying to purchase Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
heroin. The band was forced to improvise a set after he failed to show, with Willson-Piper covering vocals. A night in jail and a day's sentencing to community service in the Manhattan subway resulted from the bust. "A drug bust is something every aging rock star should have under his belt," Kilbey was later quoted.
[edit]Reconsolidation: 2000–2008
Recordings for a follow-up album turned out to be painstakingly slow due to numerous side Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
projects and simple geography (with Kilbey in Sweden, Willson-Piper in England and the others in Australia). While taking time off in between to focus on solo efforts and other engagements (including a brief reunion with All About Eve for Willson-Piper), the bandmates met across several separate sessions. Partially recorded in both Sweden and Australia, the resulting After Everything Now This in January 2002 saw a focus on the softer elements of the band. With only three obvious "rock" tracks out of ten, calm soundscapes predominated. The successive world tour had Compaq Presario CQ60-310eq Keyboard
the band in a more subtle setting as well, with most tracks performed primarily acoustic alongside guest David Lane on piano.
Fans would not wait long again for another group release - by late 2002, a double-disc compilation called Parallel Universe hit stores. Unique among the band's catalog, the first disc, subtitled 'Mixture', featured a reshuffled, remixed version of the After Everything Now This album, the result of Tim Powles' collaboration with Sydney musicians. The second disc was an Compaq Presario CQ71 Series Keyboard
added bonus, compiled from the remaining songs of the After Everything Now This recording sessions.
Around the time of Parallel Universe's release, the Church returned to the studio to record another album, eventually entitled Forget Yourself. Rather than fleshing the songs out over a long, gradual process, the band decided to keep the music as close to the original jam-based material as possible. Stylistically, this made for a much rawer sound, primarily recorded live and with Compaq Presario CQ71-413SG Keyboard
minimal overdubs. As had become routine since Sometime Anywhere, songs saw numerous instrument changes between members, with Powles playing guitar on "Sealine" and Willson-Piper switching to drums on "Maya." Forget Yourself was released in Australia in October 2003, and in the U.S. in February 2004.
The prolific nature of the band continued throughout 2004. Under the guidance of manager Kevin Lane Keller - an American fan and marketing professor that had been working with them Compaq Presario V6305AU Keyboard
since 2001 - the Church began capitalizing on the advantages offered by the internet and independent music industry. Following up on Hologram of Baal's bonus Bastard Universe, the band released the first of a planned series of jam session CDs, Jammed, through its website in September. A collection of outtakes from the Forget Yourself sessions followed soon after, with the tongue-in-cheek title Beside Yourself.
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Koppes, Kilbey, Powles, Willson-Piper on-stage.
Park West, Chicago. 18 August 2006.
Within only about a month's time, yet another album followed. This time, the band decided to revisit past material in an all-acoustic setting, along with the inclusion of several new songs. For the first time in years, they also performed "The Unguarded Moment" (albeit in strongly modified Dell 0PVDG3 Keyboard
form), an early hit from which they had long distanced themselves. As a nod to the song's reappearance, they titled the album El Momento Descuidado - a rough Spanish translation of its name. A short all-acoustic tour followed the release in late 2004, and the album itself was eventually nominated in 2005 for "Best Adult Contemporary Album" in the Australian ARIA Awards, though it did not win.
A second internet-only release of songs saw the light in 2005. Unlike Jammed, the album Back Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
With Two Beasts featured shorter, more structured vocal songs.
In March 2006, the band performed "Under the Milky Way" as part of the 2006 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. A new studio album, Uninvited, Like the Clouds, was released on 17 April 2006. Following in 2007 was El Momento Siguiente, a second album of acoustic re-interpretations of earlier songs and a few new compositions.
[edit]2009 and beyond
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In early 2009, Second Motion Records released multiple albums from Church band members in North America. Singer Steve Kilbey's record Painkiller was released on 17 February (preorders starting in mid-Jan), and Marty Willson-Piper's album Nightjar was released (on digipak) on 3 March.
2009 also proved to be a busy year for the band as a whole. In 2007, new music was recorded to soundtrack a short film based on Jeff Vandermeer's book Shriek: An Afterword;[21] the band Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
released Shriek: Excerpts From The Soundtrack on their own Unorthodox Records in January 2009.
In February, The Church released the EP Coffee Hounds, essentially a double A-sided single featuring the original composition "The Coffee Song" as well as a cover of Kate Bush's classic "Hounds Of Love". The following month, the band released the Pangaea EP, the title track serving as a teaser for their upcoming album. The remaining three tracks were all unique to this EP.[22]
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Unorthodox Records and Second Motion Records released the album Untitled No. 23 through MGM in March (Australia) to coincide with Australian tour dates. Second Motion Records released it rest of world shortly thereafter. Technically the 23rd Australian Church release of original studio material (counting EPs), Kilbey has also alluded to the mystical significance of the number 23 in a recent interview with music publication Music Feeds.[23] All of the EP's and albums are available in CD, Limited Edition 2xLP 180 gram Vinyl and Digital Format via Second Dell Latitude D400 Keyboard
Motion Records website http://www.secondmotionrecords.com.
Coinciding with the "Untitled No. 23" US tour, a book titled "No Certainty Attached: Steve Kilbey and The Church" by Robert Dean Lurie was published in Australia, the US, and the UK by Verse Chorus Press. While primarily a biography of Kilbey, the book also traced the evolution of the band from his perspective. This was not an official band project but Kilbey, Koppes, and various friends and family members participated.
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In February 2010, the band announced a string of U.S. tour dates, calling it "An Intimate Space 30th Anniversary North American Tour 2010".[24] In a unique and unusual execution, the band chose one song from each of their considerable album releases and performed them in reverse chronological order. This original show opened with a track from "Untitled No. 23" before embarking on a fantastic voyage through time ultimately arriving at their first Australian album, "Of Skins And Heart".
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In April, the band performed "Under the Milky Way" on KUSI News in San Diego, CA. The group was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame, on 27 October by media commentator, George Negus, while young pop singer, Washington, performed "The Unguarded Moment".[25][26] After their acceptance speech, the band performed "Under the Milky Way" and "Tantalized".[26]
In October 2010 Second Motion Records started to re-release the entire back catalog of The Dell V119525BS1 Keyboard
Church with extensive liner notes from guitarist Marty Willson-Piper. Deep In The Shallows is the first ever 30 year singles collection (2xCD) and was released in October along with reissues of their debut Of Skins & Heart and The Blurred Crusade (all with bonus tracks). In November 2010, Seance and Heyday were released also with liner notes from MWP and extra tracks.
In early 2011 Second Motion will reissue Starfish (2xCD), Gold Afternoon Fix 2xCD), Priest = Aura and Sometime Anywhere as well as a limited edition "EP" Box Set. The band toured the US in Feb Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
2011 playing select cities and are performing three albums (Untitled#23, Priest=Aura & Starfish) in their entirety.[27]
The Church was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame at the 2010 Aria Awards and performed two songs live onstage.
The Church celebrated their 30th Anniversary with a special show entitled "A Psychedelic Symphony" on 10 April 2011 at the Sydney Opera House. They were accompanied by George Ellis Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
(conductor) and the Symphony Orchestra of the University of Sydney. The concert was filmed for a future release on DVD and also televised on MAX TV during October 2011.
[edit]Lyrics
Most of The Church's lyrics are written by Steve Kilbey, who was the sole songwriter on all albums up to Remote Luxury. Until then, Kilbey brought basically completed/demoed songs to tDell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
he sessions while the arrangement was a group effort, mostly done by Peter Koppes. This changed since with Heyday in 1985. Now, the songs are results of expanded jam sessions. The music is first written in the studio, after which Kilbey writes the lyrics. His lyrics and poems are often described as surreal, though Kilbey flatly rejects any fixed meaning of his poetry, categorizing them as art pour l'art. Surveying his body of work, several recurring themes can be noticed: myths, legends, dreams and nightmares, visions, drug fantasies, orientalisms, biblical Dell Vostro 3450 Keyboard
(not exclusively Christian) motifs. These thematic circles are linked, using numerous word plays and references. More recently, Kilbey has stated (about his latest collection, "Eden") his poetry questions "the fabric of love and fear, temptation and creation and our eternal quest for meaning." Often he tries to sketch with few strokes and hints a complete epic course, leaving the details to the listener's imagination.
The Church handle their lyrics to some extent subversively. Strikingly, since the release of 1988's SDell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
tarfish they have refused to provide lyric sheets to the albums, on the idea that sung lyrics should be listened to, not read. Kilbey likes the idea of a lyric emerging in a person's head, spawning lots of new and unforeseen meanings. This intent notwithstanding, complete collections of Church lyrics can be found on the internet.
Most Church albums have at least one song in which the lyrics and vocals are written and sung by FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
either Peter Koppes or Marty Willson-Piper.
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provides the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it. Software refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of the computer for some reasons. In other words, software is a set of programs, procedures, algorithms and its documentation concerned with the operation of a data processing system. Program software performs the function of the program it implements, either by directly providing instructions to the computer HP Pavilion dv6-2111ez Keyboard
hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software. The term was coined to contrast to the old term hardware (meaning physical devices). In contrast to hardware, software "cannot be touched".[1] Software is also sometimes used in a more narrow sense, meaning application software only. Sometimes the term includes data that has not traditionally been associated with computers, such as film, tapes, and records.[2]
Computer software is so called to distinguish it from computer hardware, which encompasses HP Pavilion dv6-2111sa Keyboard
the physical interconnections and devices required to store and execute (or run) the software. At the lowest level, executable code consists of machine language instructions specific to an individual processor. A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. Programs are an ordered sequence of instructions for changing the state of the computer in a particular sequence. It is usually written in high-level programming languages that are easier and more efficient for HP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
humans to use (closer to natural language) than machine language. High-level languages are compiled or interpreted into machine language object code. Software may also be written in an assembly language, essentially, a mnemonic representation of a machine language using a natural language alphabet. Assembly language must be assembled into object code via an assembler.
Contents [hide]
HP Pavilion dv6-2111tx Keyboard
1 History
2 Types of software
2.1 System software
2.2 Programming software
2.3 Application software
3 Software topics
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3.1 Architecture
3.2 Documentation
3.3 Library
3.4 Standard
3.5 Execution
3.6 Quality and reliability
3.7 License
3.8 Patents
4 Design and implementation
5 Industry and organizations
6 See also
7 References
HP Pavilion dv6-2112er Keyboard
8 External links
[edit]History
For the history prior to 1946, see History of computing hardware.
This section may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You HP Pavilion dv6-2112ez Keyboard
can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions. (January 2012)
The first theory about software was proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem (Decision problem).[3] Colloquially, the term is often used to mean application software. In computer science and software engineering, software is all information processed by computer system, programs and data. The academic fields studying software are computer science and software engineering.
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As more and more programs enter the realm of firmware, and the hardware itself becomes smaller, cheaper and faster as predicted by Moore's law, elements of computing first considered to be software, join the ranks of hardware. Most hardware companies today have more software programmers on the payroll than hardware designers[citation needed], since software tools have automated many tasks of Printed circuit board engineers. Just like the Auto industry, the Software industry has grown from a few visionaries operating out of their garage with prototypes. HP Pavilion dv6-2112sf Keyboard
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were the Henry Ford and Louis Chevrolet of their times[citation needed], who capitalized on ideas already commonly known before they started in the business. In the case of Software development, this moment is generally agreed to be the publication in the 1980s of the specifications for the IBM Personal Computer published by IBM employee Philip Don Estridge. Today his move would be seen as a type of crowd-sourcing.
Until that time, software was bundled with the hardware by Original equipment manufacturers HP Pavilion dv6-2112tx Keyboard
(OEMs) such as Data General, Digital Equipment and IBM[citation needed]. When a customer bought a minicomputer, at that time the smallest computer on the market, the computer did not come with Pre-installed software, but needed to be installed by engineers employed by the OEM. Computer hardware companies not only bundled their software, they also placed demands on the location of the hardware in a refrigerated space called a computer room. Most companies had their software on the books for 0 dollars, unable to claim it as an asset (this is similar to fiHP Pavilion dv6-2113ax Keyboard
nancing of popular music in those days). When Data General introduced the Data General Nova, a company called Digidyne wanted to use its RDOS operating system on its own hardware clone. Data General refused to license their software (which was hard to do, since it was on the books as a free asset), and claimed their "bundling rights". The Supreme Court set a precedent called Digidyne v. Data General in 1985. The Supreme Court let a 9th circuit decision stand, and Data General was eventually forced into licensing the Operating System software because it was ruled HP Pavilion dv6-2113sa Keyboard
that restricting the license to only DG hardware was an illegal tying arrangement.[4] Unable to sustain the loss from lawyer's fees, Data General ended up being taken over by EMC Corporation. The Supreme Court decision made it possible to value software, and also purchase Software patents.
There are many successful companies today that sell only software products, though there are still many common software licensing problems due to the complexity of designs and poor HP Pavilion dv6-2113tx Keyboard
documentation, leading to patent trolls.
With open software specifications and the possibility of software licensing, new opportunities arose for software tools that then became the de facto standard, such as DOS for operating systems, but also various proprietary word processing and spreadsheet programs. In a similar growth pattern, proprietary development methods became standard Software development methodology.
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[edit]Types of software
A layer structure showing where the operating system software and application software are situated while running on a typical desktop computer
Software includes all the various forms and roles that digitally stored data may have and play in a HP Pavilion dv6-2114er Keyboard
computer (or similar system), regardless of whether the data is used as code for a CPU, or other interpreter, or whether it represents other kinds of information. Software thus encompasses a wide array of products that may be developed using different techniques such as ordinary programming languages, scripting languages, microcode, or an FPGA configuration.
The types of software include web pages developed in languages and frameworks like HTML, PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP.NET, XML, and desktop applications like OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Word developed HP Pavilion dv6-2114sa Keyboard
in languages like C, C++, Objective-C, Java, C#, or Smalltalk. Application software usually runs on an underlying software operating systems such as Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software (or firmware) is also used in video games and for the configurable parts of the logic systems of automobiles, televisions, and other consumer electronics.
Practical computer systems divide software systems into three major classes[citation needed]: system software, programming software and application software, although the distinction is HP Pavilion dv6-2114sf Keyboard
arbitrary, and often blurred.
[edit]System software
Main article: System software
System software is computer software designed to operate the computer hardware to provide basic functionality and to provide a platform for running application software.[5][6] System software includes device drivers, operating systems, servers, utilities, and window systems.
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System software is responsible for managing a variety of independent hardware components, so that they can work together harmoniously. Its purpose is to unburden the application software programmer from the often complex details of the particular computer being used, including such accessories as communications devices, printers, device readers, displays and keyboards, and also to partition the computer's resources such as memory and processor time in a safe and stable manner.
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[edit]Programming software
Main article: Programming tool
Programming software include tools in the form of programs or applications that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs such as compilers, debuggers, interpreters, linkers, and text editors, that can be combined together to accomplish a task, much as one might uHP Pavilion dv6-2115er Keyboard
se multiple hand tools to fix a physical object. Programming tools are intended to assist a programmer in writing computer programs, and they may be combined in an integrated development environment (IDE) to more easily manage all of these functions.
[edit]Application software
Main article: Application software
Application software is developed to perform in any task that benefits from computation. It is a HP Pavilion dv6-2115es Keyboard
set of programs that allows the computer to perform a specific data processing job for the user. It is a broad category, and encompasses software of many kinds, including the internet browser being used to display this page.
[edit]Software topics
[edit]Architecture
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See also: Software architecture
Users often see things differently than programmers. People who use modern general purpose computers (as opposed to embedded systems, analog computers and supercomputers) usually see three layers of software performing a variety of tasks: platform, application, and user software.
Platform software: Platform includes the firmware, device drivers, an operating system, and HP Pavilion dv6-2115sa Keyboard
typically a graphical user interface which, in total, allow a user to interact with the computer and its peripherals (associated equipment). Platform software often comes bundled with the computer. On a PC you will usually have the ability to change the platform software.
Application software: Application software or Applications are what most people think of when they think of software. Typical examples include office suites and video games. Application software is often purchased separately from computer hardware. Sometimes applications are HP Pavilion dv6-2115sf Keyboard
bundled with the computer, but that does not change the fact that they run as independent applications. Applications are usually independent programs from the operating system, though they are often tailored for specific platforms. Most users think of compilers, databases, and other "system software" as applications.
User-written software: End-user development tailors systems to meet users' specific needs. User software include spreadsheet templates and word processor templates. Even email filters are a HP Pavilion dv6-2115sg Keyboard
kind of user software. Users create this software themselves and often overlook how important it is. Depending on how competently the user-written software has been integrated into default application packages, many users may not be aware of the distinction between the original packages, and what has been added by co-workers.
[edit]Documentation
Main article: Software documentation
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Most software has software documentation so that the end user can understand the program, what it does, and how to use it. Without clear documentation, software can be hard to use—especially if it is very specialized and relatively complex like Photoshop or AutoCAD.
Developer documentation may also exist, either with the code as comments and/or as separate files, detailing how the programs works and can be modified.
[edit]Library
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Main article: Software library
An executable is almost always not sufficiently complete for direct execution. Software libraries include collections of functions and functionality that may be embedded in other applications. Operating systems include many standard Software libraries, and applications are often distributed with their own libraries.
[edit]Standard
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Main article: Software standard
Since software can be designed using many different programming languages and in many different operating systems and operating environments, software standard is needed so that different software can understand and exchange information between each other. For instance, an email sent from a Microsoft Outlook should be readable from Yahoo! Mail and vice versa.
[edit]Execution
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Main article: Execution (computing)
Computer software has to be "loaded" into the computer's storage (such as the hard drive or memory). Once the software has loaded, the computer is able to execute the software. This involves passing instructions from the application software, through the system software, to the hardware which ultimately receives the instruction as machine code. Each instruction causes the computer to carry out an operation – moving data, carrying out a computation, or altering the HP Pavilion dv6-2116ea Keyboard
control flow of instructions.
Data movement is typically from one place in memory to another. Sometimes it involves moving data between memory and registers which enable high-speed data access in the CPU. Moving data, especially large amounts of it, can be costly. So, this is sometimes avoided by using "pointers" to data instead. Computations include simple operations such as incrementing the value of a variable data element. More complex computations may involve many operations and HP Pavilion dv6-2116el Keyboard
data elements together.
[edit]Quality and reliability
Main articles: Software quality, Software testing, and Software reliability
Software quality is very important, especially for commercial and system software like Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows and Linux. If software is faulty (buggy), it can delete a person's work, crash the computer and do other unexpected things. Faults and errors are called "bugs." Many HP Pavilion dv6-2116eo Keyboard
bugs are discovered and eliminated (debugged) through software testing. However, software testing rarely – if ever – eliminates every bug; some programmers say that "every program has at least one more bug" (Lubarsky's Law). All major software companies, such as Microsoft, Novell and Sun Microsystems, have their own software testing departments with the specific goal of just testing. Software can be tested through unit testing, regression testing and other methods, which are done manually, or most commonly, automatically, since the amount of code to be tested can HP Pavilion dv6-2116er Keyboard
be quite large. For instance, NASA has extremely rigorous software testing procedures for many operating systems and communication functions. Many NASA based operations interact and identify each other through command programs called software. This enables many people who work at NASA to check and evaluate functional systems overall. Programs containing command software enable hardware engineering and system operations to function much easier together.
[edit]License
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Main article: Software license
The software's license gives the user the right to use the software in the licensed environment. Some software comes with the license when purchased off the shelf, or an OEM license when bundled with hardware. Other software comes with a free software license, granting the recipient the rights to modify and redistribute the software. Software can also be in the form of freeware or shareware.
HP Pavilion dv6-2116sg Keyboard
[edit]Patents
Main articles: Software patent and Software patent debate
Software can be patented in some but not all countries; however, software patents can be controversial in the software industry with many people holding different views about it. The controversy over software patents is about specific algorithms or techniques that the software contains, which may not be duplicated by others and considered intellectual property and cHP Pavilion dv6-2117ax Keyboard
opyright infringement depending on the severity.
[edit]Design and implementation
Main articles: Software development, Computer programming, and Software engineering
Design and implementation of software varies depending on the complexity of the software. For instance, design and creation of Microsoft Word software will take much more time than designing and developing Microsoft Notepad because of the difference in functionalities in each HP Pavilion dv6-2117eg Keyboard
one.
Software is usually designed and created (coded/written/programmed) in integrated development environments (IDE) like Eclipse, Emacs and Microsoft Visual Studio that can simplify the process and compile the program. As noted in different section, software is usually created on top of existing software and the application programming interface (API) that the underlying software provides like GTK+, JavaBeans or Swing. Libraries (APIs) are categorized for different HP Pavilion dv6-2117eo Keyboard
purposes. For instance, JavaBeans library is used for designing enterprise applications, Windows Forms library is used for designing graphical user interface (GUI) applications like Microsoft Word, and Windows Communication Foundation is used for designing web services. Underlying computer programming concepts like quicksort, hashtable, array, and binary tree can be useful to creating software. When a program is designed, it relies on the API. For instance, if a user is designing a Microsoft Windows desktop application, he/she might use the .NET Windows Forms HP Pavilion dv6-2117er Keyboard
library to design the desktop application and call its APIs like Form1.Close() and Form1.Show()[7] to close or open the application and write the additional operations him/herself that it need to have. Without these APIs, the programmer needs to write these APIs him/herself. Companies like Sun Microsystems, Novell, and Microsoft provide their own APIs so that many applications are written using their software libraries that usually have numerous APIs in them.
Computer software has special economic characteristics that make its design, creation, and HP Pavilion dv6-2117ev Keyboard
distribution different from most other economic goods.[specify][8][9]
A person who creates software is called a programmer, software engineer, software developer, or "code monkey", terms that all have a similar meaning.
[edit]Industry and organizations
Main article: Software industry
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A great variety of software companies and programmers in the world comprise a software industry. Software can be quite a profitable industry: Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft was the richest person in the world in 2009 largely by selling the Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office software products. The same goes for Larry Ellison, largely through his Oracle database software. Through time the software industry has become increasingly specialized.
Non-profit software organizations include the Free Software Foundation, GNU Project and HP Pavilion dv6-2117sa Keyboard
Mozilla Foundation. Software standard organizations like the W3C, IETF develop software standards so that most software can interoperate through standards such as XML, HTML, HTTP or FTP.
Other well-known large software companies include Novell, SAP, Symantec, Adobe Systems, and Corel, while small companies often provide innovation.
Hardware stores (in a number of countries, "shops"), sometimes known as home improvement HP Pavilion dv6-2118el Keyboard
stores or DIY stores, sell household hardware for home improvement including: fasteners, hand tools, power tools, keys, locks, hinges, chains, plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, cleaning products, housewares, tools, utensils, paint, and lawn and garden products directly to consumers for use at home or for business. Many hardware stores have specialty departments unique to its region or its owner's interests. These departments include hunting and fishing supplies, plants and nursery products, marine and boating supplies, pet food and supplies, farm and ranch HP Pavilion dv6-2118sf Keyboard
supplies including animal feed, swimming pool chemicals, homebrewing supplies and canning supplies.[1][2][3][dead link] The four largest hardware retailers in the world are The Home Depot, Lowe's (both of the United States), Kingfisher of the United Kingdom, and Obi of Germany.
Contents [hide]
1 United States
1.1 Unique Services in Hardware Stores
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1.2 Hardware Industry Trade Association
2 Canada
3 United Kingdom
4 Europe and the Middle East
5 China
6 Australia
HP Pavilion dv6-2119el Keyboard
6.1 Destination hardware store
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
[edit]United States
Inside Tweedy and Popp Hardware, Seattle, Washington (2007).
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Larger hardware stores may sell small amounts of building supplies including lumber, flooring, roofing materials and fencing.
There may be fewer hardware stores in the U.S. now than in years past, but according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were still 14,300 hardware stores in the U.S. in 2005, employing on average 10 employees each.[4] Even in the face of competition from large chain stores (commonly referred to as big-box or destination hardware stores, e.g., The Home Depot, Lowe's and HP Pavilion dv6-2120ca Keyboard
Menards) new hardware stores in the U.S. are still opening all the time.[5][dead link][6][7][dead link][8]
In the U.S. there are four major nationwide wholesale suppliers to hardware stores. All four report more than $1 billion (US Dollars) in sales annually.[9] Three of them operate as retailers' cooperatives: Do It Best Corp, from Fort Wayne Indiana, True Value company from Chicago Illinois and Ace Hardware from Oakbrook Illinois.[9] Hardware store owners purchase stock in these HP Pavilion dv6-2120eb Keyboard
suppliers and are "members" and "owners" as well as customers. A hardware store may choose to include the name of the cooperative in the advertised name of the store.
A typical Home Depot store in Knightdale, North Carolina.
The fourth nationwide supplier is Orgill, Inc., a traditional wholesale organization that does not HP Pavilion dv6-2120ec Keyboard
operate as a cooperative.
Hardware stores also purchase from a variety of regional wholesalers and specialty manufacturers. Regional wholesalers in the Distribution America cooperative are Blish-Mize, Emery-Waterhouse, Florida Hardware, Handy Hardware, HDW, Inc, House-Hasson Hardware, Jensen Distribution Services, Monroe Hardware, and United Hardware[10]. Other retailers' cooperatives are PRO Group and Val-Test Distributors. Manufacturers include Black & Decker, HP Pavilion dv6-2120ed Keyboard
Ingersoll Rand, Masco, Rubbermaid and Weber.
Some hardware stores operate rental businesses as part of the primary business, and rent for public use construction tools and/or party supplies. The major hardware cooperatives provide brand name rental advertising and support for hardware store owners including Just Ask Rental, Do It Best Rental, Grand Rental Station and Taylor Rental.
Elwood Adams Hardware of Worcester, Massachusetts claims to be the oldest operating HP Pavilion dv6-2120ee Keyboard
hardware store in the United States, having begun business in 1782.[11][12]
[edit]Unique Services in Hardware Stores
Part of the popularity of American hardware stores is the range of services they provide. Most retail outlets only sell goods, while some hardware stores custom-make or repair a large variety of household items. It is common for a hardware store in the U.S. to repair broken windows and screens, repair power equipment such as lawn mowers, re-key entry locks, make copies of house HP Pavilion dv6-2120eg Keyboard
keys and car keys, re-wire lamps and vacuum cleaners, sharpen knives and cutting tools, make minor repairs to faucet and shower parts, repair kerosene heaters and cut and thread plumbing pipe to sketch.
[edit]Hardware Industry Trade Association
The North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA) is a membership organization that provides training and resources for hardware store owners and publishes a trade magazine in HP Pavilion dv6-2120eh Keyboard
print and online at http://www.nrha.org.
[edit]Canada
Home Hardware, Rona and BMR Group are Canadian hardware retailers. Aikenhead's Hardware became the Canadian unit of The Home Depot in 1994. Canadian Tire, Central, Kent Building Supplies and Lowes also sell hardware in Canada.
[edit]United Kingdom
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In the United Kingdom, hardware shops are also sometimes known as ironmongers, and larger, out-of-town hardware shops may be called do it yourself or DIY centres. British chain stores include B&Q , Homebase, Wickes and Focus DIY.
[edit]Europe and the Middle East
European based stores include:
bauMax
HP Pavilion dv6-2120ej Keyboard
Brico
Brico Dépôt
Bricorama
Bricostore
Castorama
Clas Ohlson
EpiCentre K
Hornbach
Hubo Belgium
Hubo Netherlands
Interhome
Leroy Merlin
HP Pavilion dv6-2120em Keyboard
Mr. Bricolage
Obi
Praktiker
SACO Hardware
[edit]China
Most hardware stores in China, whether in the city or rural areas, are small, family-owned, HP Pavilion dv6-2120eq Keyboard
non-franchise companies. They provide similar products to Western hardware stores, including plumbing and electrical supplies, tools, and some housewares. Unlike the West, they do not normally carry lumber, fishing supplies, gardening products, or boating supplies. Some rural hardware stores do supply animal feed, such as chicken feed.
Common to most non-Western countries, China has specialty hardware stores, dedicated to selling products in a particular category. These stores are usually grouped together in a district, HP Pavilion dv6-2120er Keyboard
often alongside groups of other specialty hardware stores, which are also grouped together. Examples are groups of stores that specialize in:
Chain, carrying different sizes of chain, couplings, lifting hooks, cutters, etc.
Generators and compressors, selling parts, hoses, plus products and tools related the maintenance and repair of generators and compressors.
Tubing and metal rods, carrying products of various sizes and materials.
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Large power tools, with accessories.
Electrical wire and wire rope, also selling electical switches, fuse boxes, and wire rope sockets, clamps, and thimbles.
[edit]Australia
Mitre 10 MEGA store interior in Pakenham, Victoria, Australia
In Australia hardware stores specialise in Home Décor and include large selections of paint. There HP Pavilion dv6-2120ev Keyboard
are three major hardware companies in Australia, Bunnings Warehouse, Mitre 10, and Danks (Home Timber and Hardware). The latter of the two being retailers' co-operative these companies have many banners which their store owners trade under.
[edit]Destination hardware store
Since the acquisition of Bunnings by Wesfarmers in 1994, the big-box store concept has changed how new hardware stores are built. In 2004, Mitre 10 built its first supercentre Mitre 10 "MEGA" HP Pavilion dv6-2120ew Keyboard
with an average store size of 13,500 m2. Drum hardware refers to the parts of a drum or drum kit that are used to tension, position, and otherwise support the instruments themselves.
Occasionally, the hardware is used percussively as well, the most common example being a rim shot. John Morrison is noted for his drum solos played entirely on a hi-hat stand (and occasionally also on other parts of the kit hardware, adjacent furniture, and audience).
Contents [hide]
1 Drum parts
1.1 Rim
1.2 Spurs, casings, lugs, tuning screws
1.3 Snare tensioner
1.4 Badge
1.5 Bass Drum Legs
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1.6 Mounts
2 Stands and holders
2.1 Snare drum stand
2.2 Rack toms
2.3 Floor tom
2.4 Cymbal stands
2.5 Hi-hat stand
2.6 Drum throne
2.7 Memory
2.8 Drum rack
3 Drum pedals
4 Drum hardware manufacturers
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5 See also
6 References
[edit]Drum parts
[edit]Rim
1 Mount, 2 Rim, 3 Tension rod, 4 Lug, 5 Snare butt
1 Drum badge and grommet, 2 Snare strainer, 3 Throwoff lever
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A drum "hoop" or "rim" may be made of metal, wood, or other materials and is used to hold a drumhead against a drum shell, either with bolts through metal "claws" attached directly to a hoop, or bolts through holes in a flanged rim. The bolts, called tension rods, are screwed into threaded "lugs" attached to the drum shell, in order to tighten and tune the drumhead.[1] A drum key is a type of wrench often used to screw the tension rods into the lugs.
[edit]Spurs, casings, lugs, tuning screws
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This section requires expansion. (January 2012)
[edit]Snare tensioner
Snare drums will often have a "strainer" on one side and a "butt plate" on the other to hold the snare wires to the drumhead. Snare tension is controlled with a screw on the strainer. A strainer may also have a "throwoff" lever to move snares away from the drumhead, in order to prevent buzzing caused by other bass instruments while the snare is not in use, or to produce a tom-tom HP Pavilion dv6-2120sv Keyboard
sound if desired.[2]
[edit]Badge
While not required for operation, most drum manufacturers label their products by way of a drum "badge". The badge is a label attached to the drum shell with a grommet, which is embossed with the manufacturer's name or logo, and often a serial number as well. The grommet doubles as a "vent" hole for two-sided drums.[3]
HP Pavilion dv6-2120tx Keyboard
[edit]Bass Drum Legs
The bass drum(s) in a drum kit usually sit on the floor, and as such require support to prevent rolling. Two adjustable legs are attached by clamps to either side of the shell.[4]
[edit]Mounts
Drum mounts are fittings, normally attached to the drum shell, that enable a drum to be attached to a supporting bracket, stand or rack. Traditionally, smaller tom-tom drums are sHP Pavilion dv6-2121eo Keyboard
upported by mounts and known as hanging toms, while snare drums rest on a stand not attached to the drum, and floor toms and bass drums rest on their own legs.[5]
Hanging tom mounts are of two main patterns:
The Pearl 20mm mount accepts a 20mm steel tube perpendicular to the drum shell. The excess length of the tube intrudes through the drum shell, and a large hole is required for this. Developed by Pearl, this mount has been adopted by many other manufacturers, and the 20mm HP Pavilion dv6-2121er Keyboard
tube has become a standard interface for many other mounts and stands, such as cymbal booms.
The parallel mount accepts a solid bar parallel to the drum shell. There are many bar sizes and profiles, mostly either round and knurled or hexagonal. There is a some compatibility, but it is not universal. Some manufacturers such as Tama Drums and Gibraltar Hardware even produce a single fitting that can be used either singly as a hanging tom mount, or in sets of three to attach the floor tom legs.
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Either of these patterns can also be used with a rim mount. Most fittings have provision for memory to reduce setup time.
20mm mount
tom on 20mm arm, showing the tube intruding into the shell
parallel mount
There are many other patterns, including:
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Similar mounts to the 20mm but with smaller tube. Mostly used on toy and entry level kits.
Spade mounts on older kits and, traditionally, on timbales.
Mounts that accept a solid bar similar to the parallel mount, but perpendicular to the drum shell or at an angle close to this. Common on older kits, and on some high-level handmade kits from smaller makers.
[edit]Stands and holders
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Hi-hat rod and clutch 2 Tom and cowbell clamp holders 3 HiHat legs and pedal
Metal stands and holders are used to support percussion instruments or microphones. Floor stands are often tripods and telescoping.
Tom-tom and cymbal stands may have a "boom arm" attached to extend holder reach, and a "tilter" to move instruments into a desired position. Smaller "clamp holders" may also be used to attach more instruments to existing stands. Drum "racks" are stands surrounding a drum kit onto HP Pavilion dv6-2122tx Keyboard
which percussion instrument holders may be clamped. "Memory locks" are clamps used to make drum and telescoping positions permanent.
[edit]Snare drum stand
Snare drum stands have three arms as a "basket" to cradle the lower rim of the drum. There are several patterns.
The older, traditional pattern has two arms that pivot, and one that slides to accommodate HP Pavilion dv6-2123ef Keyboard
varying sizes of drum. This is satisfactory for a tilted drum; The drum is tilted away from the sliding arm and rests on the two pivoting arms. If it is horizontal, or tilted the wrong way by inexpert players, then the drum is insecure.
Maxwin traditional snare drum stand
Traditional stand partly folded
Tama modern stand
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Ryan Hoyle using a modern snare drum stand to support a hanging tom
The newer patterns use a symmetrical basket with a central screw adjustment, allowing the basket to be tightened onto the lower rim and the drum to be firmly held at any angle. They differ mainly in sturdiness and in the precise mechanism used for the screw adjustment.
Snare drum stands have long been used by some drummers to support tom-tom drums. In this application they offer much the same advantages as the more recently available rim mounts.
HP Pavilion dv6-2123sf Keyboard
[edit]Rack toms
Main article: tom tom
Hanging toms are traditionally supported by tom-tom arms or brackets mounted on the bass drum, with one or two toms supported by each bass drum.
Extra toms may be supported by stands or racks.
[edit]Floor tom
MHP Pavilion dv6-2124ef Keyboard
ain article: floor tom
Floor toms are traditionally supported by three feet resting on the floor, as the name suggests. More recently, some drummers have used rim mounts.
[edit]Cymbal stands
Main article: Cymbal stand
Cymbal stands have a threaded bolt or "cymbal post" to hold a cymbal down with a nut. HP Pavilion dv6-2124el Keyboard
Accessory booms and piggyback adaptors allow additional cymbals to be added to an existing stand (not to be confused with stacking).
[edit]Hi-hat stand
Main article: Hi-hat
A hi-hat stand is a standard part of the hardware of a drum kit.[5] In an extended kit, additional pairs of hi-hat cymbals may be operated remotely by a cable hat, or held closed by an X-hat HP Pavilion dv6-2124eo Keyboard
adaptor.
[edit]Drum throne
The drum "throne" is a three or four-legged padded seat or stool the drummer sits on while playing. Thrones may be shaped like round cushions or in a saddle design. Throne heights may be adjusted to accommodate the drummer.[5]
[edit]Memory
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Many drum stands and brackets have provision for memory. This consists of a mechanical device, such as a collar, that allows quick reassembly in a preset position after the kit has been disassembled.
Floor tom with traditonal legs
Drummer's stool
Tom arms with memory from the two main systems. The 20mm arm at left supports one tom; HP Pavilion dv6-2124tx Keyboard
The Tama twin speedball bracket at right supports two.
[edit]Drum rack
Cymbals, hanging toms, a floor tom and even the bass drums are supported by this drum rack
Some or all of the stands can be replaced by a drum rack. Racks are particularly used for larger kits, but can greatly reduce the weight and setup time of even moderately sized kits.
Cymbals and hanging toms are most often mounted on the rack, but bass drums, floor toms and HP Pavilion dv6-2125ef Keyboard
even snare drums can be rack mounted, particularly if rim mounts are used. Personal computer hardware are the component devices that are the building blocks of personal computers. These are typically installed into a computer case, or attached to it by a cable or through a port. In the latter case, they are also referred to as peripherals.
Contents [hide]
1 Computer Case
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2 Power supply
3 Motherboard
4 Expansion Cards
5 Secondary Storage Devices
5.1 Fixed Media Devices
5.2 Removable Media Devices
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6 Input and output peripherals
6.1 Input
6.2 Output
7 See also
8 References
[edit]Computer Case
HP Pavilion dv6-2125ev Keyboard
Main article: Computer case
A computer case (also known as a computer chassis, cabinet, box, tower, enclosure, housing, system unit or simply case) is the enclosure that contains most of the components of a computer (usually excluding the display, keyboard and mouse). A computer case is sometimes incorrectly referred to metonymously as a CPU referring to a component housed within the case. CPU was a common term in the earlier days of home computers, when peripherals other than the HP Pavilion dv6-2125ew Keyboard
motherboard were usually housed in their own separate cases.
[edit]Power supply
Main article: Power supply unit (computer)
Inside a custom-built computer: the power supply at the bottom has its own cooling fan.
A power supply unit (PSU) converts alternating current (AC) electric power to low-voltage DC power for the internal components of the computer. Some power supplies have a switch to HP Pavilion dv6-2125ez Keyboard
change between 230 V and 115 V. Other models have automatic sensors that switch input voltage automatically, or are able to accept any voltage between those limits. Power supply units used in computers are nearly always switch mode power supplies (SMPS). The SMPS provides regulated direct current power at the several voltages required by the motherboard and accessories such as disk drives and cooling fans.
[edit]Motherboard
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Main article: Motherboard
The motherboard is the main component inside the case. It is a large rectangular board with integrated circuitry that connects the other parts of the computer including the CPU, the RAM, the disk drives (CD, DVD, hard disk, or any others) as well as any peripherals connected via the ports or the expansion slots.
Components directly attached to the motherboard include:
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The CPU (Central Processing Unit) performs most of the calculations which enable a computer to function, and is sometimes referred to as the "brain" of the computer. It is usually cooled by a heat sink and fan. Most newer CPUs include an on-die Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).
The Chipset, which includes the north bridge, mediates communication between the CPU and the other components of the system, including main memory.
The Random-Access Memory (RAM) stores the code and data that are being actively accessed by HP Pavilion dv6-2125ss Keyboard
the CPU.
The Read-Only Memory (ROM) stores the BIOS that runs when the computer is powered on or otherwise begins execution, a process known as Bootstrapping, or "booting" or "booting up". The BIOS (Basic Input Output System) includes boot firmware and power management firmware. Newer motherboards use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) instead of BIOS.
Buses connect the CPU to various internal components and to expansion cards for graphics and HP Pavilion dv6-2125tx Keyboard
sound.
Current
PCI Express: for expansion cards such as graphics, sound, network interfaces, TV tuners, etc.
PCI: for other expansion cards.
SATA: for disk drives.
Obsolete
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AGP: superseded by PCI Express.
ATA
VLB: VESA Local Bus, superseded by AGP.
EISA
Micro Channel architecture
ISA: expansion card slot format obsolete in PCs, but still used in industrial computers.
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Ports for external peripherals. These ports may be controlled directly by the south bridge I/O controller or provided by expansion cards attached to the motherboard.
USB
Memory Card
FireWire
eSATA
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SCSI
[edit]Expansion Cards
Main article: Expansion card
The expansion card (also expansion board, adapter card or accessory card) in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard or backplane to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus.
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An example of an expansion card is a sound card that enables the computer to output sound to audio devices, as well as accept input from a microphone. Most modern computers have hardware support for sound integrated in the motherboard chipset but some users prefer to install a separate sound card as an upgrade. Most sound cards, either built-in or added, have surround sound capabilities and 3-D sound effects.
[edit]Secondary Storage Devices
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Main article: Computer data storage
Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components and recording media that retain digital data. Data storage is a core function and fundamental component of computers.
[edit]Fixed Media Devices
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Hard disk drives: a hard disk drive (HDD; also hard drive, hard disk, or disk drive)[2] is a device for storing and retrieving digital information, primarily computer data. It consists of one or more rigid (hence "hard") rapidly rotating discs (often referred to as platters), coated with magnetic material and with magnetic heads arranged to write data to the surfaces and read it from them.
Solid-state drives: a solid-state drive (SSD), sometimes called a solid-state disk or electronic disk, is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data with the intention HP Pavilion dv6-2127el Keyboard
of providing access in the same manner of a traditional block I/O hard disk drive. SSDs are distinguished from traditional magnetic disks such as hard disk drives (HDDs) or floppy disk, which are electromechanical devices containing spinning disks and movable read/write heads.
RAID array controller - a device to manage several internal or external hard disks and optionally some peripherals in order to achieve performance or reliability improvement in what is called a RAID array.
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[edit]Removable Media Devices
Optical Disc Drives for reading from and writing to various kinds of optical media, including Compact Discs such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, DVD-RAMs and Blu-ray Discs. Optical discs are the most common way of transferring digital video, and are popular for data storage as well.
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Floppy disk drives for reading and writing to floppy disks, an outdated storage media consisting of a thin disk of a flexible magnetic storage medium. These were once standard on most computers but are no longer in common use. Floppies are used today mainly for loading device drivers not included with an operating system release (for example, RAID drivers).
Zip drives, an outdated medium-capacity removable disk storage system, for reading from and writing to Zip disks, was first introduced by Iomega in 1994.
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USB flash drive plug into a USB port and do not require a separate drive. USB flash drive is a typically small, lightweight, removable, and rewritable flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB interface. Capacities vary, from hundreds of megabytes (in the same range as CDs) to tens of gigabytes (surpassing Blu-ray discs but also costing significantly more).
Memory card readers for reading from and writing to Memory cards, a flash memory data storage device used to store digital information. Memory cards are typically used on mobile HP Pavilion dv6-2127tx Keyboard
devices. They are thinner, smaller and lighter than USB flash drives. Common types of memory cards are SD and MS.
Tape drives read and write data on a magnetic tape, and are used for long term storage and backups.
[edit]Input and output peripherals
Main article: Peripheral
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Input and output devices are typically housed externally to the main computer chassis. The following are either standard or very common to many computer systems.
Wheel mouse
[edit]Input
Main article: Input device
Text input devices
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Keyboard - a device to input text and characters by depressing buttons (referred to as keys or buttons).
Pointing devices
Mouse - a pointing device that detects two dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface.
Optical Mouse - uses light (laser technology) to determine mouse motion.
Trackball - a pointing device consisting of an exposed protruding ball housed in a socket that HP Pavilion dv6-2128el Keyboard
detects rotation about two axes.
Touchscreen - senses the user pressing directly on the monitor.
Gaming devices
Joystick - a hand-operated pivoted stick whose position is transmitted to the computer.
Game pad - a hand held game controller that relies on the digits (especially thumbs) to provide input.
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Game controller - a specific type of controller specialized for certain gaming purposes.
Image, Video input devices
Image scanner - a device that provides input by analyzing images, printed text, handwriting, or an object.
Web cam - a video camera used to provide visual input that can be easily transferred over the internet.
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Audio input devices
Microphone - an acoustic sensor that provides input by converting sound into electrical signals. Computer hardware is the collection of physical elements that comprise a computer system. Computer hardware refers to the physical parts or components of computer such as monitor, keyboard, hard disk, mouse, etc. Refers to objects that you can actually touch, like disks, disk drives, display screens, keyboards, printers, boards, and chips. In contrast, software is HP Pavilion dv6-2129ev Keyboard
untouchable. Software exists as ideas,application, concepts, and symbols, but it has no substance. A combination of hardware and software forms a usable computing system. Networking hardware or networking equipment typically refers to devices facilitating the use of a computer network. Typically, this includes gateways, routers, network bridges, switches, hubs, and repeaters. Also, hybrid network devices such as multilayer switches, protocol converters and bridge routers. And, proxy servers, firewalls and network address translators. Also, multiplexers, HP Pavilion dv6-2129tx Keyboard
network interface controllers, wireless network interface controllers, modems, ISDN terminal adapters and line drivers. And, wireless access points, networking cables and other related hardware.
Computer networking devices are units that mediate data in a computer network.[1][2] Computer networking devices are also called network equipment, Intermediate Systems (IS)[citation needed] or InterWorking Unit (IWU).[citation needed] Units which are the last HP Pavilion dv6-2130ca Keyboard
receiver or generate data are called hosts or data terminal equipment.[citation needed]
The most common kind of networking hardware today is copper-based Ethernet adapters, helped largely by its standard inclusion on most modern computer systems. Wireless networking has become increasingly popular, however, especially for portable and handheld devices.
Other hardware prevalent within computer networking is datacenter equipment (such as file servers, database servers and storage areas), network services (such as DNS, DHCP, email etc.) as HP Pavilion dv6-2130ec Keyboard
well as other specific network devices such as content delivery.
Other diverse devices which may be considered networking hardware include mobile phones, PDAs and even modern coffee machines. As technology grows and IP-based networks are integrated into building infrastructure and household utilities, network hardware becomes an ambiguous statement owing to the increasing number of "network capable" endpoints.
Contents [hide]
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1 List of computer networking devices
2 See also
3 References
4 External links
[edit]List of computer networking devices
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Gateway: device sitting at a network node for interfacing with another network that uses different protocols. Works on OSI layers 4 to 7.
Router: a specialized network device that determines the next network point to which it can forward a data packet towards the destination of the packet. Unlike a gateway, it cannot interface different protocols. Works on OSI layer 3.
Switch: a device that allocates traffic from one network segment to certain lines (intended HP Pavilion dv6-2130ef Keyboard
destination(s)) which connect the segment to another network segment. So unlike a hub a switch splits the network traffic and sends it to different destinations rather than to all systems on the network. Works on OSI layer 2.
Bridge: a device that connects multiple network segments along the data link layer. Works on OSI layer 2.
Hub: connects multiple Ethernet segments together making them act as a single segment. When HP Pavilion dv6-2130eg Keyboard
using a hub, every attached device shares the same broadcast domain and the same collision domain. Therefore, only one computer connected to the hub is able to transmit at a time. Depending on the network topology, the hub provides a basic level 1 OSI model connection among the network objects (workstations, servers, etc.). It provides bandwidth which is shared among all the objects, compared to switches, which provide a connection between individual nodes. Works on OSI layer 1.
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Repeater: device to amplify or regenerate digital signals received while sending them from one part of a network into another. Works on OSI layer 1.
Some hybrid network devices:
Multilayer switch: a switch which, in addition to switching on OSI layer 2, provides functionality at higher protocol layers.
Protocol converter: a hardware device that converts between two different types of HP Pavilion dv6-2130el Keyboard
transmissions, such as asynchronous and synchronous transmissions.
Bridge router (brouter): a device that combines router and bridge functionality and therefore works on OSI layers 2 and 3.
Hardware or software components that typically sit on the connection point of different networks, e.g. between an internal network and an external network:
Proxy server: computer network service which allows clients to make indirect network HP Pavilion dv6-2130eq Keyboard
connections to other network services
Firewall: a piece of hardware or software put on the network to prevent some communications forbidden by the network policy
Network address translator (NAT): network service provide as hardware or software that converts internal to external network addresses and vice versa
Other hardware for establishing networks or dial-up connections:
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Multiplexer: device that combines several electrical signals into a single signal
Network interface controller a piece of computer hardware to allow the attached computer to communicate by network
Wireless network interface controller a piece of computer hardware to allow the attached computer to communicate by LAN
Modem: device that modulates an analog "carrier" signal (such as sound), to encode digital HP Pavilion dv6-2130es Keyboard
information, and that also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information, as a computer communicating with another computer over the telephone network
ISDN terminal adapter (TA): a specialized gateway for ISDN
Line driver: a device to increase transmission distance by amplifying the signal. Base-band networks only. Open source hardware (OSHW) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered in the same manner as free and open source software (FOSS). Open source HP Pavilion dv6-2130et Keyboard
hardware is part of the open source culture movement and applies a like concept to a variety of components. The term usually means that information about the hardware is easily discerned. Hardware design (i.e. mechanical drawings, schematics, bill of materials, PCB layout data, HDL source code and integrated circuit layout data), in addition to the software that drives the hardware, are all released with the FOSS approach.
Since the rise of reconfigurable programmable logic devices, sharing of logic designs has been a HP Pavilion dv6-2130ew Keyboard
form of open source hardware. Instead of the schematics, hardware description language (HDL) code is shared. HDL descriptions are commonly used to set up system-on-a-chip systems either in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) or directly in application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs. HDL modules, when distributed, are called semiconductor intellectual property cores, or IP cores.
Contents [hide]
1 Licenses
1.1 Noteworthy licenses
2 Development
3 Business models
4 See also
5 References
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6 External links
[edit]Licenses
Rather than creating a new license, some open source hardware projects simply use existing, free and open source software licenses.[7]
Additionally, several new licenses have been proposed. These licenses are designed to address HP Pavilion dv6-2130tx Keyboard
issues specific to hardware designs.[8] In these licenses, many of the fundamental principles expressed in open source software (OSS) licenses have been "ported" to their counterpart hardware projects. Organizations tend to rally around a shared license. For example, Opencores prefers the LGPL,[9] FreeCores insists on the GPL,[10] Open Hardware Foundation promotes "copyleft" or other permissive licenses",[11] the Open Graphics Project uses a variety of licenses, including the MIT license, GPL, and a proprietary license,[12] and the Balloon Project wrote their HP Pavilion dv6-2131ee Keyboard
own license.[13] New hardware licenses are often explained as the "hardware equivalent" of a well-known OSS license, such as the GPL, LGPL, or BSD license.
Despite superficial similarities to software licenses, most hardware licenses are fundamentally different: by nature, they typically rely more heavily on patent law than on copyright law. Whereas a copyright license may control the distribution of the source code or design documents, a patent license may control the use and manufacturing of the physical device built from the HP Pavilion dv6-2131el Keyboard
design documents. This distinction is explicitly mentioned in the preamble of the TAPR Open Hardware License.
"...those who benefit from an OHL design may not bring lawsuits claiming that design infringes their patents or other intellectual property."[14]
[edit]Noteworthy licenses
Main article: Open Hardware License
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The TAPR Open Hardware License: drafted by attorney John Ackermann, reviewed by OSS community leaders Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, and discussed by hundreds of volunteers in an open community discussion[15]
Balloon Open Hardware License: used by all projects in the Balloon Project
Although originally a software license, OpenCores encourages the LGPL
Hardware Design Public License: written by Graham Seaman, admin. of Opencollector.org
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In March 2011 CERN released the CERN Open Hardware License (OHL)[16] intended for use with the Open Hardware Repository and other projects.
[The Solderpad License][17] is a version of the Apache License version 2.0, amended by lawyer Andrew Katz to render it more appropriate for hardware use.
[edit]Development
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Extensive discussion has taken place on ways to make open source hardware as accessible as open source software. Discussions focus on multiple areas,[18] such as the level at which open source hardware is defined,[19] ways to collaborate in hardware development, as well as a model for sustainable development by making open-source appropriate technology.[20][21]
One of the major differences between developing open source software and developing open source hardware is that hardware results in tangible outputs, which cost money to prototype and HP Pavilion dv6-2132ee Keyboard
manufacture. As a result, the phrase "free as in speech, not as in beer",[22] more formally known as Gratis versus Libre, distinguishes between the idea of zero cost and the freedom to use and modify information. While open source hardware faces challenges in minimizing cost and reducing financial risks for individual project developers, some community members have proposed models to address these needs.[23] Given this, there are initiatives to develop sustainable community funding mechanisms, such as the Open Source Hardware Central HP Pavilion dv6-2132ef Keyboard
Bank,[24] as well as tools like KiCAD to make schematic development more accessible to more users.
Often vendors of chips and other electronic components will sponsor contests with the proviso that the participants and winners must share their designs. Circuit Cellar magazine organizes some of these contests.
[edit]Business models
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Open hardware companies are experimenting with different business models. Arduino, for example, makes money largely through design consulting. By creating a design community around their products, they stay in touch with the latest developments. They have also registered their name as a trademark. Others may manufacture their designs, but they can't put the Arduino name on them. Thus they can distinguish their products from others by appellation.[25] There HP Pavilion dv6-2132et Keyboard
are many applicable business models for implementing some open source hardware even in traditional firms. For example, in order to accelerate development and technical innovation the photovoltaic industry has experimented with partnerships, franchises, secondary supplier and completely open source models.[26] Electronic hardware refers to interconnected electronic components which perform analog or logic operations on received and locally stored information to produce as output or store resulting new information or to provide control for output actuator HP Pavilion dv6-2132se Keyboard
mechanisms.
Electronic hardware can range from individual chips/circuits to distributed information processing systems. Well designed electronic hardware is composed of hierarchies of functional modules which inter-communicate via precisely defined interfaces.
Hardware logic is primarily a differentiation of the data processing circuitry from other more generalized circuitry. For example nearly all computers include a power supply which consists of HP Pavilion dv6-2132sf Keyboard
circuitry not involved in data processing but rather powering the data processing circuits. Similarly, a computer may output information to a computer monitor or audio amplifier which is
also not involved in the computational processes.
hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software. The term was coined to contrast to the old term hardware (meaning physical devices). In contrast to hardware, software "cannot be touched".[1] Software is also sometimes used in a more narrow sense, meaning application software only. Sometimes the term includes data that has not traditionally been associated with computers, such as film, tapes, and records.[2]
Computer software is so called to distinguish it from computer hardware, which encompasses HP Pavilion dv6-2111sa Keyboard
the physical interconnections and devices required to store and execute (or run) the software. At the lowest level, executable code consists of machine language instructions specific to an individual processor. A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. Programs are an ordered sequence of instructions for changing the state of the computer in a particular sequence. It is usually written in high-level programming languages that are easier and more efficient for HP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
humans to use (closer to natural language) than machine language. High-level languages are compiled or interpreted into machine language object code. Software may also be written in an assembly language, essentially, a mnemonic representation of a machine language using a natural language alphabet. Assembly language must be assembled into object code via an assembler.
Contents [hide]
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1 History
2 Types of software
2.1 System software
2.2 Programming software
2.3 Application software
3 Software topics
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3.1 Architecture
3.2 Documentation
3.3 Library
3.4 Standard
3.5 Execution
3.6 Quality and reliability
3.7 License
3.8 Patents
4 Design and implementation
5 Industry and organizations
6 See also
7 References
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8 External links
[edit]History
For the history prior to 1946, see History of computing hardware.
This section may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You HP Pavilion dv6-2112ez Keyboard
can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions. (January 2012)
The first theory about software was proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem (Decision problem).[3] Colloquially, the term is often used to mean application software. In computer science and software engineering, software is all information processed by computer system, programs and data. The academic fields studying software are computer science and software engineering.
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As more and more programs enter the realm of firmware, and the hardware itself becomes smaller, cheaper and faster as predicted by Moore's law, elements of computing first considered to be software, join the ranks of hardware. Most hardware companies today have more software programmers on the payroll than hardware designers[citation needed], since software tools have automated many tasks of Printed circuit board engineers. Just like the Auto industry, the Software industry has grown from a few visionaries operating out of their garage with prototypes. HP Pavilion dv6-2112sf Keyboard
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were the Henry Ford and Louis Chevrolet of their times[citation needed], who capitalized on ideas already commonly known before they started in the business. In the case of Software development, this moment is generally agreed to be the publication in the 1980s of the specifications for the IBM Personal Computer published by IBM employee Philip Don Estridge. Today his move would be seen as a type of crowd-sourcing.
Until that time, software was bundled with the hardware by Original equipment manufacturers HP Pavilion dv6-2112tx Keyboard
(OEMs) such as Data General, Digital Equipment and IBM[citation needed]. When a customer bought a minicomputer, at that time the smallest computer on the market, the computer did not come with Pre-installed software, but needed to be installed by engineers employed by the OEM. Computer hardware companies not only bundled their software, they also placed demands on the location of the hardware in a refrigerated space called a computer room. Most companies had their software on the books for 0 dollars, unable to claim it as an asset (this is similar to fiHP Pavilion dv6-2113ax Keyboard
nancing of popular music in those days). When Data General introduced the Data General Nova, a company called Digidyne wanted to use its RDOS operating system on its own hardware clone. Data General refused to license their software (which was hard to do, since it was on the books as a free asset), and claimed their "bundling rights". The Supreme Court set a precedent called Digidyne v. Data General in 1985. The Supreme Court let a 9th circuit decision stand, and Data General was eventually forced into licensing the Operating System software because it was ruled HP Pavilion dv6-2113sa Keyboard
that restricting the license to only DG hardware was an illegal tying arrangement.[4] Unable to sustain the loss from lawyer's fees, Data General ended up being taken over by EMC Corporation. The Supreme Court decision made it possible to value software, and also purchase Software patents.
There are many successful companies today that sell only software products, though there are still many common software licensing problems due to the complexity of designs and poor HP Pavilion dv6-2113tx Keyboard
documentation, leading to patent trolls.
With open software specifications and the possibility of software licensing, new opportunities arose for software tools that then became the de facto standard, such as DOS for operating systems, but also various proprietary word processing and spreadsheet programs. In a similar growth pattern, proprietary development methods became standard Software development methodology.
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[edit]Types of software
A layer structure showing where the operating system software and application software are situated while running on a typical desktop computer
Software includes all the various forms and roles that digitally stored data may have and play in a HP Pavilion dv6-2114er Keyboard
computer (or similar system), regardless of whether the data is used as code for a CPU, or other interpreter, or whether it represents other kinds of information. Software thus encompasses a wide array of products that may be developed using different techniques such as ordinary programming languages, scripting languages, microcode, or an FPGA configuration.
The types of software include web pages developed in languages and frameworks like HTML, PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP.NET, XML, and desktop applications like OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Word developed HP Pavilion dv6-2114sa Keyboard
in languages like C, C++, Objective-C, Java, C#, or Smalltalk. Application software usually runs on an underlying software operating systems such as Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software (or firmware) is also used in video games and for the configurable parts of the logic systems of automobiles, televisions, and other consumer electronics.
Practical computer systems divide software systems into three major classes[citation needed]: system software, programming software and application software, although the distinction is HP Pavilion dv6-2114sf Keyboard
arbitrary, and often blurred.
[edit]System software
Main article: System software
System software is computer software designed to operate the computer hardware to provide basic functionality and to provide a platform for running application software.[5][6] System software includes device drivers, operating systems, servers, utilities, and window systems.
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System software is responsible for managing a variety of independent hardware components, so that they can work together harmoniously. Its purpose is to unburden the application software programmer from the often complex details of the particular computer being used, including such accessories as communications devices, printers, device readers, displays and keyboards, and also to partition the computer's resources such as memory and processor time in a safe and stable manner.
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[edit]Programming software
Main article: Programming tool
Programming software include tools in the form of programs or applications that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs such as compilers, debuggers, interpreters, linkers, and text editors, that can be combined together to accomplish a task, much as one might uHP Pavilion dv6-2115er Keyboard
se multiple hand tools to fix a physical object. Programming tools are intended to assist a programmer in writing computer programs, and they may be combined in an integrated development environment (IDE) to more easily manage all of these functions.
[edit]Application software
Main article: Application software
Application software is developed to perform in any task that benefits from computation. It is a HP Pavilion dv6-2115es Keyboard
set of programs that allows the computer to perform a specific data processing job for the user. It is a broad category, and encompasses software of many kinds, including the internet browser being used to display this page.
[edit]Software topics
[edit]Architecture
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See also: Software architecture
Users often see things differently than programmers. People who use modern general purpose computers (as opposed to embedded systems, analog computers and supercomputers) usually see three layers of software performing a variety of tasks: platform, application, and user software.
Platform software: Platform includes the firmware, device drivers, an operating system, and HP Pavilion dv6-2115sa Keyboard
typically a graphical user interface which, in total, allow a user to interact with the computer and its peripherals (associated equipment). Platform software often comes bundled with the computer. On a PC you will usually have the ability to change the platform software.
Application software: Application software or Applications are what most people think of when they think of software. Typical examples include office suites and video games. Application software is often purchased separately from computer hardware. Sometimes applications are HP Pavilion dv6-2115sf Keyboard
bundled with the computer, but that does not change the fact that they run as independent applications. Applications are usually independent programs from the operating system, though they are often tailored for specific platforms. Most users think of compilers, databases, and other "system software" as applications.
User-written software: End-user development tailors systems to meet users' specific needs. User software include spreadsheet templates and word processor templates. Even email filters are a HP Pavilion dv6-2115sg Keyboard
kind of user software. Users create this software themselves and often overlook how important it is. Depending on how competently the user-written software has been integrated into default application packages, many users may not be aware of the distinction between the original packages, and what has been added by co-workers.
[edit]Documentation
Main article: Software documentation
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Most software has software documentation so that the end user can understand the program, what it does, and how to use it. Without clear documentation, software can be hard to use—especially if it is very specialized and relatively complex like Photoshop or AutoCAD.
Developer documentation may also exist, either with the code as comments and/or as separate files, detailing how the programs works and can be modified.
[edit]Library
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Main article: Software library
An executable is almost always not sufficiently complete for direct execution. Software libraries include collections of functions and functionality that may be embedded in other applications. Operating systems include many standard Software libraries, and applications are often distributed with their own libraries.
[edit]Standard
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Main article: Software standard
Since software can be designed using many different programming languages and in many different operating systems and operating environments, software standard is needed so that different software can understand and exchange information between each other. For instance, an email sent from a Microsoft Outlook should be readable from Yahoo! Mail and vice versa.
[edit]Execution
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Main article: Execution (computing)
Computer software has to be "loaded" into the computer's storage (such as the hard drive or memory). Once the software has loaded, the computer is able to execute the software. This involves passing instructions from the application software, through the system software, to the hardware which ultimately receives the instruction as machine code. Each instruction causes the computer to carry out an operation – moving data, carrying out a computation, or altering the HP Pavilion dv6-2116ea Keyboard
control flow of instructions.
Data movement is typically from one place in memory to another. Sometimes it involves moving data between memory and registers which enable high-speed data access in the CPU. Moving data, especially large amounts of it, can be costly. So, this is sometimes avoided by using "pointers" to data instead. Computations include simple operations such as incrementing the value of a variable data element. More complex computations may involve many operations and HP Pavilion dv6-2116el Keyboard
data elements together.
[edit]Quality and reliability
Main articles: Software quality, Software testing, and Software reliability
Software quality is very important, especially for commercial and system software like Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows and Linux. If software is faulty (buggy), it can delete a person's work, crash the computer and do other unexpected things. Faults and errors are called "bugs." Many HP Pavilion dv6-2116eo Keyboard
bugs are discovered and eliminated (debugged) through software testing. However, software testing rarely – if ever – eliminates every bug; some programmers say that "every program has at least one more bug" (Lubarsky's Law). All major software companies, such as Microsoft, Novell and Sun Microsystems, have their own software testing departments with the specific goal of just testing. Software can be tested through unit testing, regression testing and other methods, which are done manually, or most commonly, automatically, since the amount of code to be tested can HP Pavilion dv6-2116er Keyboard
be quite large. For instance, NASA has extremely rigorous software testing procedures for many operating systems and communication functions. Many NASA based operations interact and identify each other through command programs called software. This enables many people who work at NASA to check and evaluate functional systems overall. Programs containing command software enable hardware engineering and system operations to function much easier together.
[edit]License
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Main article: Software license
The software's license gives the user the right to use the software in the licensed environment. Some software comes with the license when purchased off the shelf, or an OEM license when bundled with hardware. Other software comes with a free software license, granting the recipient the rights to modify and redistribute the software. Software can also be in the form of freeware or shareware.
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[edit]Patents
Main articles: Software patent and Software patent debate
Software can be patented in some but not all countries; however, software patents can be controversial in the software industry with many people holding different views about it. The controversy over software patents is about specific algorithms or techniques that the software contains, which may not be duplicated by others and considered intellectual property and cHP Pavilion dv6-2117ax Keyboard
opyright infringement depending on the severity.
[edit]Design and implementation
Main articles: Software development, Computer programming, and Software engineering
Design and implementation of software varies depending on the complexity of the software. For instance, design and creation of Microsoft Word software will take much more time than designing and developing Microsoft Notepad because of the difference in functionalities in each HP Pavilion dv6-2117eg Keyboard
one.
Software is usually designed and created (coded/written/programmed) in integrated development environments (IDE) like Eclipse, Emacs and Microsoft Visual Studio that can simplify the process and compile the program. As noted in different section, software is usually created on top of existing software and the application programming interface (API) that the underlying software provides like GTK+, JavaBeans or Swing. Libraries (APIs) are categorized for different HP Pavilion dv6-2117eo Keyboard
purposes. For instance, JavaBeans library is used for designing enterprise applications, Windows Forms library is used for designing graphical user interface (GUI) applications like Microsoft Word, and Windows Communication Foundation is used for designing web services. Underlying computer programming concepts like quicksort, hashtable, array, and binary tree can be useful to creating software. When a program is designed, it relies on the API. For instance, if a user is designing a Microsoft Windows desktop application, he/she might use the .NET Windows Forms HP Pavilion dv6-2117er Keyboard
library to design the desktop application and call its APIs like Form1.Close() and Form1.Show()[7] to close or open the application and write the additional operations him/herself that it need to have. Without these APIs, the programmer needs to write these APIs him/herself. Companies like Sun Microsystems, Novell, and Microsoft provide their own APIs so that many applications are written using their software libraries that usually have numerous APIs in them.
Computer software has special economic characteristics that make its design, creation, and HP Pavilion dv6-2117ev Keyboard
distribution different from most other economic goods.[specify][8][9]
A person who creates software is called a programmer, software engineer, software developer, or "code monkey", terms that all have a similar meaning.
[edit]Industry and organizations
Main article: Software industry
HP Pavilion dv6-2117ez Keyboard
A great variety of software companies and programmers in the world comprise a software industry. Software can be quite a profitable industry: Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft was the richest person in the world in 2009 largely by selling the Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office software products. The same goes for Larry Ellison, largely through his Oracle database software. Through time the software industry has become increasingly specialized.
Non-profit software organizations include the Free Software Foundation, GNU Project and HP Pavilion dv6-2117sa Keyboard
Mozilla Foundation. Software standard organizations like the W3C, IETF develop software standards so that most software can interoperate through standards such as XML, HTML, HTTP or FTP.
Other well-known large software companies include Novell, SAP, Symantec, Adobe Systems, and Corel, while small companies often provide innovation.
Hardware stores (in a number of countries, "shops"), sometimes known as home improvement HP Pavilion dv6-2118el Keyboard
stores or DIY stores, sell household hardware for home improvement including: fasteners, hand tools, power tools, keys, locks, hinges, chains, plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, cleaning products, housewares, tools, utensils, paint, and lawn and garden products directly to consumers for use at home or for business. Many hardware stores have specialty departments unique to its region or its owner's interests. These departments include hunting and fishing supplies, plants and nursery products, marine and boating supplies, pet food and supplies, farm and ranch HP Pavilion dv6-2118sf Keyboard
supplies including animal feed, swimming pool chemicals, homebrewing supplies and canning supplies.[1][2][3][dead link] The four largest hardware retailers in the world are The Home Depot, Lowe's (both of the United States), Kingfisher of the United Kingdom, and Obi of Germany.
Contents [hide]
1 United States
1.1 Unique Services in Hardware Stores
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1.2 Hardware Industry Trade Association
2 Canada
3 United Kingdom
4 Europe and the Middle East
5 China
6 Australia
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6.1 Destination hardware store
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
[edit]United States
Inside Tweedy and Popp Hardware, Seattle, Washington (2007).
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Larger hardware stores may sell small amounts of building supplies including lumber, flooring, roofing materials and fencing.
There may be fewer hardware stores in the U.S. now than in years past, but according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were still 14,300 hardware stores in the U.S. in 2005, employing on average 10 employees each.[4] Even in the face of competition from large chain stores (commonly referred to as big-box or destination hardware stores, e.g., The Home Depot, Lowe's and HP Pavilion dv6-2120ca Keyboard
Menards) new hardware stores in the U.S. are still opening all the time.[5][dead link][6][7][dead link][8]
In the U.S. there are four major nationwide wholesale suppliers to hardware stores. All four report more than $1 billion (US Dollars) in sales annually.[9] Three of them operate as retailers' cooperatives: Do It Best Corp, from Fort Wayne Indiana, True Value company from Chicago Illinois and Ace Hardware from Oakbrook Illinois.[9] Hardware store owners purchase stock in these HP Pavilion dv6-2120eb Keyboard
suppliers and are "members" and "owners" as well as customers. A hardware store may choose to include the name of the cooperative in the advertised name of the store.
A typical Home Depot store in Knightdale, North Carolina.
The fourth nationwide supplier is Orgill, Inc., a traditional wholesale organization that does not HP Pavilion dv6-2120ec Keyboard
operate as a cooperative.
Hardware stores also purchase from a variety of regional wholesalers and specialty manufacturers. Regional wholesalers in the Distribution America cooperative are Blish-Mize, Emery-Waterhouse, Florida Hardware, Handy Hardware, HDW, Inc, House-Hasson Hardware, Jensen Distribution Services, Monroe Hardware, and United Hardware[10]. Other retailers' cooperatives are PRO Group and Val-Test Distributors. Manufacturers include Black & Decker, HP Pavilion dv6-2120ed Keyboard
Ingersoll Rand, Masco, Rubbermaid and Weber.
Some hardware stores operate rental businesses as part of the primary business, and rent for public use construction tools and/or party supplies. The major hardware cooperatives provide brand name rental advertising and support for hardware store owners including Just Ask Rental, Do It Best Rental, Grand Rental Station and Taylor Rental.
Elwood Adams Hardware of Worcester, Massachusetts claims to be the oldest operating HP Pavilion dv6-2120ee Keyboard
hardware store in the United States, having begun business in 1782.[11][12]
[edit]Unique Services in Hardware Stores
Part of the popularity of American hardware stores is the range of services they provide. Most retail outlets only sell goods, while some hardware stores custom-make or repair a large variety of household items. It is common for a hardware store in the U.S. to repair broken windows and screens, repair power equipment such as lawn mowers, re-key entry locks, make copies of house HP Pavilion dv6-2120eg Keyboard
keys and car keys, re-wire lamps and vacuum cleaners, sharpen knives and cutting tools, make minor repairs to faucet and shower parts, repair kerosene heaters and cut and thread plumbing pipe to sketch.
[edit]Hardware Industry Trade Association
The North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA) is a membership organization that provides training and resources for hardware store owners and publishes a trade magazine in HP Pavilion dv6-2120eh Keyboard
print and online at http://www.nrha.org.
[edit]Canada
Home Hardware, Rona and BMR Group are Canadian hardware retailers. Aikenhead's Hardware became the Canadian unit of The Home Depot in 1994. Canadian Tire, Central, Kent Building Supplies and Lowes also sell hardware in Canada.
[edit]United Kingdom
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In the United Kingdom, hardware shops are also sometimes known as ironmongers, and larger, out-of-town hardware shops may be called do it yourself or DIY centres. British chain stores include B&Q , Homebase, Wickes and Focus DIY.
[edit]Europe and the Middle East
European based stores include:
bauMax
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Brico
Brico Dépôt
Bricorama
Bricostore
Castorama
Clas Ohlson
EpiCentre K
Hornbach
Hubo Belgium
Hubo Netherlands
Interhome
Leroy Merlin
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Mr. Bricolage
Obi
Praktiker
SACO Hardware
[edit]China
Most hardware stores in China, whether in the city or rural areas, are small, family-owned, HP Pavilion dv6-2120eq Keyboard
non-franchise companies. They provide similar products to Western hardware stores, including plumbing and electrical supplies, tools, and some housewares. Unlike the West, they do not normally carry lumber, fishing supplies, gardening products, or boating supplies. Some rural hardware stores do supply animal feed, such as chicken feed.
Common to most non-Western countries, China has specialty hardware stores, dedicated to selling products in a particular category. These stores are usually grouped together in a district, HP Pavilion dv6-2120er Keyboard
often alongside groups of other specialty hardware stores, which are also grouped together. Examples are groups of stores that specialize in:
Chain, carrying different sizes of chain, couplings, lifting hooks, cutters, etc.
Generators and compressors, selling parts, hoses, plus products and tools related the maintenance and repair of generators and compressors.
Tubing and metal rods, carrying products of various sizes and materials.
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Large power tools, with accessories.
Electrical wire and wire rope, also selling electical switches, fuse boxes, and wire rope sockets, clamps, and thimbles.
[edit]Australia
Mitre 10 MEGA store interior in Pakenham, Victoria, Australia
In Australia hardware stores specialise in Home Décor and include large selections of paint. There HP Pavilion dv6-2120ev Keyboard
are three major hardware companies in Australia, Bunnings Warehouse, Mitre 10, and Danks (Home Timber and Hardware). The latter of the two being retailers' co-operative these companies have many banners which their store owners trade under.
[edit]Destination hardware store
Since the acquisition of Bunnings by Wesfarmers in 1994, the big-box store concept has changed how new hardware stores are built. In 2004, Mitre 10 built its first supercentre Mitre 10 "MEGA" HP Pavilion dv6-2120ew Keyboard
with an average store size of 13,500 m2. Drum hardware refers to the parts of a drum or drum kit that are used to tension, position, and otherwise support the instruments themselves.
Occasionally, the hardware is used percussively as well, the most common example being a rim shot. John Morrison is noted for his drum solos played entirely on a hi-hat stand (and occasionally also on other parts of the kit hardware, adjacent furniture, and audience).
Contents [hide]
1 Drum parts
1.1 Rim
1.2 Spurs, casings, lugs, tuning screws
1.3 Snare tensioner
1.4 Badge
1.5 Bass Drum Legs
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1.6 Mounts
2 Stands and holders
2.1 Snare drum stand
2.2 Rack toms
2.3 Floor tom
2.4 Cymbal stands
2.5 Hi-hat stand
2.6 Drum throne
2.7 Memory
2.8 Drum rack
3 Drum pedals
4 Drum hardware manufacturers
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5 See also
6 References
[edit]Drum parts
[edit]Rim
1 Mount, 2 Rim, 3 Tension rod, 4 Lug, 5 Snare butt
1 Drum badge and grommet, 2 Snare strainer, 3 Throwoff lever
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A drum "hoop" or "rim" may be made of metal, wood, or other materials and is used to hold a drumhead against a drum shell, either with bolts through metal "claws" attached directly to a hoop, or bolts through holes in a flanged rim. The bolts, called tension rods, are screwed into threaded "lugs" attached to the drum shell, in order to tighten and tune the drumhead.[1] A drum key is a type of wrench often used to screw the tension rods into the lugs.
[edit]Spurs, casings, lugs, tuning screws
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This section requires expansion. (January 2012)
[edit]Snare tensioner
Snare drums will often have a "strainer" on one side and a "butt plate" on the other to hold the snare wires to the drumhead. Snare tension is controlled with a screw on the strainer. A strainer may also have a "throwoff" lever to move snares away from the drumhead, in order to prevent buzzing caused by other bass instruments while the snare is not in use, or to produce a tom-tom HP Pavilion dv6-2120sv Keyboard
sound if desired.[2]
[edit]Badge
While not required for operation, most drum manufacturers label their products by way of a drum "badge". The badge is a label attached to the drum shell with a grommet, which is embossed with the manufacturer's name or logo, and often a serial number as well. The grommet doubles as a "vent" hole for two-sided drums.[3]
HP Pavilion dv6-2120tx Keyboard
[edit]Bass Drum Legs
The bass drum(s) in a drum kit usually sit on the floor, and as such require support to prevent rolling. Two adjustable legs are attached by clamps to either side of the shell.[4]
[edit]Mounts
Drum mounts are fittings, normally attached to the drum shell, that enable a drum to be attached to a supporting bracket, stand or rack. Traditionally, smaller tom-tom drums are sHP Pavilion dv6-2121eo Keyboard
upported by mounts and known as hanging toms, while snare drums rest on a stand not attached to the drum, and floor toms and bass drums rest on their own legs.[5]
Hanging tom mounts are of two main patterns:
The Pearl 20mm mount accepts a 20mm steel tube perpendicular to the drum shell. The excess length of the tube intrudes through the drum shell, and a large hole is required for this. Developed by Pearl, this mount has been adopted by many other manufacturers, and the 20mm HP Pavilion dv6-2121er Keyboard
tube has become a standard interface for many other mounts and stands, such as cymbal booms.
The parallel mount accepts a solid bar parallel to the drum shell. There are many bar sizes and profiles, mostly either round and knurled or hexagonal. There is a some compatibility, but it is not universal. Some manufacturers such as Tama Drums and Gibraltar Hardware even produce a single fitting that can be used either singly as a hanging tom mount, or in sets of three to attach the floor tom legs.
HP Pavilion dv6-2122eo Keyboard
Either of these patterns can also be used with a rim mount. Most fittings have provision for memory to reduce setup time.
20mm mount
tom on 20mm arm, showing the tube intruding into the shell
parallel mount
There are many other patterns, including:
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Similar mounts to the 20mm but with smaller tube. Mostly used on toy and entry level kits.
Spade mounts on older kits and, traditionally, on timbales.
Mounts that accept a solid bar similar to the parallel mount, but perpendicular to the drum shell or at an angle close to this. Common on older kits, and on some high-level handmade kits from smaller makers.
[edit]Stands and holders
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Hi-hat rod and clutch 2 Tom and cowbell clamp holders 3 HiHat legs and pedal
Metal stands and holders are used to support percussion instruments or microphones. Floor stands are often tripods and telescoping.
Tom-tom and cymbal stands may have a "boom arm" attached to extend holder reach, and a "tilter" to move instruments into a desired position. Smaller "clamp holders" may also be used to attach more instruments to existing stands. Drum "racks" are stands surrounding a drum kit onto HP Pavilion dv6-2122tx Keyboard
which percussion instrument holders may be clamped. "Memory locks" are clamps used to make drum and telescoping positions permanent.
[edit]Snare drum stand
Snare drum stands have three arms as a "basket" to cradle the lower rim of the drum. There are several patterns.
The older, traditional pattern has two arms that pivot, and one that slides to accommodate HP Pavilion dv6-2123ef Keyboard
varying sizes of drum. This is satisfactory for a tilted drum; The drum is tilted away from the sliding arm and rests on the two pivoting arms. If it is horizontal, or tilted the wrong way by inexpert players, then the drum is insecure.
Maxwin traditional snare drum stand
Traditional stand partly folded
Tama modern stand
HP Pavilion dv6-2123el Keyboard
Ryan Hoyle using a modern snare drum stand to support a hanging tom
The newer patterns use a symmetrical basket with a central screw adjustment, allowing the basket to be tightened onto the lower rim and the drum to be firmly held at any angle. They differ mainly in sturdiness and in the precise mechanism used for the screw adjustment.
Snare drum stands have long been used by some drummers to support tom-tom drums. In this application they offer much the same advantages as the more recently available rim mounts.
HP Pavilion dv6-2123sf Keyboard
[edit]Rack toms
Main article: tom tom
Hanging toms are traditionally supported by tom-tom arms or brackets mounted on the bass drum, with one or two toms supported by each bass drum.
Extra toms may be supported by stands or racks.
[edit]Floor tom
MHP Pavilion dv6-2124ef Keyboard
ain article: floor tom
Floor toms are traditionally supported by three feet resting on the floor, as the name suggests. More recently, some drummers have used rim mounts.
[edit]Cymbal stands
Main article: Cymbal stand
Cymbal stands have a threaded bolt or "cymbal post" to hold a cymbal down with a nut. HP Pavilion dv6-2124el Keyboard
Accessory booms and piggyback adaptors allow additional cymbals to be added to an existing stand (not to be confused with stacking).
[edit]Hi-hat stand
Main article: Hi-hat
A hi-hat stand is a standard part of the hardware of a drum kit.[5] In an extended kit, additional pairs of hi-hat cymbals may be operated remotely by a cable hat, or held closed by an X-hat HP Pavilion dv6-2124eo Keyboard
adaptor.
[edit]Drum throne
The drum "throne" is a three or four-legged padded seat or stool the drummer sits on while playing. Thrones may be shaped like round cushions or in a saddle design. Throne heights may be adjusted to accommodate the drummer.[5]
[edit]Memory
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Many drum stands and brackets have provision for memory. This consists of a mechanical device, such as a collar, that allows quick reassembly in a preset position after the kit has been disassembled.
Floor tom with traditonal legs
Drummer's stool
Tom arms with memory from the two main systems. The 20mm arm at left supports one tom; HP Pavilion dv6-2124tx Keyboard
The Tama twin speedball bracket at right supports two.
[edit]Drum rack
Cymbals, hanging toms, a floor tom and even the bass drums are supported by this drum rack
Some or all of the stands can be replaced by a drum rack. Racks are particularly used for larger kits, but can greatly reduce the weight and setup time of even moderately sized kits.
Cymbals and hanging toms are most often mounted on the rack, but bass drums, floor toms and HP Pavilion dv6-2125ef Keyboard
even snare drums can be rack mounted, particularly if rim mounts are used. Personal computer hardware are the component devices that are the building blocks of personal computers. These are typically installed into a computer case, or attached to it by a cable or through a port. In the latter case, they are also referred to as peripherals.
Contents [hide]
1 Computer Case
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2 Power supply
3 Motherboard
4 Expansion Cards
5 Secondary Storage Devices
5.1 Fixed Media Devices
5.2 Removable Media Devices
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6 Input and output peripherals
6.1 Input
6.2 Output
7 See also
8 References
[edit]Computer Case
HP Pavilion dv6-2125ev Keyboard
Main article: Computer case
A computer case (also known as a computer chassis, cabinet, box, tower, enclosure, housing, system unit or simply case) is the enclosure that contains most of the components of a computer (usually excluding the display, keyboard and mouse). A computer case is sometimes incorrectly referred to metonymously as a CPU referring to a component housed within the case. CPU was a common term in the earlier days of home computers, when peripherals other than the HP Pavilion dv6-2125ew Keyboard
motherboard were usually housed in their own separate cases.
[edit]Power supply
Main article: Power supply unit (computer)
Inside a custom-built computer: the power supply at the bottom has its own cooling fan.
A power supply unit (PSU) converts alternating current (AC) electric power to low-voltage DC power for the internal components of the computer. Some power supplies have a switch to HP Pavilion dv6-2125ez Keyboard
change between 230 V and 115 V. Other models have automatic sensors that switch input voltage automatically, or are able to accept any voltage between those limits. Power supply units used in computers are nearly always switch mode power supplies (SMPS). The SMPS provides regulated direct current power at the several voltages required by the motherboard and accessories such as disk drives and cooling fans.
[edit]Motherboard
HP Pavilion dv6-2125sf Keyboard
Main article: Motherboard
The motherboard is the main component inside the case. It is a large rectangular board with integrated circuitry that connects the other parts of the computer including the CPU, the RAM, the disk drives (CD, DVD, hard disk, or any others) as well as any peripherals connected via the ports or the expansion slots.
Components directly attached to the motherboard include:
HP Pavilion dv6-2125so Keyboard
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) performs most of the calculations which enable a computer to function, and is sometimes referred to as the "brain" of the computer. It is usually cooled by a heat sink and fan. Most newer CPUs include an on-die Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).
The Chipset, which includes the north bridge, mediates communication between the CPU and the other components of the system, including main memory.
The Random-Access Memory (RAM) stores the code and data that are being actively accessed by HP Pavilion dv6-2125ss Keyboard
the CPU.
The Read-Only Memory (ROM) stores the BIOS that runs when the computer is powered on or otherwise begins execution, a process known as Bootstrapping, or "booting" or "booting up". The BIOS (Basic Input Output System) includes boot firmware and power management firmware. Newer motherboards use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) instead of BIOS.
Buses connect the CPU to various internal components and to expansion cards for graphics and HP Pavilion dv6-2125tx Keyboard
sound.
Current
PCI Express: for expansion cards such as graphics, sound, network interfaces, TV tuners, etc.
PCI: for other expansion cards.
SATA: for disk drives.
Obsolete
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AGP: superseded by PCI Express.
ATA
VLB: VESA Local Bus, superseded by AGP.
EISA
Micro Channel architecture
ISA: expansion card slot format obsolete in PCs, but still used in industrial computers.
HP Pavilion dv6-2126eg Keyboard
Ports for external peripherals. These ports may be controlled directly by the south bridge I/O controller or provided by expansion cards attached to the motherboard.
USB
Memory Card
FireWire
eSATA
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SCSI
[edit]Expansion Cards
Main article: Expansion card
The expansion card (also expansion board, adapter card or accessory card) in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard or backplane to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus.
HP Pavilion dv6-2126eo Keyboard
An example of an expansion card is a sound card that enables the computer to output sound to audio devices, as well as accept input from a microphone. Most modern computers have hardware support for sound integrated in the motherboard chipset but some users prefer to install a separate sound card as an upgrade. Most sound cards, either built-in or added, have surround sound capabilities and 3-D sound effects.
[edit]Secondary Storage Devices
HP Pavilion dv6-2126ew Keyboard
Main article: Computer data storage
Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components and recording media that retain digital data. Data storage is a core function and fundamental component of computers.
[edit]Fixed Media Devices
HP Pavilion dv6-2126tx Keyboard
Hard disk drives: a hard disk drive (HDD; also hard drive, hard disk, or disk drive)[2] is a device for storing and retrieving digital information, primarily computer data. It consists of one or more rigid (hence "hard") rapidly rotating discs (often referred to as platters), coated with magnetic material and with magnetic heads arranged to write data to the surfaces and read it from them.
Solid-state drives: a solid-state drive (SSD), sometimes called a solid-state disk or electronic disk, is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data with the intention HP Pavilion dv6-2127el Keyboard
of providing access in the same manner of a traditional block I/O hard disk drive. SSDs are distinguished from traditional magnetic disks such as hard disk drives (HDDs) or floppy disk, which are electromechanical devices containing spinning disks and movable read/write heads.
RAID array controller - a device to manage several internal or external hard disks and optionally some peripherals in order to achieve performance or reliability improvement in what is called a RAID array.
HP Pavilion dv6-2127ev Keyboard
[edit]Removable Media Devices
Optical Disc Drives for reading from and writing to various kinds of optical media, including Compact Discs such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, DVD-RAMs and Blu-ray Discs. Optical discs are the most common way of transferring digital video, and are popular for data storage as well.
HP Pavilion dv6-2127sf Keyboard
Floppy disk drives for reading and writing to floppy disks, an outdated storage media consisting of a thin disk of a flexible magnetic storage medium. These were once standard on most computers but are no longer in common use. Floppies are used today mainly for loading device drivers not included with an operating system release (for example, RAID drivers).
Zip drives, an outdated medium-capacity removable disk storage system, for reading from and writing to Zip disks, was first introduced by Iomega in 1994.
HP Pavilion dv6-2127sv Keyboard
USB flash drive plug into a USB port and do not require a separate drive. USB flash drive is a typically small, lightweight, removable, and rewritable flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB interface. Capacities vary, from hundreds of megabytes (in the same range as CDs) to tens of gigabytes (surpassing Blu-ray discs but also costing significantly more).
Memory card readers for reading from and writing to Memory cards, a flash memory data storage device used to store digital information. Memory cards are typically used on mobile HP Pavilion dv6-2127tx Keyboard
devices. They are thinner, smaller and lighter than USB flash drives. Common types of memory cards are SD and MS.
Tape drives read and write data on a magnetic tape, and are used for long term storage and backups.
[edit]Input and output peripherals
Main article: Peripheral
HP Pavilion dv6-2128ca Keyboard
Input and output devices are typically housed externally to the main computer chassis. The following are either standard or very common to many computer systems.
Wheel mouse
[edit]Input
Main article: Input device
Text input devices
HP Pavilion dv6-2128ef Keyboard
Keyboard - a device to input text and characters by depressing buttons (referred to as keys or buttons).
Pointing devices
Mouse - a pointing device that detects two dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface.
Optical Mouse - uses light (laser technology) to determine mouse motion.
Trackball - a pointing device consisting of an exposed protruding ball housed in a socket that HP Pavilion dv6-2128el Keyboard
detects rotation about two axes.
Touchscreen - senses the user pressing directly on the monitor.
Gaming devices
Joystick - a hand-operated pivoted stick whose position is transmitted to the computer.
Game pad - a hand held game controller that relies on the digits (especially thumbs) to provide input.
HP Pavilion dv6-2128tx Keyboard
Game controller - a specific type of controller specialized for certain gaming purposes.
Image, Video input devices
Image scanner - a device that provides input by analyzing images, printed text, handwriting, or an object.
Web cam - a video camera used to provide visual input that can be easily transferred over the internet.
HP Pavilion dv6-2129el Keyboard
Audio input devices
Microphone - an acoustic sensor that provides input by converting sound into electrical signals. Computer hardware is the collection of physical elements that comprise a computer system. Computer hardware refers to the physical parts or components of computer such as monitor, keyboard, hard disk, mouse, etc. Refers to objects that you can actually touch, like disks, disk drives, display screens, keyboards, printers, boards, and chips. In contrast, software is HP Pavilion dv6-2129ev Keyboard
untouchable. Software exists as ideas,application, concepts, and symbols, but it has no substance. A combination of hardware and software forms a usable computing system. Networking hardware or networking equipment typically refers to devices facilitating the use of a computer network. Typically, this includes gateways, routers, network bridges, switches, hubs, and repeaters. Also, hybrid network devices such as multilayer switches, protocol converters and bridge routers. And, proxy servers, firewalls and network address translators. Also, multiplexers, HP Pavilion dv6-2129tx Keyboard
network interface controllers, wireless network interface controllers, modems, ISDN terminal adapters and line drivers. And, wireless access points, networking cables and other related hardware.
Computer networking devices are units that mediate data in a computer network.[1][2] Computer networking devices are also called network equipment, Intermediate Systems (IS)[citation needed] or InterWorking Unit (IWU).[citation needed] Units which are the last HP Pavilion dv6-2130ca Keyboard
receiver or generate data are called hosts or data terminal equipment.[citation needed]
The most common kind of networking hardware today is copper-based Ethernet adapters, helped largely by its standard inclusion on most modern computer systems. Wireless networking has become increasingly popular, however, especially for portable and handheld devices.
Other hardware prevalent within computer networking is datacenter equipment (such as file servers, database servers and storage areas), network services (such as DNS, DHCP, email etc.) as HP Pavilion dv6-2130ec Keyboard
well as other specific network devices such as content delivery.
Other diverse devices which may be considered networking hardware include mobile phones, PDAs and even modern coffee machines. As technology grows and IP-based networks are integrated into building infrastructure and household utilities, network hardware becomes an ambiguous statement owing to the increasing number of "network capable" endpoints.
Contents [hide]
HP Pavilion dv6-2130ed Keyboard
1 List of computer networking devices
2 See also
3 References
4 External links
[edit]List of computer networking devices
HP Pavilion dv6-2130ee Keyboard
Gateway: device sitting at a network node for interfacing with another network that uses different protocols. Works on OSI layers 4 to 7.
Router: a specialized network device that determines the next network point to which it can forward a data packet towards the destination of the packet. Unlike a gateway, it cannot interface different protocols. Works on OSI layer 3.
Switch: a device that allocates traffic from one network segment to certain lines (intended HP Pavilion dv6-2130ef Keyboard
destination(s)) which connect the segment to another network segment. So unlike a hub a switch splits the network traffic and sends it to different destinations rather than to all systems on the network. Works on OSI layer 2.
Bridge: a device that connects multiple network segments along the data link layer. Works on OSI layer 2.
Hub: connects multiple Ethernet segments together making them act as a single segment. When HP Pavilion dv6-2130eg Keyboard
using a hub, every attached device shares the same broadcast domain and the same collision domain. Therefore, only one computer connected to the hub is able to transmit at a time. Depending on the network topology, the hub provides a basic level 1 OSI model connection among the network objects (workstations, servers, etc.). It provides bandwidth which is shared among all the objects, compared to switches, which provide a connection between individual nodes. Works on OSI layer 1.
HP Pavilion dv6-2130ej Keyboard
Repeater: device to amplify or regenerate digital signals received while sending them from one part of a network into another. Works on OSI layer 1.
Some hybrid network devices:
Multilayer switch: a switch which, in addition to switching on OSI layer 2, provides functionality at higher protocol layers.
Protocol converter: a hardware device that converts between two different types of HP Pavilion dv6-2130el Keyboard
transmissions, such as asynchronous and synchronous transmissions.
Bridge router (brouter): a device that combines router and bridge functionality and therefore works on OSI layers 2 and 3.
Hardware or software components that typically sit on the connection point of different networks, e.g. between an internal network and an external network:
Proxy server: computer network service which allows clients to make indirect network HP Pavilion dv6-2130eq Keyboard
connections to other network services
Firewall: a piece of hardware or software put on the network to prevent some communications forbidden by the network policy
Network address translator (NAT): network service provide as hardware or software that converts internal to external network addresses and vice versa
Other hardware for establishing networks or dial-up connections:
HP Pavilion dv6-2130er Keyboard
Multiplexer: device that combines several electrical signals into a single signal
Network interface controller a piece of computer hardware to allow the attached computer to communicate by network
Wireless network interface controller a piece of computer hardware to allow the attached computer to communicate by LAN
Modem: device that modulates an analog "carrier" signal (such as sound), to encode digital HP Pavilion dv6-2130es Keyboard
information, and that also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information, as a computer communicating with another computer over the telephone network
ISDN terminal adapter (TA): a specialized gateway for ISDN
Line driver: a device to increase transmission distance by amplifying the signal. Base-band networks only. Open source hardware (OSHW) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered in the same manner as free and open source software (FOSS). Open source HP Pavilion dv6-2130et Keyboard
hardware is part of the open source culture movement and applies a like concept to a variety of components. The term usually means that information about the hardware is easily discerned. Hardware design (i.e. mechanical drawings, schematics, bill of materials, PCB layout data, HDL source code and integrated circuit layout data), in addition to the software that drives the hardware, are all released with the FOSS approach.
Since the rise of reconfigurable programmable logic devices, sharing of logic designs has been a HP Pavilion dv6-2130ew Keyboard
form of open source hardware. Instead of the schematics, hardware description language (HDL) code is shared. HDL descriptions are commonly used to set up system-on-a-chip systems either in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) or directly in application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs. HDL modules, when distributed, are called semiconductor intellectual property cores, or IP cores.
Contents [hide]
1 Licenses
1.1 Noteworthy licenses
2 Development
3 Business models
4 See also
5 References
HP Pavilion dv6-2130sk Keyboard
6 External links
[edit]Licenses
Rather than creating a new license, some open source hardware projects simply use existing, free and open source software licenses.[7]
Additionally, several new licenses have been proposed. These licenses are designed to address HP Pavilion dv6-2130tx Keyboard
issues specific to hardware designs.[8] In these licenses, many of the fundamental principles expressed in open source software (OSS) licenses have been "ported" to their counterpart hardware projects. Organizations tend to rally around a shared license. For example, Opencores prefers the LGPL,[9] FreeCores insists on the GPL,[10] Open Hardware Foundation promotes "copyleft" or other permissive licenses",[11] the Open Graphics Project uses a variety of licenses, including the MIT license, GPL, and a proprietary license,[12] and the Balloon Project wrote their HP Pavilion dv6-2131ee Keyboard
own license.[13] New hardware licenses are often explained as the "hardware equivalent" of a well-known OSS license, such as the GPL, LGPL, or BSD license.
Despite superficial similarities to software licenses, most hardware licenses are fundamentally different: by nature, they typically rely more heavily on patent law than on copyright law. Whereas a copyright license may control the distribution of the source code or design documents, a patent license may control the use and manufacturing of the physical device built from the HP Pavilion dv6-2131el Keyboard
design documents. This distinction is explicitly mentioned in the preamble of the TAPR Open Hardware License.
"...those who benefit from an OHL design may not bring lawsuits claiming that design infringes their patents or other intellectual property."[14]
[edit]Noteworthy licenses
Main article: Open Hardware License
HP Pavilion dv6-2131et Keyboard
The TAPR Open Hardware License: drafted by attorney John Ackermann, reviewed by OSS community leaders Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, and discussed by hundreds of volunteers in an open community discussion[15]
Balloon Open Hardware License: used by all projects in the Balloon Project
Although originally a software license, OpenCores encourages the LGPL
Hardware Design Public License: written by Graham Seaman, admin. of Opencollector.org
HP Pavilion dv6-2131so Keyboard
In March 2011 CERN released the CERN Open Hardware License (OHL)[16] intended for use with the Open Hardware Repository and other projects.
[The Solderpad License][17] is a version of the Apache License version 2.0, amended by lawyer Andrew Katz to render it more appropriate for hardware use.
[edit]Development
HP Pavilion dv6-2132ec Keyboard
Extensive discussion has taken place on ways to make open source hardware as accessible as open source software. Discussions focus on multiple areas,[18] such as the level at which open source hardware is defined,[19] ways to collaborate in hardware development, as well as a model for sustainable development by making open-source appropriate technology.[20][21]
One of the major differences between developing open source software and developing open source hardware is that hardware results in tangible outputs, which cost money to prototype and HP Pavilion dv6-2132ee Keyboard
manufacture. As a result, the phrase "free as in speech, not as in beer",[22] more formally known as Gratis versus Libre, distinguishes between the idea of zero cost and the freedom to use and modify information. While open source hardware faces challenges in minimizing cost and reducing financial risks for individual project developers, some community members have proposed models to address these needs.[23] Given this, there are initiatives to develop sustainable community funding mechanisms, such as the Open Source Hardware Central HP Pavilion dv6-2132ef Keyboard
Bank,[24] as well as tools like KiCAD to make schematic development more accessible to more users.
Often vendors of chips and other electronic components will sponsor contests with the proviso that the participants and winners must share their designs. Circuit Cellar magazine organizes some of these contests.
[edit]Business models
HP Pavilion dv6-2132eo Keyboard
Open hardware companies are experimenting with different business models. Arduino, for example, makes money largely through design consulting. By creating a design community around their products, they stay in touch with the latest developments. They have also registered their name as a trademark. Others may manufacture their designs, but they can't put the Arduino name on them. Thus they can distinguish their products from others by appellation.[25] There HP Pavilion dv6-2132et Keyboard
are many applicable business models for implementing some open source hardware even in traditional firms. For example, in order to accelerate development and technical innovation the photovoltaic industry has experimented with partnerships, franchises, secondary supplier and completely open source models.[26] Electronic hardware refers to interconnected electronic components which perform analog or logic operations on received and locally stored information to produce as output or store resulting new information or to provide control for output actuator HP Pavilion dv6-2132se Keyboard
mechanisms.
Electronic hardware can range from individual chips/circuits to distributed information processing systems. Well designed electronic hardware is composed of hierarchies of functional modules which inter-communicate via precisely defined interfaces.
Hardware logic is primarily a differentiation of the data processing circuitry from other more generalized circuitry. For example nearly all computers include a power supply which consists of HP Pavilion dv6-2132sf Keyboard
circuitry not involved in data processing but rather powering the data processing circuits. Similarly, a computer may output information to a computer monitor or audio amplifier which is
also not involved in the computational processes.
Astronomy in China
Astronomy in China has a very long history, with historians considering that "they [the Chinese] were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs."[1] Star names later categorized in the twenty-eight mansions have been found on oracle bones unearthed at Anyang, dating back to the middle Shang Dynasty (Chinese Bronze Age), and the mansion system's nucleus seems to have taken shape by the time of the ruler Wu Ding (1339-1281 BC).[2] IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
Detailed records of astronomical observations began during the Warring States period (4th century BC) and flourished from the Han period onwards. Chinese astronomy was equatorial, centered as it was on close observation of circumpolar stars, and was based on different principles from those prevailing in traditional Western astronomy, Toshiba Mini NB 200 Series Keyboard
where heliacal risings and settings of zodiac constellations formed the basic ecliptic framework.[3]
Some elements of Indian astronomy reached China with the expansion of Buddhism after the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 AD), but the most detailed incorporation of Indian astronomical thought occurred during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Toshiba Mini NB 255 Series Keyboard
when numerous Indian astronomers took up residence in the Chinese capital, and Chinese scholars, such as the great Tantric Buddhist monk and mathematician Yi Xing, mastered its system. Islamic astronomers collaborated closely with their Chinese colleagues during the Yuan Dynasty, and, after a period of relative decline during the Ming Dynasty, astronomy was revitalized under the stimulus of Western cosmology and technology after the Jesuits established their missions. Toshiba NB100 Keyboard
The telescope was introduced in the 17th century. In 1669, the Peking observatory was completely redesigned and refitted under the direction of Ferdinand Verbiest. Today, China continues to be active in astronomy, with many observatories and its own space program.
Contents [hide]
1 Early history
1.1 Purpose of astronomical observations in the past
1.2 Cosmology
2 Constellations
3 Star catalogues and maps
3.1 Star catalogues
3.2 Star mapsToshiba Satellite A200 Keyboard
4 Lunar and solar eclipses
5 Equipment and innovation
5.1 Armillary sphere
5.2 Abridged armilla
5.3 Celestial globe before Qing Dynasty
5.4 Celestial globe in the Qing Dynasty
5.5 The water-powered armillary sphere and celestial globe tower
5.6 True north and planetary motion
6 Foreign influences
6.1 Indian astronomy
6.2 Islamic astronomy
6.3 Jesuit activity in China
7 Famous Chinese astronomers
8 Observatory
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
[edit]Early history
[edit]Purpose of astronomical observations in the past
Further information: Science and technology of the Han Dynasty and Technology of the Song DynastyIBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
One of the main functions was for the purpose of timekeeping. The Chinese used a lunisolar calendar, but, because the cycles of the sun and the moon are different, intercalation had to be done.
The Chinese calendar was considered to be a symbol of a dynasty. As dynasties would rise and fall, astronomers and astrologers of each period would often prepare a new calendar to be made, with observations for that purpose. IBM Thinkpad R40E Keyboard
Astrological divination was also an important part of astronomy. Astronomers took careful note of "guest stars", which suddenly appeared among the fixed stars. The supernova that created the Crab Nebula observed in 1054, now known as the SN 1054, is an example of a guest star observed by Chinese astronomers, recorded also by the Arab astronomers, although it was not recorded by their European contemporaries. IBM ThinkPad T40 Keyboard
Ancient astronomical records of phenomena like supernovae and comets are sometimes used in modern astronomical studies.
[edit]Cosmology
The Chinese developed three different cosmological models. The Gai Tan, or hemispherical dome, model conceived the heavens as a hemisphere lying over a dome-shaped earth. The second cosmological model, associated with the Hun Tian school, saw the heavens as a celestial sphere Toshiba Equium A110 Series Keyboard
not unlike the spherical models developed in the Greek and Hellenistic traditions. The third cosmology, associated with the Xuan Ye school, viewed the heavens as infinite in extent and the celestial bodies as floating about at rare intervals, and "the speed of the luminaries depends on their individual natures, which shows they are not attached to anything."[4]
[edit]Constellations
Main article: Chinese constellations
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The divisions of the sky began with the Northern Dipper and the 28 mansions.
In 1977, a lacquer box was excavated from the tomb of Yi, the marquis of Zeng, in Suixian, Hubei Province. Names of the 28 lunar mansions were found on the cover of the box, proving that the use of this classification system was made before 433 BC.
As lunar mansions have such an ancient origin, the meanings of most of their names have become obscure. Even worse, the name of each lunar mansion consists of only one Chinese word, the meaning of which could vary at different times in history. The meanings of the names are still Toshiba Equium A60 Series Keyboard
under discussion.
Besides the 28 lunar mansions, most constellations are based on the works of Shi Shen-fu and Gan De, who were astrologists during the period of Warring States (481 BC - 221 BC) in China.
In the late period of the Ming Dynasty, the agricultural scientist and mathematician Xu Guangqi (1562 - 1633 AD) introduced 23 additional constellations near to the Celestial South Pole, which are based on star catalogues from the West (see Matteo Ricci).
Toshiba Equium A70 Series Keyboard
[edit]Star catalogues and maps
[edit]Star catalogues
In the 4th century BC, the two Chinese astronomers responsible for the earliest information going into the star catalogues were Shi Shen and Gan De of the Warring States period.[5]
Author Transliterated name Chinese Catalogue name Pinyin
Shi Shen Shi Shen astronomy Shi Shen tienwen[5]
GToshiba Equium A80 Series Keyboard
an De Astronomic star observation Tianwen xingzhan[5]
These books appeared to have lasted until the 6th century but were lost after that.[5] A number of books share similar names, often quoted and named after them. These texts should not be confused with the original catalogues written by them. Notable works that helped preserve the contents include:
Author Transliterated name Chinese name Pinyin Comments
Sima Qian Book of Celestial Offices Tianguan shu This is the astronomical chapter of the Toshiba Equium M30 Series Keyboard
Records of the Grand Historian, a massive history compiled during the late 2nd century BC by the Han-era scholar and official Sima Qian. This chapter provides a star catalogue and discusses the schools of Gan De and Shi Shen.[6]
Ma Xian Star Manual of the Masters Gan and Shi Gan Shi Xingjing Despite having the name credited to Shi and Gan, it was lost and actually compiled circa 579 AD as an appendix to the Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era, and summarized in the book Book of Jin Jin shu In the astronomical chapters of the text[5]
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Book of Sui Sui shu [5]
Gautama Siddha Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era Kaiyuan Zhanjing During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (712-756 AD). After analyzing and providing a summary on the work of Gan De and Shi Shen, Tang era astronomers mentioned the names of more than 800 stars that were found,[5] 121 of them marked with positions.[8] The astronomical table of sines by the Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata were also translated into the Kaiyuan Zhanjing.[9]
Toshiba Equium M50 Series Keyboard
The Great Firmament Star Manual Common to Astrology Tongzhan taxiangli xingjing This renamed star manual is incorporated in the Taoist book Daozang.[5]
Wu Xian (巫咸) has been one of the astronomers in debate. He is often represented as one of the "Three Schools Astronomical tradition" along with Gan and Shi.[10] The Chinese classic text Star Manual of Master Wu Xian and its authorship is still in dispute, because it mentioned names of twelve countries that did not exist in the Shang Dynasty, the era of which it was supposed to have been written. Moreover, it was customary in the past for the Chinese to forge works of notable Toshiba Equium M70 Series Keyboard
scholars, as this could lead to a possible explanation for the inconsistencies found. Wu Xian is generally mentioned as the astronomer who lived many years before Gan and Shi.
The Han Dynasty astronomer and inventor Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) not only catalogued some 2500 different stars, but also recognized over 100 different constellations. Zhang Heng also published his work Ling Xian, a summary of different astronomical theories in China at the time. In the subsequent period of the Three Kingdoms (220-280 AD), Chen Zhuo combined the work of his predecessors, forming another star catalogue. This time, 283 constellations and 1464 stars Toshiba Libretto u100 Keyboard
were listed. The astronomer Guo Shoujin of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368 AD) created a new catalogue, which was believed to contain thousands of stars. Unfortunately, many of the documents of that period were destroyed, including that of Shoujin. Imperial Astronomical Instruments was published in 1757 and contains 3083 stars exactly.
[edit]Star maps
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A star map with a cylindrical projection. Su Song's star maps represent the oldest existent ones in printed form.
Main article: Chinese star maps
The Chinese drew many maps of stars in the past centuries. It is debatable as to which counts as the oldest star maps, since pottery and old artifacts can also be considered star maps. One of the oldest existent star maps in printed form is from Su Song's (1020-1101 AD) celestial atlas of 1092 AD, which was included in the horological treatise on his clocktower. The most famous one is Toshiba Mini NB 200 Series Keyboard
perhaps the Dunhuang map found in Dunhuang, Gansu. Uncovered by the British archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein in 1907, the star map was brought to the British Museum in London. The map was drawn on paper and represents the complete sky, with more than 1,350 stars. Though ancient Babylonians and Greeks also observed the sky and catalogued stars, no such complete record of the stars may exist or survive. Hence, this is the oldest chart of the actual skies at present.
According to recent studies, the map may date the manuscript to as early as the 7th century AD Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2904A Keyboard
(Tang Dynasty). Scholars believe the star map dating from 705 to 710 AD, which is the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang. There are some texts (Monthly Ordinances, 月令) describing the movement of the sun among the sky each month, which was not based on the observation at that time.
[edit]Lunar and solar eclipses
The ancient Chinese astronomer Shi Shen (fl. 4th century BC) was aware of the relation of the mToshiba Mini NB 200-SP2904C Keyboard
oon in a solar eclipse, as he provided instructions in his writing to predict them by using the relative positions of the moon and the sun.[11] The radiating-influence theory, where the moon's light was nothing but a reflection of the sun's, was supported by the mathematician and music theorist Jing Fang (78–37 BC), yet opposed by the Chinese philosopher Wang Chong (27–97 AD), who made clear in his writing that this theory was nothing new.[12] Jing Fang wrote:
The moon and the planets are Yin; they have shape but no light. This they receive only when the sun illuminates them. The former masters regarded the sun as round like a crossbow bullet, and Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2904R Keyboard
they thought the moon had the nature of a mirror. Some of them recognized the moon as a ball too. Those parts of the moon which the sun illuminates look bright, those parts which it does not, remain dark.[13]
The ancient Greeks had known this as well, since Parmenides and Aristotle supported the theory of the moon shining because of reflected light.[13] The Chinese astronomer and inventor Zhang Heng (78–139 AD) wrote of both solar eclipse and lunar eclipse in the publication of Ling Xian , Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2911A Keyboard
120 AD:
The sun is like fire and the moon like water. The fire gives out light and the water reflects it. Thus the moon's brightness is produced from the radiance of the sun, and the moon's darkness (pho) is due to (the light of) the sun being obstructed (pi). The side which faces the sun is fully lit, and the side which is away from it is dark. The planets (as well as the moon) have the nature of water and reflect light. The light pouring forth from the sun (tang jih chih chhung kuang) does not always reach the moon owing to the obstruction (pi) of the earth itself—this is called 'an-hsü', a Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2911C Keyboard
lunar eclipse. When (a similar effect) happens with a planet (we call it) an occulation (hsing wei); when the moon passes across (kuo) (the sun's path) then there is a solar eclipse (shih).[14]
The later Song Dynasty scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) used the models of lunar eclipse and solar eclipse in order to prove that the celestial bodies were round, not flat. This was actually an extension of the reasoning of Jing Fang and other theorists as early as the Han Dynasty. In his Dream Pool Essays of 1088 AD, Shen related a conversation he had with the director of the Astronomical Observatory, who had asked Shen if the shapes of the sun and the moon were Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2911R Keyboard
round like balls or flat like fans. Shen Kuo explained his reasoning for the former:
If they were like balls they would surely obstruct each other when they met. I replied that these celestial bodies were certainly like balls. How do we know this? By the waxing and waning of the moon. The moon itself gives forth no light, but is like a ball of silver; the light is the light of the sun (reflected). When the brightness is first seen, the sun (-light passes almost) alongside, so the side only is illuminated and looks like a crescent. When the sun gradually gets further away, the light shines slanting, and
Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912C Keyboard
the moon is full, round like a bullet. If half of a sphere is covered with Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912A Keyboard
(white) powder and looked at from the side, the covered part will look like a crescent; if looked at from the front, it will appear round. Thus we know that the celestial bodies are spherical.[15]
When he asked Shen Kuo why eclipses occurred only on an occasional basis while in conjunction and opposition once a day, Shen Kuo wrote:
I answered that the ecliptic and the moon's path are like two rings, lying one over the other, but Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912R Keyboard
distant by a small amount. (If this obliquity did not exist), the sun would be eclipsed whenever the two bodies were in conjunction, and the moon would be eclipsed whenever they were exactly in position. But (in fact) though they may occupy the same degree, the two paths are not (always) near (each other), and so naturally the bodies do not (intrude) upon one another.[15]
[edit]Equipment and innovation
[edit]Armillary sphere
Toshiba Mini NB 205 Series Keyboard
A method of making observation instruments at the times of Qing Dynasty
The earliest development of the armillary sphere in China goes back to the astronomers Shi Shen and Gan De in the 4th century BC, as they were equipped with a primitive single-ring armillary instrument.[16] This would have allowed them to measure the north polar distance (, the Chinese form of declination) and measurement that gave the position in a hsiu, the Chinese form Toshiba Mini NB 205-N210 Keyboard
of right ascension).[16]
During the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-9 AD), additional developments made by the astronomers Luo Xiahong, Xiangyu Wangren, and Geng Shouchang advanced the use of the armillary in its early stage of evolution. In 52 BC, it was the astronomer Geng Shou-chang who introduced the first permanently fixed equatorial ring of the armillary sphere.[16] In the subsequent Eastern Han Dynasty (23-220 AD) period, the astronomers Fu An and Jia Kui added the elliptical ring by 84 AD.[16] With the famous statesman, astronomer, and inventor Zhang Toshiba Mini NB 205-N211 Keyboard
Heng (78-139 AD), the sphere was totally completed in 125 AD, with horizon and meridian rings.[16] It is of great importance to note that the world's first hydraulic (i.e., water-powered) armillary sphere was created by Zhang Heng, who operated his by use of an inflow clepsydra clock (see Zhang's article for more detail).
[edit]Abridged armilla
Designed by famous astronomer Guo Shoujing in 1276 AD, it solved most problems found in armillary spheres at that time.
Toshiba Mini NB 205-N230 Keyboard
The primary structure of abridged armilla contains two large rings that are perpendicular to each other, of which one is parallel with the equatorial plane and is accordingly called "equatorial ring", and the other is a double ring that is perpendicular to the center of the equatorial ring, revolving around a metallic shaft, and is called "right ascension double ring".
The double ring holds within itself a sighting tube with crosshairs. When observing, astronomers would aim at the star with the sighting tube, whereupon the star's position could be deciphered by observing the dials of the equatorial ring and the right ascension double ring.
Toshiba Mini NB 205-SP2924A Keyboard
A foreign missionary melted the instrument in 1715 AD. The surviving one was built in 1437 AD and was taken to what is now Germany. It was then stored in a French Embassy in 1900, during the Eight-Nation Alliance. Under the pressure of international public discontent, Germany returned the instrument to China. In 1933, it was placed in Purple Mountain Observatory, which prevented it from being destroyed in the Japanese invasion. In the 1980s, it had become seriously eroded and rusted down and was nearly destroyed. In order to restore the device, the Nanjing government spent 11 months to repair it.
Toshiba Mini NB 205-SP2924C Keyboard
[edit]Celestial globe before Qing Dynasty
Celestial globe from Qing Dynasty
Besides star maps, the Chinese also made celestial globes, which show stars' positions like a star Toshiba Mini NB 205-SP2924R Keyboard
map and can present the actual sky at a specific time. Because of its Chinese name, it is often confused with the armillary sphere, which is just one word different in Chinese.
According to records, the first celestial globe was made by Geng Shou-chang between 70 BC and 50 BC. In the Ming Dynasty, the celestial globe at that time was a huge globe, showing the 28 mansions, celestial equator and ecliptic. None of them have survived.
[edit]Celestial globe in the Qing Dynasty
Celestial globes were named ("Miriam celestial bodies") in the Qing Dynasty. The one in Beijing Toshiba Mini NB 255 Series Keyboard
Ancient Observatory was made by Belgian missionary Ferdinand Verbiest in 1673 AD. Unlike other Chinese celestial globes, it employs 360 degrees rather than the 365.24 degrees (which is a standard in ancient China). It is also the first Chinese globe that shows constellations near to the Celestial South Pole.
[edit]The water-powered armillary sphere and celestial globe tower
The inventor of the hydraulic-powered armillary sphere was Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) of the Han Dynasty. Zhang was well known for his brilliant applications of mechanical gears, as this was one Toshiba Mini NB 255-N240 Keyboard
of his most impressive inventions (alongside his seismograph to detect the cardinal direction of earthquakes that struck hundreds of miles away).
Started by Su Song and his colleagues in 1086 AD and finished in 1092 AD, his large astronomical clock tower featured an armillary sphere , a celestial globe and a mechanical chronograph. It was operated by an escapement mechanism and the earliest known chain drive. However, 35 years later, the invading Jurchen army dismantled the tower in 1127 AD upon taking the capital of Kaifeng. The armillary sphere part was brought to Beijing, yet the tower was never Toshiba Mini NB 255-N245 Keyboard
successfully reinstated, not even by Su Song's son.
Fortunately, two versions of Su Song's treatise written on his clock tower have survived the ages, so that studying his astronomical clock tower is made possible through medieval texts.
[edit]True north and planetary motion
The polymath Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) was not only the first in history to describe the magnetic-needle compass, but also made a more accurate measurement of the distance between the polestar and true north that could be used for navigation. Shen achieved this by Toshiba Mini NB 255-N246 Keyboard
making nightly astronomical observations along with his colleague Wei Pu, using Shen's improved design of a wider sighting tube that could be fixed to observe the polestar indefinitely. Along with the polestar, Shen Kuo and Wei Pu also established a project of nightly astronomical observation over a period of five successive years, an intensive work that would even rival the later work of Tycho Brahe in Europe. Shen Kuo and Wei Pu charted the exact coordinates of the planets on a star map for this project and created theories of planetary motion, including retrogradation.
[edit]Foreign influences
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[edit]Indian astronomy
Buddhism first reached China during the Eastern Han Dynasty, and translation of Indian works on astronomy came to China by the Three Kingdoms era (220–265 CE). However, the most detailed incorporation of Indian astronomy occurred only during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when a number of Chinese scholars—such as Yi Xing—were versed both in Indian and Chinese astronomy. A system of Indian astronomy was recorded in China as Jiuzhi-li (718 CE), the author of which was Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP0010L Keyboard
an Indian by the name of Qutan Xida—a translation of Devanagari Gotama Siddha—the director of the Tang dynasty's national astronomical observatory.[17]
The astronomical table of sines by the Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhatan was translated into the Chinese astronomical and mathematical book Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era (Kaiyuan Zhanjing), compiled in 718 AD during the Tang Dynasty.[9] The Kaiyuan Zhanjing was compiled by Gautama Siddha, an astronomer and astrologer born in Chang'an, and whose family was originally from India. He was also notable for his translation of the Navagraha Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP0010M Keyboard
calendar into Chinese.
[edit]Islamic astronomy
Islamic astronomers were brought to China in order to work on calendar making and astronomy during the Mongol Empire and the succeeding Yuan Dynasty.[18][19] The Chinese scholar Yeh-lu Chu'tsai accompanied Genghis Khan to Persia in 1210 and studied their calendar for use in the Mongol Empire.[19] Kublai Khan brought Iranians to Beijing to construct an observatory and an institution for astronomical studies.[18]
Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP0011L Keyboard
Several Chinese astronomers worked at the Maragheh observatory, founded by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in 1259 under the patronage of Hulagu Khan in Persia.[20] One of these Chinese astronomers was Fu Mengchi, or Fu Mezhai.[21] In 1267, the Persian astronomer Jamal ad-Din, who previously worked at Maragha observatory, presented Kublai Khan with seven Persian astronomical instruments, including a terrestrial globe and an armillary sphere,[22] as well as an astronomical almanac, which was later known in China as the Wannian Li ("Ten Thousand Year Calendar" or "Eternal Calendar"). He was known as "Zhamaluding" in China, where, in 1271,[21] Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP0011M Keyboard
he was appointed by Khan as the first director of the Islamic observatory in Beijing,[20] known as the Islamic Astronomical Bureau, which operated alongside the Chinese Astronomical Bureau for four centuries. Islamic astronomy gained a good reputation in China for its theory of planetary latitudes, which did not exist in Chinese astronomy at the time, and for its accurate prediction of eclipses.[21]
Some of the astronomical instruments constructed by the famous Chinese astronomer Guo Shoujing shortly afterwards resemble the style of instrumentation built at Maragheh.[20] In Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1001L Keyboard
particular, the "simplified instrument" (jianyi) and the large gnomon at the Gaocheng Astronomical Observatory show traces of Islamic influence.[23] While formulating the Shoushili calendar in 1281, Shoujing's work in spherical trigonometry may have also been partially influenced by Islamic mathematics, which was largely accepted at Kublai's court.[24] These possible influences include a pseudo-geometrical method for converting between equatorial and ecliptic coordinates, the systematic use of decimals in the underlying parameters, and the application of cubic interpolation in the calculation of the irregularity in the planetary Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1001M Keyboard
motions.[23]
Emperor Taizu (r. 1368-1398) of the Ming Dynasty (1328–1398), in the first year of his reign (1368), conscripted Han and non-Han astrology specialists from the astronomical institutions in Beijing of the former Mongolian Yuan to Nanjing to become officials of the newly established national observatory.
That year, the Ming government summoned for the first time the astronomical officials to come south from the upper capital of Yuan. There were fourteen of them. In order to enhance accuracy Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1002L Keyboard
in methods of observation and computation, Emperor Taizu reinforced the adoption of parallel calendar systems, the Han and the Hui. In the following years, the Ming Court appointed several Hui astrologers to hold high positions in the Imperial Observatory. They wrote many books on Islamic astronomy and also manufactured astronomical equipment based on the Islamic system.
The translation of two important works into Chinese was completed in 1383: Zij (1366) and al-Madkhal fi Sina'at Ahkam al-Nujum, Introduction to Astrology (1004).
In 1384, a Chinese astrolabe was made for observing stars based on the instructions for making Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1002M Keyboard
multi-purposed Islamic equipment. In 1385, the apparatus was installed on a hill in northern Nanjing.
Around 1384, during the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the Chinese translation and compilation of Islamic astronomical tables, a task that was carried out by the scholars Mashayihei, a Muslim astronomer, and Wu Bozong, a Chinese scholar-official. These tables came to be known as the Huihui Lifa (Muslim System of Calendrical Astronomy), which was published in China a number of times until the early 18th century,[25] though the Qing Dynasty had Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1003L Keyboard
officially abandoned the tradition of Chinese-Islamic astronomy in 1659.[26]
[edit]Jesuit activity in China
The introduction of Western science to China by Jesuit priest astronomers was a mixed blessing during the late 16th century and early 17th century.
The telescope was introduced to China in the early 17th century. The telescope was first mentioned in Chinese writing by Emanuel Diaz (Yang MaNuo), who wrote his Tian Wen Lüe in 1615.[27] In 1626, Johann Adam Schall von Bell (Tang Ruowang) published the Chinese treatise Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1003M Keyboard
on the telescope known as the Yuan Jing Shuo (The Far-Seeing Optic Glass).[28] The Chongzhen Emperor (明思宗, 1627–1644) of the Ming Dynasty acquired the telescope of Johannes Terrentius (or Johann Schreck; Deng Yu-han) in 1634, ten years before the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.[27] However, the impact on Chinese astronomy was limited.
The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries brought Western astronomy, then undergoing its own revolution, to China. After the Galileo affair early in the 17th century, the Roman Catholic Jesuit order was required to adhere to geocentrism and ignore the heliocentric Toshiba Mini NB 300 Series Keyboard
teachings of Copernicus and his followers, even though they were becoming standard in European astronomy.[29] Thus, the Jesuits shared an Earth-centered and largely pre-Copernican astronomy with their Chinese hosts (i.e., the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian views from Hellenistic times).[29] The Chinese were often fundamentally opposed to this as well, since the Chinese had long believed (from the ancient doctrine of Xuan Ye) that the celestial bodies floated in a void of infinite space.[29] This contradicted the Aristotelian view of solid concentric crystalline spheres, where there was not a void, but a mass of air between the heavenly bodies.[29]
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Of course, the views of Copernicus, Galileo, and Tycho Brahe would eventually triumph in European science, and these ideas slowly leaked into China despite Jesuit efforts to curb them in the beginning. In 1627, the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym (Bu Mige) introduced Johannes Kepler's Copernican Rudolphine Tables with much enthusiasm to the Ming court at Beijing.[27] In Adam Schall von Bell's Chinese-written treatise of Western astronomy in 1640, the names of Copernicus (Ge-Bai-Ni), Galileo (Jia-li-lüe), and Tycho Brahe (Di-gu) were formally introduced to China.[30] There were also Jesuits in China who were in favor of the Copernican theory, such as Nicholas Toshiba Mini NB 305-N310 Keyboard
Smogulecki and Wenceslaus Kirwitzer.[27] However, Copernican views were not widespread or wholly accepted in China during this time.
Ferdinand Augustin Hallerstein (Liu Songling) created the first spherical astrolabe as the Head of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau from 1739 until 1774. The former Beijing Astronomical observatory, now a museum, still hosts the armillary sphere with rotating rings, which was made under Hallerstein’s leadership and is considered the most prominent astronomical instrument.
While in Japan, the Dutch aided the Japanese with the first modern observatory of Japan in 1725, Toshiba Mini NB 305-N310G Keyboard
headed by Nakane Genkei, whose observatory of astronomers wholly accepted the Copernican view.[31] In contrast, the Copernican view was not accepted in mainstream China until the early 19th century, with the Protestant missionaries such as Joseph Edkins, Alex Wylie, and John Fryer.[31]
The Constitution of the Republic of China is the fundamental law of the Republic of China (ROC), which currently controls the island of Taiwan and minor outlying islands. It was Adopted by the National Constituent Assembly on 25 December 1946, and went into effect on 25 December Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
1947. The latest revision to the constitution was in April 2000.[1]
Drafted by the Kuomintang (KMT) as part of its third stage of national development (i.e. representative democracy), it established a centralized Republic with five branches of government. Though the Constitution was intended for the whole of China, it was neither extensively nor effectively implemented as the KMT was already fully embroiled in a civil war with the Communist Party of China by the time of its promulgation.
Following the KMT's retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Toshiba Mini NB 505-N500BL Keyboard
Period of Communist Rebellion("Temporary Provisions" for short) gave the KMT government extra-constitutional powers. Despite the Constitution, Taiwan was an authoritarian one-party state. Democratization began in the 1980s. Martial law was lifted in 1987; and the Temporary Provisions were repealed and the Constitution was amended in 1991 to reflect the government's loss of mainland China, and the Constitution finally formed the basis of a multi-party democracy.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, the Constitution's origins in mainland China led to supporters of Taiwan independence to push for a new Taiwanese Constitution.[2][3][4] However, attempts Toshiba Mini NB 505-N508BL Keyboard
by the Democratic Progressive Party administration to create a new Constitution during the second term of DPP President Chen Shui-bian failed, because the then opposition Kuomintang controlled the Legislative Yuan.[5][6] It was only agreed to reform the Constitution of the Republic of China, not to create a new one. It was lastly amended in 2005, with the consent of both the KMT and the DPP.
Contents [hide]
1 History
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2 Content
2.1 Three Principles of the People
3 Application in Taiwan
3.1 Suspension of the constitution and martial law
3.2 Democratization
3.3 Challenge of legitimacy
3.4 The basic four right of people
4 Referendums and constitutional reform
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]History
This section does not cite any references or sources. (February 2011)
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The original Constitutional Drafting Committee of the newly-founded Republic of China, photographed on the steps of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, where the Draft was completed in 1913.
The Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China was drawn up in March 1912 and formed the basic government document of the Republic of China until 1928. It provided a Western-style Toshiba Mini NB 505-N508TQ Keyboard
parliamentary system headed by the weak president. However, the system was quickly usurped when Song Jiaoren, who as leader of the KMT was to become prime minister following the party's victory in the 1913 elections, was assassinated under the orders of President Yuan Shikai. Yuan regularly flouted the elected assembly and assumed dictorial powers. Upon his death, China disintegrated into warlordism and the Beiyang Government operating under the Constitution remained in the hands of various military leaders.
The Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek established control over much of China by 1928. The Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110A Keyboard
Nationalist Government promulgated the Provisional Constitution of the Political Tutelage Period in 1931. Under this document, the government operated under a one-party system with supreme power held by the National Congress of the Kuomintang and effective power held by the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. In Leninist fashion, it permitted a system of dual party-state committees to form the basis of government. The KMT intended this Constitution to remain in effect until the country had been pacified and the people sufficiently "educated" to participate in democratic government.
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Seventeen National Assembly delegates selected by the ROC government to represent Taiwan Province in a photo with then President Chiang Kai-shek in 1946
The current Constitution traces its origins to the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War when the impending outbreak of the Chinese Civil War pressured Chiang Kai-shek into enacting a democratic Constitution that would put an end to KMT party rule. The Chinese Communists Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110L Keyboard
sought a coalition, made of one-third Nationalists, one-third Communists, and one-third of members from other parties, to form a coalition government that would draft the new Constitution. However, Chiang Kai-shek refused to relinquish power and insisted on having the Nationalist Government draft the Constitution and then holding nation-wide elections in which the Communists would be permitted to participate. Unable to resolve the impasse, the KMT-drafted Constitution was adopted by the National Assembly on December 25, 1946, promulgated by the National Government on January 1, 1947, and went into effect on December Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111A Keyboard
25, 1947. The Constitution was seen as the third and final stage of Kuomintang reconstruction of China. The Communists, though invited to the convention that drafted it, boycotted and declared after the ratification that not only would it not recognize the ROC constitution, but all bills passed by the Nationalist administration would be disregarded as well. Zhou Enlai challenged the legitimacy of the National Assembly in 1947 by accusing KMT hand-picked the members of the National Assembly 10 years earlier and thus could not have legal representation of the Chinese people.
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[edit]Content
The founding of the ROC was centered on the Three Principles of the People (Sān Mín Zhǔyì), which called for the establishment of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. A government for the people invoked the idea of civic nationalism, which sought to Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111C Keyboard
create unity between the five traditional ethnic groups in China (Han, Manchus, Mongols, Hui(Muslims), and Tibetans) in order to stand up to European and Japanese imperialism as one, strong nation. A government by the people sought to create a Western parliamentary democracy and a separation of powers. Originally, the National Assembly was the "parliament" of the republic, but it lost relevance in the 1990s and was abolished in 2005 with its powers transferred to the Legislative Yuan. Dr. Sun also added two branches of government from the legacy of China's imperial past to the three branches of Western governments. The five branches or Yuan Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111GNL Keyboard
(院) are: the Executive Yuan, Legislative Yuan, Judicial Yuan, Examination Yuan, and Control Yuan. While the original intent was to have a parliamentary system (as evidenced in the existence of both a president and premier), General Chiang Kai-shek largely reduced the role of the premier and concentrated more power in the presidency. As a result, the current government is in practice a semi-presidential system. A government for the people means that the government to a certain extent must provide services that are essential to the well-being of society. Examples of this principle in practice are the New Life Movement and National Health Insurance.
[Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111L Keyboard
edit]Three Principles of the People
The Three Principles of the People are Minzu, Minquan, and Minsheng, roughly defined as nationalism, democracy, and socialism.[7] See Chinese socialism.
[edit]Application in Taiwan
[edit]Suspension of the constitution and martial law
On January 10, 1947, Governor Chen Yi announced that the new ROC Constitution would not Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111ORL Keyboard
apply to Taiwan after it went into effect in mainland China on December 25, 1947 as Taiwan was still under military occupation and also that Taiwanese were politically naive and were not capable of self-governing. Later that year, Chen Yi was dismissed and the Taiwan Provincial Government was established. From March 1947 until 1987, Taiwan was in a state of martial law. Although the constitution provided for regular democratic elections, these were not held in Taiwan until the 1990s.
On April 18, 1948, the National Assembly added to the Constitution the "Temporary Provisions Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0160 Keyboard
Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion". These articles greatly enhanced the power of the president and abolished the two term limit for the president and the vice president. In 1954, the Judicial Yuan ruled that the delegates elected to the National Assembly and Legislative Yuan in 1947 would remain in office until new elections could be held in Mainland China which had come under the control of the Communist Party of China in 1949. This judicial ruling allowed the Kuomintang to rule unchallenged in Taiwan until the 1990s. In 1991, these members were ordered to resign by a subsequent Judicial Yuan ruling.
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In the 1970s, supplemental elections began to be held for the Legislative Yuan. Although these were for a limited number of seats, they did allow for the transition to a more open political system.
[edit]Democratization
In the late 1980s, the Constitution faced the growing democratization on Taiwan combined with the mortality of the delegates that were elected in 1947. Faced with these pressures, on April 22, 1991, the first National Assembly voted itself out of office, abolished the Temporary Provisions Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0164 Keyboard
passed in 1948, and adopted major amendments (known as the "First Revision") permitting free elections.
On May 27, 1992 several other amendments were passed (known as the "Second Revision"), most notably that allowing the direct election of the President of the Republic of China, Governor of Taiwan Province, and municipal mayors. Ten new amendments to replace the eighteen amendments of the First and Second Revisions were passed on July 28, 1994. The amendments passed on July 18, 1997 streamlined the Taiwan Provincial Government and granted the Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0165 Keyboard
Legislative Yuan powers of impeachment. The constitution was subsequently revised in 1999 and 2000, with the former revision being declared void the same year by the Council of Grand Justices. A further revision of the constitution happened in 2005 which disbanded the National Assembly, reformed the Legislative Yuan, and provided for future constitutional change to be ratified by referendum.
Passing an amendment to the ROC constitution now requires an unusually broad political consensus, which includes approval from three-fourths of the quorum of members of the Toshiba NB100 Keyboard
Legislative Yuan. This quorum requires at least three-fourths of all members of the Legislature. After passing the Legislature, the amendments need ratification by at least fifty percent of all eligible voters of the ROC irrespective of voter turnout.
It should also be noted that, because the ROC constitution is, at least nominally, the constitution of all China, the amendments avoided any specific reference to the Taiwan area and instead used the geographically neutral term "Free Area of the Republic of China" to refer to all areas under ROC control. In addition, as the preamble of the amendments stated they are [t]o meet the Toshiba NB100 mini Keyboard
requisites of the nation prior to national unification, these amendments would automatically be voided in the case of Chinese reunification. As a result, all post-1991 amendments have been maintained as a separate part of the Constitution, consolidated into a single text of twelve articles.
[edit]Challenge of legitimacy
A number of criticisms have been leveled at the ROC constitution by supporters of Taiwan independence. Until the 1990s, the document was considered illegitimate by pro-independence Toshiba NB100-01E02H Keyboard
advocates because it was not drafted in Taiwan, moreover Taiwan was sovereign Japanese territory until ceded in the San Francisco Peace Treaty effective April 28, 1952. Pro-independence advocates have argued that the Constitution was never legally applied to Taiwan because Taiwan was not formally incorporated into the ROC's territory through the National Assembly, as per the specifications of Article 4. Though the constitution promulgated in 1946 did not define the territory of the Republic of China, while the draft of the constitution of 1925 individually listed the provinces of the Republic of China and Taiwan was not among them, since Taiwan was part of Toshiba NB100-01G Keyboard
Japan as the result of the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895. The constitution also stipulated in the Article I.4, that "the territory of the ROC is the original territory governed by it, unless authorized by the National Assembly, can not be altered." In 1946, Sun Fo, the minister of the Executive Yuan of ROC reported to the National Assembly that "there are two types of territory changes: 1. renouncing territory and 2. annexing new territory. The first example would be the Independence of Mongolia, and the second example would be the reclamation of Taiwan. Both would be examples of territory changes." [8] No such formal annexation of Taiwan islands by the ROC Toshiba NB100-10X Keyboard
National Assembly conforming with the ROC constitution ever occurred since 1946, even though Article 9 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China says, "The modifications of the functions, operations, and organization of the Taiwan Provincial Government may be specified by law." The Republic of China argues that sovereignty of the Republic of China over Taiwan was established by the Instrument of Surrender of Japan which implemented the Potsdam Declaration and the Cairo Declaration. The Allies have not agreed or disagreed to this rationale. In addition, the ROC argues that the Article 4 of Treaty of Taipei nullifies the Treaty of Toshiba NB100-10Y Keyboard
Shimonoseki and the original transfer of sovereignty of Taiwan from China to Japan. Since this transfer of sovereignty occurred in 1945 before the promulgation of the 1947 constitution, the ROC government is of the view that a resolution by the National Assembly was unnecessary.
While both symbolic and legal arguments have been used to discredit the application the ROC Constitution in Taiwan, the document gained more legitimacy among independence supporters throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s due to democratization and it is now accepted as the basic law of Taiwan by all of the major parties. However, there are proposals being floated, Toshiba NB100-111 Keyboard
particularly by supporters of Taiwan independence and the supporters of Taiwan localization movement, to replace the current Constitution with a document drafted by the Taiwanese constituencies in Taiwan.
[edit]The basic four right of people
Chapter 12 is the people's election, depose, formulate, four right of referendum. A great deal of items of electing in detailed regulation of the constitution, the ones that guaranteed to elect are direct, just, disclose; Stipulated that fires at the same time, formulated, the power of the Toshiba NB100-11B Keyboard
referendum, so as to ensure the civil rights are exercised.
[edit]Referendums and constitutional reform
One recent controversy involving the constitution is the right to referendum which is mentioned in the Constitution. The constitution states that "The exercise of the rights of initiative and referendum shall be prescribed by law",[9] but legislation prescribing the practices had been blocked by the pan-blue coalition largely out of suspicions that proponents of a referendum law Toshiba NB100-11G Keyboard
would be used to overturn the ROC Constitution and provide a means to declare Taiwan independence.[citation needed] A referendum law was passed on 27 November 2003[10] and signed by President Chen Shui-bian on 31 December 2003,[11] but the law sets high standards for referendums such as the requirement that they can only be called by the President in times of imminent attack.[11]
In 2003, President Chen Shui-bian proposed holding a referendum in 2006 for implementing an entirely new constitution on May 20, 2008 to coincide with the inauguration of the 12th-term Toshiba NB100-11J Keyboard
president of the ROC. Proponents of such a move, namely the Pan-Green Coalition, argue that the current Constitution endorses a specific ideology (i.e., the Three Principles of the People), which is only appropriate for Communist states; in addition, they argue that a more "efficient" government is needed to cope with changing realities.[citation needed] Some proponents support replacing the five-branch structure outlined by the Three Principles of the People with a three-branch government. Others cite the current deadlock between the executive and legislative branches and support replacing the presidential system with a parliamentary system. Toshiba NB100-11R Keyboard
Furthermore, the current Constitution explicitly states before the amendments implemented on Taiwan, "To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification...", in direct opposition to the pan-green position that Taiwan must remain separated from the mainland. In response, the pan-blue coalition dropped its opposition to non-constitutional referendums and offered to consider through going constitutional reforms.[citation needed]
The proposal to implement an entirely new constitution met with strong opposition from the People's Republic of China and great unease from the United States, both of which feared the Toshiba NB100-127 Keyboard
proposal to rewrite the constitution to be a veiled effort to achieve Taiwan independence, as it would sever a legal link to mainland China, and to circumvent Chen's original Four Noes and One Without pledge.[citation needed] In December 2003, the United States announced its opposition to any referendum that would tend to move Taiwan toward independence, a statement that was widely seen as being directed at Chen's constitutional proposals.[citation needed]
In response, the Pan-Blue Coalition attempted to argue that a new constitution and constitutional referendums were unnecessary and that the inefficiencies in the ROC Constitution Toshiba NB100-128 Keyboard
could be approved through the normal legislative process.[citation needed]
In his May 20, 2004 inaugural address, Chen called for a "Constitutional Reform Committee" to be formed by "members of the ruling party and the opposition parties, as well as legal experts, academic scholars and representatives from all fields and spanning all social classes" to decide on the proper reforms. He promised that the new Constitution would not change the issue of sovereignty and territory. This proposal went nowhere due to lack of cooperation from the opposition Pan-Blue.[citation needed]
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The current President Ma Ying-jeou has stated that constitutional reform is not a priority for his
government.[citation needed]
Detailed records of astronomical observations began during the Warring States period (4th century BC) and flourished from the Han period onwards. Chinese astronomy was equatorial, centered as it was on close observation of circumpolar stars, and was based on different principles from those prevailing in traditional Western astronomy, Toshiba Mini NB 200 Series Keyboard
where heliacal risings and settings of zodiac constellations formed the basic ecliptic framework.[3]
Some elements of Indian astronomy reached China with the expansion of Buddhism after the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 AD), but the most detailed incorporation of Indian astronomical thought occurred during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Toshiba Mini NB 255 Series Keyboard
when numerous Indian astronomers took up residence in the Chinese capital, and Chinese scholars, such as the great Tantric Buddhist monk and mathematician Yi Xing, mastered its system. Islamic astronomers collaborated closely with their Chinese colleagues during the Yuan Dynasty, and, after a period of relative decline during the Ming Dynasty, astronomy was revitalized under the stimulus of Western cosmology and technology after the Jesuits established their missions. Toshiba NB100 Keyboard
The telescope was introduced in the 17th century. In 1669, the Peking observatory was completely redesigned and refitted under the direction of Ferdinand Verbiest. Today, China continues to be active in astronomy, with many observatories and its own space program.
Contents [hide]
1 Early history
1.1 Purpose of astronomical observations in the past
1.2 Cosmology
2 Constellations
3 Star catalogues and maps
3.1 Star catalogues
3.2 Star mapsToshiba Satellite A200 Keyboard
4 Lunar and solar eclipses
5 Equipment and innovation
5.1 Armillary sphere
5.2 Abridged armilla
5.3 Celestial globe before Qing Dynasty
5.4 Celestial globe in the Qing Dynasty
5.5 The water-powered armillary sphere and celestial globe tower
5.6 True north and planetary motion
6 Foreign influences
6.1 Indian astronomy
6.2 Islamic astronomy
6.3 Jesuit activity in China
7 Famous Chinese astronomers
8 Observatory
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
[edit]Early history
[edit]Purpose of astronomical observations in the past
Further information: Science and technology of the Han Dynasty and Technology of the Song DynastyIBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
One of the main functions was for the purpose of timekeeping. The Chinese used a lunisolar calendar, but, because the cycles of the sun and the moon are different, intercalation had to be done.
The Chinese calendar was considered to be a symbol of a dynasty. As dynasties would rise and fall, astronomers and astrologers of each period would often prepare a new calendar to be made, with observations for that purpose. IBM Thinkpad R40E Keyboard
Astrological divination was also an important part of astronomy. Astronomers took careful note of "guest stars", which suddenly appeared among the fixed stars. The supernova that created the Crab Nebula observed in 1054, now known as the SN 1054, is an example of a guest star observed by Chinese astronomers, recorded also by the Arab astronomers, although it was not recorded by their European contemporaries. IBM ThinkPad T40 Keyboard
Ancient astronomical records of phenomena like supernovae and comets are sometimes used in modern astronomical studies.
[edit]Cosmology
The Chinese developed three different cosmological models. The Gai Tan, or hemispherical dome, model conceived the heavens as a hemisphere lying over a dome-shaped earth. The second cosmological model, associated with the Hun Tian school, saw the heavens as a celestial sphere Toshiba Equium A110 Series Keyboard
not unlike the spherical models developed in the Greek and Hellenistic traditions. The third cosmology, associated with the Xuan Ye school, viewed the heavens as infinite in extent and the celestial bodies as floating about at rare intervals, and "the speed of the luminaries depends on their individual natures, which shows they are not attached to anything."[4]
[edit]Constellations
Main article: Chinese constellations
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The divisions of the sky began with the Northern Dipper and the 28 mansions.
In 1977, a lacquer box was excavated from the tomb of Yi, the marquis of Zeng, in Suixian, Hubei Province. Names of the 28 lunar mansions were found on the cover of the box, proving that the use of this classification system was made before 433 BC.
As lunar mansions have such an ancient origin, the meanings of most of their names have become obscure. Even worse, the name of each lunar mansion consists of only one Chinese word, the meaning of which could vary at different times in history. The meanings of the names are still Toshiba Equium A60 Series Keyboard
under discussion.
Besides the 28 lunar mansions, most constellations are based on the works of Shi Shen-fu and Gan De, who were astrologists during the period of Warring States (481 BC - 221 BC) in China.
In the late period of the Ming Dynasty, the agricultural scientist and mathematician Xu Guangqi (1562 - 1633 AD) introduced 23 additional constellations near to the Celestial South Pole, which are based on star catalogues from the West (see Matteo Ricci).
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[edit]Star catalogues and maps
[edit]Star catalogues
In the 4th century BC, the two Chinese astronomers responsible for the earliest information going into the star catalogues were Shi Shen and Gan De of the Warring States period.[5]
Author Transliterated name Chinese Catalogue name Pinyin
Shi Shen Shi Shen astronomy Shi Shen tienwen[5]
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an De Astronomic star observation Tianwen xingzhan[5]
These books appeared to have lasted until the 6th century but were lost after that.[5] A number of books share similar names, often quoted and named after them. These texts should not be confused with the original catalogues written by them. Notable works that helped preserve the contents include:
Author Transliterated name Chinese name Pinyin Comments
Sima Qian Book of Celestial Offices Tianguan shu This is the astronomical chapter of the Toshiba Equium M30 Series Keyboard
Records of the Grand Historian, a massive history compiled during the late 2nd century BC by the Han-era scholar and official Sima Qian. This chapter provides a star catalogue and discusses the schools of Gan De and Shi Shen.[6]
Ma Xian Star Manual of the Masters Gan and Shi Gan Shi Xingjing Despite having the name credited to Shi and Gan, it was lost and actually compiled circa 579 AD as an appendix to the Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era, and summarized in the book Book of Jin Jin shu In the astronomical chapters of the text[5]
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Book of Sui Sui shu [5]
Gautama Siddha Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era Kaiyuan Zhanjing During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (712-756 AD). After analyzing and providing a summary on the work of Gan De and Shi Shen, Tang era astronomers mentioned the names of more than 800 stars that were found,[5] 121 of them marked with positions.[8] The astronomical table of sines by the Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata were also translated into the Kaiyuan Zhanjing.[9]
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The Great Firmament Star Manual Common to Astrology Tongzhan taxiangli xingjing This renamed star manual is incorporated in the Taoist book Daozang.[5]
Wu Xian (巫咸) has been one of the astronomers in debate. He is often represented as one of the "Three Schools Astronomical tradition" along with Gan and Shi.[10] The Chinese classic text Star Manual of Master Wu Xian and its authorship is still in dispute, because it mentioned names of twelve countries that did not exist in the Shang Dynasty, the era of which it was supposed to have been written. Moreover, it was customary in the past for the Chinese to forge works of notable Toshiba Equium M70 Series Keyboard
scholars, as this could lead to a possible explanation for the inconsistencies found. Wu Xian is generally mentioned as the astronomer who lived many years before Gan and Shi.
The Han Dynasty astronomer and inventor Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) not only catalogued some 2500 different stars, but also recognized over 100 different constellations. Zhang Heng also published his work Ling Xian, a summary of different astronomical theories in China at the time. In the subsequent period of the Three Kingdoms (220-280 AD), Chen Zhuo combined the work of his predecessors, forming another star catalogue. This time, 283 constellations and 1464 stars Toshiba Libretto u100 Keyboard
were listed. The astronomer Guo Shoujin of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368 AD) created a new catalogue, which was believed to contain thousands of stars. Unfortunately, many of the documents of that period were destroyed, including that of Shoujin. Imperial Astronomical Instruments was published in 1757 and contains 3083 stars exactly.
[edit]Star maps
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A star map with a cylindrical projection. Su Song's star maps represent the oldest existent ones in printed form.
Main article: Chinese star maps
The Chinese drew many maps of stars in the past centuries. It is debatable as to which counts as the oldest star maps, since pottery and old artifacts can also be considered star maps. One of the oldest existent star maps in printed form is from Su Song's (1020-1101 AD) celestial atlas of 1092 AD, which was included in the horological treatise on his clocktower. The most famous one is Toshiba Mini NB 200 Series Keyboard
perhaps the Dunhuang map found in Dunhuang, Gansu. Uncovered by the British archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein in 1907, the star map was brought to the British Museum in London. The map was drawn on paper and represents the complete sky, with more than 1,350 stars. Though ancient Babylonians and Greeks also observed the sky and catalogued stars, no such complete record of the stars may exist or survive. Hence, this is the oldest chart of the actual skies at present.
According to recent studies, the map may date the manuscript to as early as the 7th century AD Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2904A Keyboard
(Tang Dynasty). Scholars believe the star map dating from 705 to 710 AD, which is the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang. There are some texts (Monthly Ordinances, 月令) describing the movement of the sun among the sky each month, which was not based on the observation at that time.
[edit]Lunar and solar eclipses
The ancient Chinese astronomer Shi Shen (fl. 4th century BC) was aware of the relation of the mToshiba Mini NB 200-SP2904C Keyboard
oon in a solar eclipse, as he provided instructions in his writing to predict them by using the relative positions of the moon and the sun.[11] The radiating-influence theory, where the moon's light was nothing but a reflection of the sun's, was supported by the mathematician and music theorist Jing Fang (78–37 BC), yet opposed by the Chinese philosopher Wang Chong (27–97 AD), who made clear in his writing that this theory was nothing new.[12] Jing Fang wrote:
The moon and the planets are Yin; they have shape but no light. This they receive only when the sun illuminates them. The former masters regarded the sun as round like a crossbow bullet, and Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2904R Keyboard
they thought the moon had the nature of a mirror. Some of them recognized the moon as a ball too. Those parts of the moon which the sun illuminates look bright, those parts which it does not, remain dark.[13]
The ancient Greeks had known this as well, since Parmenides and Aristotle supported the theory of the moon shining because of reflected light.[13] The Chinese astronomer and inventor Zhang Heng (78–139 AD) wrote of both solar eclipse and lunar eclipse in the publication of Ling Xian , Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2911A Keyboard
120 AD:
The sun is like fire and the moon like water. The fire gives out light and the water reflects it. Thus the moon's brightness is produced from the radiance of the sun, and the moon's darkness (pho) is due to (the light of) the sun being obstructed (pi). The side which faces the sun is fully lit, and the side which is away from it is dark. The planets (as well as the moon) have the nature of water and reflect light. The light pouring forth from the sun (tang jih chih chhung kuang) does not always reach the moon owing to the obstruction (pi) of the earth itself—this is called 'an-hsü', a Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2911C Keyboard
lunar eclipse. When (a similar effect) happens with a planet (we call it) an occulation (hsing wei); when the moon passes across (kuo) (the sun's path) then there is a solar eclipse (shih).[14]
The later Song Dynasty scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) used the models of lunar eclipse and solar eclipse in order to prove that the celestial bodies were round, not flat. This was actually an extension of the reasoning of Jing Fang and other theorists as early as the Han Dynasty. In his Dream Pool Essays of 1088 AD, Shen related a conversation he had with the director of the Astronomical Observatory, who had asked Shen if the shapes of the sun and the moon were Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2911R Keyboard
round like balls or flat like fans. Shen Kuo explained his reasoning for the former:
If they were like balls they would surely obstruct each other when they met. I replied that these celestial bodies were certainly like balls. How do we know this? By the waxing and waning of the moon. The moon itself gives forth no light, but is like a ball of silver; the light is the light of the sun (reflected). When the brightness is first seen, the sun (-light passes almost) alongside, so the side only is illuminated and looks like a crescent. When the sun gradually gets further away, the light shines slanting, and
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the moon is full, round like a bullet. If half of a sphere is covered with Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912A Keyboard
(white) powder and looked at from the side, the covered part will look like a crescent; if looked at from the front, it will appear round. Thus we know that the celestial bodies are spherical.[15]
When he asked Shen Kuo why eclipses occurred only on an occasional basis while in conjunction and opposition once a day, Shen Kuo wrote:
I answered that the ecliptic and the moon's path are like two rings, lying one over the other, but Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912R Keyboard
distant by a small amount. (If this obliquity did not exist), the sun would be eclipsed whenever the two bodies were in conjunction, and the moon would be eclipsed whenever they were exactly in position. But (in fact) though they may occupy the same degree, the two paths are not (always) near (each other), and so naturally the bodies do not (intrude) upon one another.[15]
[edit]Equipment and innovation
[edit]Armillary sphere
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A method of making observation instruments at the times of Qing Dynasty
The earliest development of the armillary sphere in China goes back to the astronomers Shi Shen and Gan De in the 4th century BC, as they were equipped with a primitive single-ring armillary instrument.[16] This would have allowed them to measure the north polar distance (, the Chinese form of declination) and measurement that gave the position in a hsiu, the Chinese form Toshiba Mini NB 205-N210 Keyboard
of right ascension).[16]
During the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-9 AD), additional developments made by the astronomers Luo Xiahong, Xiangyu Wangren, and Geng Shouchang advanced the use of the armillary in its early stage of evolution. In 52 BC, it was the astronomer Geng Shou-chang who introduced the first permanently fixed equatorial ring of the armillary sphere.[16] In the subsequent Eastern Han Dynasty (23-220 AD) period, the astronomers Fu An and Jia Kui added the elliptical ring by 84 AD.[16] With the famous statesman, astronomer, and inventor Zhang Toshiba Mini NB 205-N211 Keyboard
Heng (78-139 AD), the sphere was totally completed in 125 AD, with horizon and meridian rings.[16] It is of great importance to note that the world's first hydraulic (i.e., water-powered) armillary sphere was created by Zhang Heng, who operated his by use of an inflow clepsydra clock (see Zhang's article for more detail).
[edit]Abridged armilla
Designed by famous astronomer Guo Shoujing in 1276 AD, it solved most problems found in armillary spheres at that time.
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The primary structure of abridged armilla contains two large rings that are perpendicular to each other, of which one is parallel with the equatorial plane and is accordingly called "equatorial ring", and the other is a double ring that is perpendicular to the center of the equatorial ring, revolving around a metallic shaft, and is called "right ascension double ring".
The double ring holds within itself a sighting tube with crosshairs. When observing, astronomers would aim at the star with the sighting tube, whereupon the star's position could be deciphered by observing the dials of the equatorial ring and the right ascension double ring.
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A foreign missionary melted the instrument in 1715 AD. The surviving one was built in 1437 AD and was taken to what is now Germany. It was then stored in a French Embassy in 1900, during the Eight-Nation Alliance. Under the pressure of international public discontent, Germany returned the instrument to China. In 1933, it was placed in Purple Mountain Observatory, which prevented it from being destroyed in the Japanese invasion. In the 1980s, it had become seriously eroded and rusted down and was nearly destroyed. In order to restore the device, the Nanjing government spent 11 months to repair it.
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[edit]Celestial globe before Qing Dynasty
Celestial globe from Qing Dynasty
Besides star maps, the Chinese also made celestial globes, which show stars' positions like a star Toshiba Mini NB 205-SP2924R Keyboard
map and can present the actual sky at a specific time. Because of its Chinese name, it is often confused with the armillary sphere, which is just one word different in Chinese.
According to records, the first celestial globe was made by Geng Shou-chang between 70 BC and 50 BC. In the Ming Dynasty, the celestial globe at that time was a huge globe, showing the 28 mansions, celestial equator and ecliptic. None of them have survived.
[edit]Celestial globe in the Qing Dynasty
Celestial globes were named ("Miriam celestial bodies") in the Qing Dynasty. The one in Beijing Toshiba Mini NB 255 Series Keyboard
Ancient Observatory was made by Belgian missionary Ferdinand Verbiest in 1673 AD. Unlike other Chinese celestial globes, it employs 360 degrees rather than the 365.24 degrees (which is a standard in ancient China). It is also the first Chinese globe that shows constellations near to the Celestial South Pole.
[edit]The water-powered armillary sphere and celestial globe tower
The inventor of the hydraulic-powered armillary sphere was Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) of the Han Dynasty. Zhang was well known for his brilliant applications of mechanical gears, as this was one Toshiba Mini NB 255-N240 Keyboard
of his most impressive inventions (alongside his seismograph to detect the cardinal direction of earthquakes that struck hundreds of miles away).
Started by Su Song and his colleagues in 1086 AD and finished in 1092 AD, his large astronomical clock tower featured an armillary sphere , a celestial globe and a mechanical chronograph. It was operated by an escapement mechanism and the earliest known chain drive. However, 35 years later, the invading Jurchen army dismantled the tower in 1127 AD upon taking the capital of Kaifeng. The armillary sphere part was brought to Beijing, yet the tower was never Toshiba Mini NB 255-N245 Keyboard
successfully reinstated, not even by Su Song's son.
Fortunately, two versions of Su Song's treatise written on his clock tower have survived the ages, so that studying his astronomical clock tower is made possible through medieval texts.
[edit]True north and planetary motion
The polymath Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) was not only the first in history to describe the magnetic-needle compass, but also made a more accurate measurement of the distance between the polestar and true north that could be used for navigation. Shen achieved this by Toshiba Mini NB 255-N246 Keyboard
making nightly astronomical observations along with his colleague Wei Pu, using Shen's improved design of a wider sighting tube that could be fixed to observe the polestar indefinitely. Along with the polestar, Shen Kuo and Wei Pu also established a project of nightly astronomical observation over a period of five successive years, an intensive work that would even rival the later work of Tycho Brahe in Europe. Shen Kuo and Wei Pu charted the exact coordinates of the planets on a star map for this project and created theories of planetary motion, including retrogradation.
[edit]Foreign influences
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[edit]Indian astronomy
Buddhism first reached China during the Eastern Han Dynasty, and translation of Indian works on astronomy came to China by the Three Kingdoms era (220–265 CE). However, the most detailed incorporation of Indian astronomy occurred only during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when a number of Chinese scholars—such as Yi Xing—were versed both in Indian and Chinese astronomy. A system of Indian astronomy was recorded in China as Jiuzhi-li (718 CE), the author of which was Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP0010L Keyboard
an Indian by the name of Qutan Xida—a translation of Devanagari Gotama Siddha—the director of the Tang dynasty's national astronomical observatory.[17]
The astronomical table of sines by the Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhatan was translated into the Chinese astronomical and mathematical book Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era (Kaiyuan Zhanjing), compiled in 718 AD during the Tang Dynasty.[9] The Kaiyuan Zhanjing was compiled by Gautama Siddha, an astronomer and astrologer born in Chang'an, and whose family was originally from India. He was also notable for his translation of the Navagraha Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP0010M Keyboard
calendar into Chinese.
[edit]Islamic astronomy
Islamic astronomers were brought to China in order to work on calendar making and astronomy during the Mongol Empire and the succeeding Yuan Dynasty.[18][19] The Chinese scholar Yeh-lu Chu'tsai accompanied Genghis Khan to Persia in 1210 and studied their calendar for use in the Mongol Empire.[19] Kublai Khan brought Iranians to Beijing to construct an observatory and an institution for astronomical studies.[18]
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Several Chinese astronomers worked at the Maragheh observatory, founded by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in 1259 under the patronage of Hulagu Khan in Persia.[20] One of these Chinese astronomers was Fu Mengchi, or Fu Mezhai.[21] In 1267, the Persian astronomer Jamal ad-Din, who previously worked at Maragha observatory, presented Kublai Khan with seven Persian astronomical instruments, including a terrestrial globe and an armillary sphere,[22] as well as an astronomical almanac, which was later known in China as the Wannian Li ("Ten Thousand Year Calendar" or "Eternal Calendar"). He was known as "Zhamaluding" in China, where, in 1271,[21] Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP0011M Keyboard
he was appointed by Khan as the first director of the Islamic observatory in Beijing,[20] known as the Islamic Astronomical Bureau, which operated alongside the Chinese Astronomical Bureau for four centuries. Islamic astronomy gained a good reputation in China for its theory of planetary latitudes, which did not exist in Chinese astronomy at the time, and for its accurate prediction of eclipses.[21]
Some of the astronomical instruments constructed by the famous Chinese astronomer Guo Shoujing shortly afterwards resemble the style of instrumentation built at Maragheh.[20] In Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1001L Keyboard
particular, the "simplified instrument" (jianyi) and the large gnomon at the Gaocheng Astronomical Observatory show traces of Islamic influence.[23] While formulating the Shoushili calendar in 1281, Shoujing's work in spherical trigonometry may have also been partially influenced by Islamic mathematics, which was largely accepted at Kublai's court.[24] These possible influences include a pseudo-geometrical method for converting between equatorial and ecliptic coordinates, the systematic use of decimals in the underlying parameters, and the application of cubic interpolation in the calculation of the irregularity in the planetary Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1001M Keyboard
motions.[23]
Emperor Taizu (r. 1368-1398) of the Ming Dynasty (1328–1398), in the first year of his reign (1368), conscripted Han and non-Han astrology specialists from the astronomical institutions in Beijing of the former Mongolian Yuan to Nanjing to become officials of the newly established national observatory.
That year, the Ming government summoned for the first time the astronomical officials to come south from the upper capital of Yuan. There were fourteen of them. In order to enhance accuracy Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1002L Keyboard
in methods of observation and computation, Emperor Taizu reinforced the adoption of parallel calendar systems, the Han and the Hui. In the following years, the Ming Court appointed several Hui astrologers to hold high positions in the Imperial Observatory. They wrote many books on Islamic astronomy and also manufactured astronomical equipment based on the Islamic system.
The translation of two important works into Chinese was completed in 1383: Zij (1366) and al-Madkhal fi Sina'at Ahkam al-Nujum, Introduction to Astrology (1004).
In 1384, a Chinese astrolabe was made for observing stars based on the instructions for making Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1002M Keyboard
multi-purposed Islamic equipment. In 1385, the apparatus was installed on a hill in northern Nanjing.
Around 1384, during the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the Chinese translation and compilation of Islamic astronomical tables, a task that was carried out by the scholars Mashayihei, a Muslim astronomer, and Wu Bozong, a Chinese scholar-official. These tables came to be known as the Huihui Lifa (Muslim System of Calendrical Astronomy), which was published in China a number of times until the early 18th century,[25] though the Qing Dynasty had Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1003L Keyboard
officially abandoned the tradition of Chinese-Islamic astronomy in 1659.[26]
[edit]Jesuit activity in China
The introduction of Western science to China by Jesuit priest astronomers was a mixed blessing during the late 16th century and early 17th century.
The telescope was introduced to China in the early 17th century. The telescope was first mentioned in Chinese writing by Emanuel Diaz (Yang MaNuo), who wrote his Tian Wen Lüe in 1615.[27] In 1626, Johann Adam Schall von Bell (Tang Ruowang) published the Chinese treatise Toshiba Mini NB 255-SP1003M Keyboard
on the telescope known as the Yuan Jing Shuo (The Far-Seeing Optic Glass).[28] The Chongzhen Emperor (明思宗, 1627–1644) of the Ming Dynasty acquired the telescope of Johannes Terrentius (or Johann Schreck; Deng Yu-han) in 1634, ten years before the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.[27] However, the impact on Chinese astronomy was limited.
The Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries brought Western astronomy, then undergoing its own revolution, to China. After the Galileo affair early in the 17th century, the Roman Catholic Jesuit order was required to adhere to geocentrism and ignore the heliocentric Toshiba Mini NB 300 Series Keyboard
teachings of Copernicus and his followers, even though they were becoming standard in European astronomy.[29] Thus, the Jesuits shared an Earth-centered and largely pre-Copernican astronomy with their Chinese hosts (i.e., the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian views from Hellenistic times).[29] The Chinese were often fundamentally opposed to this as well, since the Chinese had long believed (from the ancient doctrine of Xuan Ye) that the celestial bodies floated in a void of infinite space.[29] This contradicted the Aristotelian view of solid concentric crystalline spheres, where there was not a void, but a mass of air between the heavenly bodies.[29]
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Of course, the views of Copernicus, Galileo, and Tycho Brahe would eventually triumph in European science, and these ideas slowly leaked into China despite Jesuit efforts to curb them in the beginning. In 1627, the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym (Bu Mige) introduced Johannes Kepler's Copernican Rudolphine Tables with much enthusiasm to the Ming court at Beijing.[27] In Adam Schall von Bell's Chinese-written treatise of Western astronomy in 1640, the names of Copernicus (Ge-Bai-Ni), Galileo (Jia-li-lüe), and Tycho Brahe (Di-gu) were formally introduced to China.[30] There were also Jesuits in China who were in favor of the Copernican theory, such as Nicholas Toshiba Mini NB 305-N310 Keyboard
Smogulecki and Wenceslaus Kirwitzer.[27] However, Copernican views were not widespread or wholly accepted in China during this time.
Ferdinand Augustin Hallerstein (Liu Songling) created the first spherical astrolabe as the Head of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau from 1739 until 1774. The former Beijing Astronomical observatory, now a museum, still hosts the armillary sphere with rotating rings, which was made under Hallerstein’s leadership and is considered the most prominent astronomical instrument.
While in Japan, the Dutch aided the Japanese with the first modern observatory of Japan in 1725, Toshiba Mini NB 305-N310G Keyboard
headed by Nakane Genkei, whose observatory of astronomers wholly accepted the Copernican view.[31] In contrast, the Copernican view was not accepted in mainstream China until the early 19th century, with the Protestant missionaries such as Joseph Edkins, Alex Wylie, and John Fryer.[31]
The Constitution of the Republic of China is the fundamental law of the Republic of China (ROC), which currently controls the island of Taiwan and minor outlying islands. It was Adopted by the National Constituent Assembly on 25 December 1946, and went into effect on 25 December Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
1947. The latest revision to the constitution was in April 2000.[1]
Drafted by the Kuomintang (KMT) as part of its third stage of national development (i.e. representative democracy), it established a centralized Republic with five branches of government. Though the Constitution was intended for the whole of China, it was neither extensively nor effectively implemented as the KMT was already fully embroiled in a civil war with the Communist Party of China by the time of its promulgation.
Following the KMT's retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Toshiba Mini NB 505-N500BL Keyboard
Period of Communist Rebellion("Temporary Provisions" for short) gave the KMT government extra-constitutional powers. Despite the Constitution, Taiwan was an authoritarian one-party state. Democratization began in the 1980s. Martial law was lifted in 1987; and the Temporary Provisions were repealed and the Constitution was amended in 1991 to reflect the government's loss of mainland China, and the Constitution finally formed the basis of a multi-party democracy.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, the Constitution's origins in mainland China led to supporters of Taiwan independence to push for a new Taiwanese Constitution.[2][3][4] However, attempts Toshiba Mini NB 505-N508BL Keyboard
by the Democratic Progressive Party administration to create a new Constitution during the second term of DPP President Chen Shui-bian failed, because the then opposition Kuomintang controlled the Legislative Yuan.[5][6] It was only agreed to reform the Constitution of the Republic of China, not to create a new one. It was lastly amended in 2005, with the consent of both the KMT and the DPP.
Contents [hide]
1 History
Toshiba Mini NB 505-N508BN Keyboard
2 Content
2.1 Three Principles of the People
3 Application in Taiwan
3.1 Suspension of the constitution and martial law
3.2 Democratization
3.3 Challenge of legitimacy
3.4 The basic four right of people
4 Referendums and constitutional reform
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]History
This section does not cite any references or sources. (February 2011)
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The original Constitutional Drafting Committee of the newly-founded Republic of China, photographed on the steps of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, where the Draft was completed in 1913.
The Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China was drawn up in March 1912 and formed the basic government document of the Republic of China until 1928. It provided a Western-style Toshiba Mini NB 505-N508TQ Keyboard
parliamentary system headed by the weak president. However, the system was quickly usurped when Song Jiaoren, who as leader of the KMT was to become prime minister following the party's victory in the 1913 elections, was assassinated under the orders of President Yuan Shikai. Yuan regularly flouted the elected assembly and assumed dictorial powers. Upon his death, China disintegrated into warlordism and the Beiyang Government operating under the Constitution remained in the hands of various military leaders.
The Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek established control over much of China by 1928. The Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110A Keyboard
Nationalist Government promulgated the Provisional Constitution of the Political Tutelage Period in 1931. Under this document, the government operated under a one-party system with supreme power held by the National Congress of the Kuomintang and effective power held by the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. In Leninist fashion, it permitted a system of dual party-state committees to form the basis of government. The KMT intended this Constitution to remain in effect until the country had been pacified and the people sufficiently "educated" to participate in democratic government.
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Seventeen National Assembly delegates selected by the ROC government to represent Taiwan Province in a photo with then President Chiang Kai-shek in 1946
The current Constitution traces its origins to the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War when the impending outbreak of the Chinese Civil War pressured Chiang Kai-shek into enacting a democratic Constitution that would put an end to KMT party rule. The Chinese Communists Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110L Keyboard
sought a coalition, made of one-third Nationalists, one-third Communists, and one-third of members from other parties, to form a coalition government that would draft the new Constitution. However, Chiang Kai-shek refused to relinquish power and insisted on having the Nationalist Government draft the Constitution and then holding nation-wide elections in which the Communists would be permitted to participate. Unable to resolve the impasse, the KMT-drafted Constitution was adopted by the National Assembly on December 25, 1946, promulgated by the National Government on January 1, 1947, and went into effect on December Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111A Keyboard
25, 1947. The Constitution was seen as the third and final stage of Kuomintang reconstruction of China. The Communists, though invited to the convention that drafted it, boycotted and declared after the ratification that not only would it not recognize the ROC constitution, but all bills passed by the Nationalist administration would be disregarded as well. Zhou Enlai challenged the legitimacy of the National Assembly in 1947 by accusing KMT hand-picked the members of the National Assembly 10 years earlier and thus could not have legal representation of the Chinese people.
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[edit]Content
The founding of the ROC was centered on the Three Principles of the People (Sān Mín Zhǔyì), which called for the establishment of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. A government for the people invoked the idea of civic nationalism, which sought to Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111C Keyboard
create unity between the five traditional ethnic groups in China (Han, Manchus, Mongols, Hui(Muslims), and Tibetans) in order to stand up to European and Japanese imperialism as one, strong nation. A government by the people sought to create a Western parliamentary democracy and a separation of powers. Originally, the National Assembly was the "parliament" of the republic, but it lost relevance in the 1990s and was abolished in 2005 with its powers transferred to the Legislative Yuan. Dr. Sun also added two branches of government from the legacy of China's imperial past to the three branches of Western governments. The five branches or Yuan Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111GNL Keyboard
(院) are: the Executive Yuan, Legislative Yuan, Judicial Yuan, Examination Yuan, and Control Yuan. While the original intent was to have a parliamentary system (as evidenced in the existence of both a president and premier), General Chiang Kai-shek largely reduced the role of the premier and concentrated more power in the presidency. As a result, the current government is in practice a semi-presidential system. A government for the people means that the government to a certain extent must provide services that are essential to the well-being of society. Examples of this principle in practice are the New Life Movement and National Health Insurance.
[Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111L Keyboard
edit]Three Principles of the People
The Three Principles of the People are Minzu, Minquan, and Minsheng, roughly defined as nationalism, democracy, and socialism.[7] See Chinese socialism.
[edit]Application in Taiwan
[edit]Suspension of the constitution and martial law
On January 10, 1947, Governor Chen Yi announced that the new ROC Constitution would not Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0111ORL Keyboard
apply to Taiwan after it went into effect in mainland China on December 25, 1947 as Taiwan was still under military occupation and also that Taiwanese were politically naive and were not capable of self-governing. Later that year, Chen Yi was dismissed and the Taiwan Provincial Government was established. From March 1947 until 1987, Taiwan was in a state of martial law. Although the constitution provided for regular democratic elections, these were not held in Taiwan until the 1990s.
On April 18, 1948, the National Assembly added to the Constitution the "Temporary Provisions Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0160 Keyboard
Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion". These articles greatly enhanced the power of the president and abolished the two term limit for the president and the vice president. In 1954, the Judicial Yuan ruled that the delegates elected to the National Assembly and Legislative Yuan in 1947 would remain in office until new elections could be held in Mainland China which had come under the control of the Communist Party of China in 1949. This judicial ruling allowed the Kuomintang to rule unchallenged in Taiwan until the 1990s. In 1991, these members were ordered to resign by a subsequent Judicial Yuan ruling.
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In the 1970s, supplemental elections began to be held for the Legislative Yuan. Although these were for a limited number of seats, they did allow for the transition to a more open political system.
[edit]Democratization
In the late 1980s, the Constitution faced the growing democratization on Taiwan combined with the mortality of the delegates that were elected in 1947. Faced with these pressures, on April 22, 1991, the first National Assembly voted itself out of office, abolished the Temporary Provisions Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0164 Keyboard
passed in 1948, and adopted major amendments (known as the "First Revision") permitting free elections.
On May 27, 1992 several other amendments were passed (known as the "Second Revision"), most notably that allowing the direct election of the President of the Republic of China, Governor of Taiwan Province, and municipal mayors. Ten new amendments to replace the eighteen amendments of the First and Second Revisions were passed on July 28, 1994. The amendments passed on July 18, 1997 streamlined the Taiwan Provincial Government and granted the Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0165 Keyboard
Legislative Yuan powers of impeachment. The constitution was subsequently revised in 1999 and 2000, with the former revision being declared void the same year by the Council of Grand Justices. A further revision of the constitution happened in 2005 which disbanded the National Assembly, reformed the Legislative Yuan, and provided for future constitutional change to be ratified by referendum.
Passing an amendment to the ROC constitution now requires an unusually broad political consensus, which includes approval from three-fourths of the quorum of members of the Toshiba NB100 Keyboard
Legislative Yuan. This quorum requires at least three-fourths of all members of the Legislature. After passing the Legislature, the amendments need ratification by at least fifty percent of all eligible voters of the ROC irrespective of voter turnout.
It should also be noted that, because the ROC constitution is, at least nominally, the constitution of all China, the amendments avoided any specific reference to the Taiwan area and instead used the geographically neutral term "Free Area of the Republic of China" to refer to all areas under ROC control. In addition, as the preamble of the amendments stated they are [t]o meet the Toshiba NB100 mini Keyboard
requisites of the nation prior to national unification, these amendments would automatically be voided in the case of Chinese reunification. As a result, all post-1991 amendments have been maintained as a separate part of the Constitution, consolidated into a single text of twelve articles.
[edit]Challenge of legitimacy
A number of criticisms have been leveled at the ROC constitution by supporters of Taiwan independence. Until the 1990s, the document was considered illegitimate by pro-independence Toshiba NB100-01E02H Keyboard
advocates because it was not drafted in Taiwan, moreover Taiwan was sovereign Japanese territory until ceded in the San Francisco Peace Treaty effective April 28, 1952. Pro-independence advocates have argued that the Constitution was never legally applied to Taiwan because Taiwan was not formally incorporated into the ROC's territory through the National Assembly, as per the specifications of Article 4. Though the constitution promulgated in 1946 did not define the territory of the Republic of China, while the draft of the constitution of 1925 individually listed the provinces of the Republic of China and Taiwan was not among them, since Taiwan was part of Toshiba NB100-01G Keyboard
Japan as the result of the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895. The constitution also stipulated in the Article I.4, that "the territory of the ROC is the original territory governed by it, unless authorized by the National Assembly, can not be altered." In 1946, Sun Fo, the minister of the Executive Yuan of ROC reported to the National Assembly that "there are two types of territory changes: 1. renouncing territory and 2. annexing new territory. The first example would be the Independence of Mongolia, and the second example would be the reclamation of Taiwan. Both would be examples of territory changes." [8] No such formal annexation of Taiwan islands by the ROC Toshiba NB100-10X Keyboard
National Assembly conforming with the ROC constitution ever occurred since 1946, even though Article 9 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China says, "The modifications of the functions, operations, and organization of the Taiwan Provincial Government may be specified by law." The Republic of China argues that sovereignty of the Republic of China over Taiwan was established by the Instrument of Surrender of Japan which implemented the Potsdam Declaration and the Cairo Declaration. The Allies have not agreed or disagreed to this rationale. In addition, the ROC argues that the Article 4 of Treaty of Taipei nullifies the Treaty of Toshiba NB100-10Y Keyboard
Shimonoseki and the original transfer of sovereignty of Taiwan from China to Japan. Since this transfer of sovereignty occurred in 1945 before the promulgation of the 1947 constitution, the ROC government is of the view that a resolution by the National Assembly was unnecessary.
While both symbolic and legal arguments have been used to discredit the application the ROC Constitution in Taiwan, the document gained more legitimacy among independence supporters throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s due to democratization and it is now accepted as the basic law of Taiwan by all of the major parties. However, there are proposals being floated, Toshiba NB100-111 Keyboard
particularly by supporters of Taiwan independence and the supporters of Taiwan localization movement, to replace the current Constitution with a document drafted by the Taiwanese constituencies in Taiwan.
[edit]The basic four right of people
Chapter 12 is the people's election, depose, formulate, four right of referendum. A great deal of items of electing in detailed regulation of the constitution, the ones that guaranteed to elect are direct, just, disclose; Stipulated that fires at the same time, formulated, the power of the Toshiba NB100-11B Keyboard
referendum, so as to ensure the civil rights are exercised.
[edit]Referendums and constitutional reform
One recent controversy involving the constitution is the right to referendum which is mentioned in the Constitution. The constitution states that "The exercise of the rights of initiative and referendum shall be prescribed by law",[9] but legislation prescribing the practices had been blocked by the pan-blue coalition largely out of suspicions that proponents of a referendum law Toshiba NB100-11G Keyboard
would be used to overturn the ROC Constitution and provide a means to declare Taiwan independence.[citation needed] A referendum law was passed on 27 November 2003[10] and signed by President Chen Shui-bian on 31 December 2003,[11] but the law sets high standards for referendums such as the requirement that they can only be called by the President in times of imminent attack.[11]
In 2003, President Chen Shui-bian proposed holding a referendum in 2006 for implementing an entirely new constitution on May 20, 2008 to coincide with the inauguration of the 12th-term Toshiba NB100-11J Keyboard
president of the ROC. Proponents of such a move, namely the Pan-Green Coalition, argue that the current Constitution endorses a specific ideology (i.e., the Three Principles of the People), which is only appropriate for Communist states; in addition, they argue that a more "efficient" government is needed to cope with changing realities.[citation needed] Some proponents support replacing the five-branch structure outlined by the Three Principles of the People with a three-branch government. Others cite the current deadlock between the executive and legislative branches and support replacing the presidential system with a parliamentary system. Toshiba NB100-11R Keyboard
Furthermore, the current Constitution explicitly states before the amendments implemented on Taiwan, "To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification...", in direct opposition to the pan-green position that Taiwan must remain separated from the mainland. In response, the pan-blue coalition dropped its opposition to non-constitutional referendums and offered to consider through going constitutional reforms.[citation needed]
The proposal to implement an entirely new constitution met with strong opposition from the People's Republic of China and great unease from the United States, both of which feared the Toshiba NB100-127 Keyboard
proposal to rewrite the constitution to be a veiled effort to achieve Taiwan independence, as it would sever a legal link to mainland China, and to circumvent Chen's original Four Noes and One Without pledge.[citation needed] In December 2003, the United States announced its opposition to any referendum that would tend to move Taiwan toward independence, a statement that was widely seen as being directed at Chen's constitutional proposals.[citation needed]
In response, the Pan-Blue Coalition attempted to argue that a new constitution and constitutional referendums were unnecessary and that the inefficiencies in the ROC Constitution Toshiba NB100-128 Keyboard
could be approved through the normal legislative process.[citation needed]
In his May 20, 2004 inaugural address, Chen called for a "Constitutional Reform Committee" to be formed by "members of the ruling party and the opposition parties, as well as legal experts, academic scholars and representatives from all fields and spanning all social classes" to decide on the proper reforms. He promised that the new Constitution would not change the issue of sovereignty and territory. This proposal went nowhere due to lack of cooperation from the opposition Pan-Blue.[citation needed]
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The current President Ma Ying-jeou has stated that constitutional reform is not a priority for his
government.[citation needed]
The domestic cat
The domestic cat[1][2] (Felis catus[2] or Felis silvestris catus[4], previously Felis domesticus[6][7]) is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal. It is often called the housecat when kept as an indoor pet,[8] or simply the cat when there is no need to distinguish it from other felids and felines. Cats are valued by humans for companionship and ability to hunt vermin and household pests. They are primarily nocturnal.[9]
Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felids, with strong, flexible bodies, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted to killing small prey. As crepuscular predators, cats use their Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
acute hearing and ability to see in near darkness to locate prey. Not only can cats hear sounds too faint for human ears, they can also hear sounds higher in frequency than humans can perceive. The usual prey of cats (particularly rodents such as mice) make high frequency noises, so being able to pinpoint these faint high-pitched sounds gave cats' ancestors an evolutionary advantage. Cats also have a much better sense of smell than humans.
Despite being solitary hunters, cats are a social species, and cat communication includes the use of a variety of vocalizations (meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting) as well as Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
pheromones and types of cat-specific body language.[10]
Cats have a rapid breeding rate. Under controlled breeding, they can be bred and shown as registered pedigree pets, a hobby known as cat fancy. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by spaying and neutering and the abandonment of former household pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, with a population of up to 60 million of these animals in the United States alone, while in Japan they are caught and disposed of.[11]
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Since cats were cult animals in ancient Egypt, they were commonly believed to have been domesticated there,[12] but there may have been instances of domestication as early as the Neolithic.[13] A genetic study in 2007 revealed that all house cats are descended from as few as five female African Wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) c. 8000 BCE, in the Middle East.[12][14] Cats are currently the most popular pet in the world, now found almost everywhere in the world.[15]
Contents [hide]
1 Nomenclature and etymology
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2 Taxonomy and evolution
3 Genetics
4 Anatomy
5 Physiology
6 Senses
7 Health
7.1 Diseases
7.2 Poisoning
8 Behavior
8.1 Sociability
8.2 Grooming
8.3 Fighting
8.4 Hunting and feeding
8.5 Play
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8.6 Reproduction
8.7 Vocalizations
9 Ecology
9.1 Habitats
9.2 Impact on prey species
9.3 Impact on birds
10 Cats and humans
11 Feral cats
12 History and mythology
13 See also
14 References
15 External links
15.1 Anatomy
15.2 Articles
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Nomenclature and etymology
The English word cat (Old English catt) is in origin a loanword, introduced to many languages of Europe from Latin cattus and Byzantine Greek κάτια, including Portuguese and Spanish gato, French chat, German Katze, Lithuanian katė and Old Church Slavonic kotka, among others. The ultimate source of the word is Afro-Asiatic, presumably from Late Egyptian čaute, the feminine of čaus "African wildcat". The word was introduced (together with the domestic animal) to the IBM Thinkpad T61 Keyboard
Roman Republic by the 1st century BCE. An alternative word with cognates in many languages is English puss (pussycat). Attested only from the 16th century, it may have been introduced from Dutch poes or from Low German puuskatte, related to Swedish kattepus, or Norwegian pus, pusekatt. The etymology of this word is unknown, but it appears to reflect the native Germanic name of the animal.[16]
Classification based on human interaction[17]
Population Food source Shelter Socialized
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Pedigree Fed by owner Human homes Yes
Pet Fed by owner Human homes Yes
Semi-feral General feeding Buildings Yes
Feral General feeding/foraging Buildings No
While wildcats are the ancestral species from which domestic cats are descended, there are several intermediate stages between domestic pet and pedigree cats and these entirely wild cats. The semi-feral cat is a cat that is not owned by any one individual, but is generally friendly to Acer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
people and may be fed by several households. Feral cats are associated with human habitations and may be fed by people or forage in rubbish, but are wary of human interaction.[17]
A group of cats is referred to as a "clowder", a male cat is called a "tom" (or a "gib", if neutered), and a female is called a "molly" or "queen". The male progenitor of a cat, especially a pedigreed cat, is its "sire", and its female progenitor is its "dam". An immature cat is called a "kitten". In English of the early modern period, the word kitten was interchangeable with the word catling.
A cat whose ancestry is formally registered is called a pedigreed cat, purebred cat, or a show cat. Sony VAIO VGN-SZ680N Keyboard
In strict terms, a pure-bred cat is one whose ancestry contains only individuals of the same breed. A pedigreed cat is one whose ancestry is recorded, but may have ancestors of different breeds. Cats of unrecorded mixed ancestry are referred to as domestic longhairs and domestic shorthairs or commonly as random-bred, moggies, mongrels, or mutt-cats.
Taxonomy and evolution
Main article: Cat evolution
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The wildcat Felis silvestris is a close relative and possible ancestor of the domestic cat.
The Felids are a rapidly evolving family of mammals that share a common ancestor only 10–15 million years ago,[18] and include, in addition to the domestic cat, lions, tigers, cougars, and many others. Within this family, domestic cats (Felis catus) are part of the genus Felis, which is a group of small cats containing seven species.[1][19] Members of the genus are found worldwide Sony VAIO VGN-SZ660N/C Keyboard
and include the Jungle Cat (Felis chaus) of southeast Asia, the African Wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), the Chinese Mountain Cat (Felis bieti) and the Arabian Sand Cat (Felis margarita).[20]
All the cats in this genus share a common ancestor that probably lived around 6–7 million years ago in Asia.[21] Although the exact relationships within the Felidae are still uncertain,[22][23] both the Chinese Mountain Cat and the African Wildcat are close relatives of the domestic cat and are both classed as subspecies of the Wildcat Felis silvestris.[4][22] As domestic cats are little altered from wildcats, they can readily interbreed. This hybridization may pose a danger to the Asus A6F Keyboard
genetic distinctiveness of wildcat populations, particularly in Scotland and Hungary.[24]
The domestic cat was first classified as Felis catus by Carolus Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae of 1758.[1][3] However, because of modern phylogenetics, domestic cats are now usually regarded as another subspecies of the Wildcat Felis silvestris.[1][4][25] This has resulted in mixed usage of the terms, as the domestic cat can be called by its subspecies name, Felis silvestris catus.[1][4][25] Wildcats have also been referred to as various subspecies of F. catus,[25] but in 2003 the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature fixed the name HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo Keyboard
for wildcats as F. silvestris.[26] The most common name in use for the domestic cat remains F. catus, following a convention for domesticated animals of using the earliest (the senior) synonym proposed.[26] Sometimes the domestic cat is called Felis domesticus[27] or Felis domestica,[1] the term coined by German naturalist Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben in 1777. These are not valid taxonomic names, and Linnaeus's binomial takes precedence.[28]
Cats have either a mutualistic or commensal relationship with humans. However, in comparison to dogs, cats have not undergone major changes during the domestication process, as the form Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
and behavior of the domestic cat are not radically different from those of wildcats, and domestic cats are perfectly capable of surviving in the wild.[29][30] This limited evolution during domestication means that domestic cats tend to interbreed freely with feral cats, which distinguishes them from other domesticated animals.[17] However, several natural behaviors and characteristics of wildcats may have preadapted them for domestication as pets.[30] These traits include their small size, social nature, obvious body language, love of play and relatively high intelligence;[31]:12–17 they may also have an inborn tendency towards tameness.[30]
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There are two main theories about how cats were domesticated. In one, people deliberately tamed cats in a process of artificial selection, as they were useful predators of vermin.[32] However, this has been criticized as implausible, because there may have been little reward for such an effort: cats generally do not carry out commands and, although they do eat rodents, other species such as ferrets or terriers may be better at controlling these pests.[4] The alternative idea is that cats were simply tolerated by people and gradually diverged from their 'wild' relatives through natural selection, as they adapted to hunting the vermin found around Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
humans in towns and villages.[4]
Genetics
Main article: Cat genetics
The domesticated cat and its closest wild ancestor are both diploid organisms that possess 38 chromosomes[33] and roughly 20,000 genes.[34] About 250 heritable genetic disorders have been identified in cats, many similar to human inborn errors.[35] The high level of similarity Packard Bell PEW71 keyboard
among the metabolisms of mammals allows many of these feline diseases to be diagnosed using genetic tests that were originally developed for use in humans, as well as the use of cats in the study of the human diseases.[36][37]
Anatomy
Main article: Cat anatomy
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Diagram of the general anatomy of a male
Domestic cats are similar in size to the other members of the genus Felis, typically weighing between 4 kilograms (8 lb 13 oz) and 5 kilograms (11 lb 0 oz).[22] However, some breeds, such as the Maine Coon, can exceed 11 kilograms (25 lb). Conversely, very small cats (less than 1.8 kilograms (3 lb 15 oz)) have been reported.[38] The world record for the largest cat is 21.297 kilograms (46 lb 15.2 oz).[39] The smallest adult cat ever officially recorded weighed around 1.36 Compaq Presario CQ50-130US Keyboard
kilograms (3 lb).[40] Cats average about 23–25 centimeters (9–10 in) in height and 46 centimeters (18.1 in) in head/body length (males being larger than females), with tails averaging 30 centimeters (11.8 in) in length.[41]
Cats have 7 cervical vertebrae like almost all mammals, 13 thoracic vertebrae (humans have 12), 7 lumbar vertebrae (humans have 5), 3 sacral vertebrae like most mammals (humans have 5 because of their bipedal posture), and a variable number of caudal vertebrae in the tail (humans retain 3 to 5 caudal vertebrae, fused into an internal coccyx).[42]:11 The extra lumbar and Acer AEZR1R00110 Keyboard
thoracic vertebrae account for the cat's spinal mobility and flexibility. Attached to the spine are 13 ribs, the shoulder, and the pelvis.[42] :16 Unlike human arms, cat forelimbs are attached to the shoulder by free-floating clavicle bones, which allow them to pass their body through any space into which they can fit their heads.[43]
Skull
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The cat skull is unusual among mammals in having very large eye sockets and a powerful and specialized jaw.[44]:35 Within the jaw, cats have teeth adapted for killing prey and tearing meat. When it overpowers its prey, a cat delivers a lethal neck bite with its two long canine teeth, inserting them between two of the prey's vertebrae and severing its spinal cord, causing irreversible paralysis and death.[45] Compared to other felines, domestic cats have narrowly spaced canine teeth; which is an adaptation to their preferred prey of small rodents, which have small vertebrae.[45] The premolar and first molar together compose the carnassial pair on each IBM Thinkpad R60 Keyboard
side of the mouth, which efficiently shears meat into small pieces, like a pair of scissors. These are vital in feeding, since cats' small molars cannot chew food effectively.[44]:37
Cats, like dogs, are digitigrades. They walk directly on their toes, with the bones of their feet making up the lower part of the visible leg.[46] Cats are capable of walking very precisely, because like all felines they directly register; that is, they place each hind paw (almost) directly in the print of the corresponding forepaw, minimizing noise and visible tracks. This also provides sure footing for their hind paws when they navigate rough terrain. Unlike most mammals, when Sony VAIO VPCF12AFM/H Keyboard
cats walk, they use a "pacing" gait; that is, they move the two legs on one side of the body before the legs on the other side. This trait is shared with camels and giraffes. As a walk speeds up into a trot, a cat's gait will change to be a "diagonal" gait, similar to other mammals: the diagonally opposite hind and forelegs will move simultaneously.[47]
Like almost all members of the Felidae family, cats have protractable claws.[48] In their normal, relaxed position the claws are sheathed with the skin and fur around the toe pads. This keeps the claws sharp by preventing wear from contact with the ground and allows the silent stalking of Sony VGN-FE865E/H Keyboard
prey. The claws on the forefeet are typically sharper than those on the hind feet.[49] Cats can voluntarily extend their claws on one or more paws. They may extend their claws in hunting or self-defense, climbing, "kneading", or for extra traction on soft surfaces. Most cats have five claws on their front paws, and four on their rear paws.[50] The fifth front claw (the dewclaw) is proximal to the other claws. More proximally, there is a protrusion which appears to be a sixth "finger". This special feature of the front paws, on the inside of the wrists, is the carpal pad, also found on the paws of big cats and dogs. It has no function in normal walking, but is thought to be Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
an anti-skidding device used while jumping. Some breeds of cats are prone to polydactylyism, and may have eight or even ten toes.[50] These are particularly common along the North-East coast of North America.[51]
Physiology
Normal physiological values[52]:330
Body temperature 38.6 °C (101.5 °F)
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Heart rate 120–140 beats per minute
Breathing rate 16–40 breaths per minute
As cats are familiar and easily kept animals, their physiology has been particularly well studied; it generally resembles that of other carnivorous mammals but displays several unusual features probably attributable to cats' descent from desert-dwelling species.[27] For instance, cats are able to tolerate quite high temperatures: humans generally start to feel uncomfortable when their skin temperature passes about 44.5 °C (112 °F), but cats show no discomfort until their skin Compaq Presario CQ71 Series Keyboard
reaches around 52 °C (126 °F),[44]:46 and can tolerate temperatures of up to 56 °C (133 °F) if they have access to water.[53]
Cats conserve heat by reducing the flow of blood to their skin and lose heat by evaporation through their mouth. They do not sweat, and pant only at very high temperatures.[54] Unusually, a cat's body temperature does not vary throughout the day; this is part of cats' general lack of circadian rhythms and may reflect their tendency to be active both during the day and at night.[55]:1 Cats' feces are usually dry and their urine is also highly concentrated, both of which Dell Inspiron N4020 Keyboard
are adaptations that allow cats to retain as much fluid as possible.[27] Their kidneys are so efficient that cats can survive on a diet consisting only of meat, with no additional water,[56] and can even rehydrate by drinking seawater.[55]:29[57]
Cats are obligate carnivores: their physiology has evolved to efficiently process meat, and they have difficulty digesting plant matter.[27] In contrast to omnivores such as rats, which only require about 4% protein in their diet, about 20% of a cat's diet must be protein.[27] Cats are unusually dependent on a constant supply of the amino acid arginine, and a diet lacking arginine HP 505999-001 Keyboard
causes marked weight loss and can be rapidly fatal.[58] Another unusual feature is that the cat also cannot produce the amino acid taurine, with taurine deficiency causing macular degeneration, where the cat's retina slowly degenerates, causing irreversible blindness.[27] Since cats tend to eat all of their prey, they obtain minerals by digesting animal bones, and a diet composed only of meat may cause calcium deficiency.[27]
A cat's digestive tract is also adapted to meat eating, being much shorter than that of omnivores and having low levels of several of the digestive enzymes that are needed to digest Acer Extensa 5635G 5635Z Keyboard
carbohydrates.[59] These traits severely limit the cat's ability to digest and use plant-derived nutrients, as well as certain fatty acids.[59] Despite the cat's meat-oriented physiology, several vegetarian or vegan cat foods have been marketed that are supplemented with chemically synthesized taurine and other nutrients, in attempts to produce a complete diet. However, some of these products still fail to provide all the nutrients that cats require,[60] and diets containing no animal products pose the risk of causing severe nutritional deficiencies.[61]
Cats also eat grass occasionally. Proposed explanations include that grass is a source of folic acid Acer PK1301K0100 Keyboard
or dietary fiber.[62]
Senses
Main article: Cat senses
Eyes of a tabby cat
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Cats have excellent night vision and can see at only one-sixth the light level required for human vision.[44]:43 This is partly the result of cat eyes having a tapetum lucidum, which reflects any light that passes through the retina back into the eye, thereby increasing the eye's sensitivity to dim light.[63] Another adaptation to dim light is the large pupils of cats' eyes. Unlike some big cats, such as tigers, domestic cats have slit pupils.[64] These slit pupils can focus bright light without chromatic aberration, and are needed since the domestic cat's pupils are much larger, relative to their eyes, than the pupils of the big cats.[64] Indeed, at low light levels a cat's pupils Sony Vaio PCG-K215Z Keyboard
will expand to cover most of the exposed surface of its eyes.[65] However, domestic cats have rather poor color vision and (like most non-primate mammals) have only two types of cones, optimized for sensitivity to blue and yellowish green; they have limited ability to distinguish between red and green,[66] although they can achieve this in some conditions.[67]
Cats' whiskers are highly sensitive to touch.
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Cats have excellent hearing and can detect an extremely broad range of frequencies. They can hear higher-pitched sounds than either dogs or humans, detecting frequencies from 55 Hz up to 79 kHz, a range of 10.5 octaves; while humans can only hear from 31 Hz up to 18 kHz, and dogs hear from 67 Hz to 44 kHz, which are both ranges of about 9 octaves.[68][69] Cats do not use this ability to hear ultrasound for communication but it is probably important in hunting,[70] since many species of rodents make ultrasonic calls.[71] Cat hearing is also extremely sensitive and is among the best of any mammal,[68] being most acute in the range of 500 Hz to 32 kHz.[72] This HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
sensitivity is further enhanced by the cat's large movable outer ears (their pinnae), which both amplify sounds and help a cat sense the direction from which a noise is coming.[70]
Cats have an acute sense of smell, which is due in part to their well-developed olfactory bulb and also to a large surface of olfactory mucosa, in cats this mucosa is about 5.8 cm2 in area, which is about twice that of humans and only 1.7-fold less than the average dog.[73] Cats are very sensitive to pheromones such as 3-mercapto-3-methylbutan-1-ol,[74] which they use to communicate through urine spraying and marking with scent glands.[75] Cats also respond HP Mini 210-2090nr Keyboard
strongly to plants that contain nepetalactone, especially catnip, as they can detect that substance at less than one part per billion.[76] This response is also produced by other plants, such as Silver Vine and valerian, and may be caused by the smell of these plants mimicking a pheromone and stimulating cats' social or sexual behaviors.[77]
Cats have relatively few taste buds compared to humans. Owing to a mutation in an early cat ancestor, one of two genes necessary to taste sweetness may have been lost by the cat family.[78] Their taste buds instead respond to amino acids, bitter tastes and acids.[79] To aid with Toshiba Satellite pro 4280xdvd Keyboard
navigation and sensation, cats have dozens of movable vibrissae (whiskers) over their body, especially their face. These provide information on the width of gaps and on the location of objects in the dark, both by touching objects directly and by sensing air currents; they also trigger protective blink reflexes to protect the eyes from damage.[44]:47
Health
Main article: Cat health
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The average life expectancy for male indoor cats at birth is around 12 to 14 years,[80] with females usually living a year or two longer.[81] However, there have been reports of cats reaching into their 30s,[82] with the oldest known cat, Creme Puff, dying at a verified age of 38.[83] Feline life expectancy has increased significantly in recent decades.[84] Having a cat neutered or spayed confers some health benefits, since castrated males cannot develop testicular cancer, spayed females cannot develop uterine or ovarian cancer, and both have a reduced risk of mammary cancer.[85] The lifespan of feral cats is hard to determine accurately, although one study reported Compaq Presario CQ60-310eq Keyboard
a median age of 4.7 years, with a range between 0 to 8.3 years.[86]
Diseases
Cats can suffer from a wide range of health problems, including infectious diseases, parasites, injuries and chronic disease. Vaccinations are available for many of these diseases, and domestic cats are regularly given treatments to eliminate parasites such as worms and fleas.
Poisoning
In addition to obvious dangers such as rodenticides, insecticides and weed killers, cats may be FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
poisoned by many chemicals that are usually considered safe.[87] This is because their livers are less effective at some forms of detoxification than those of other animals, including humans and dogs.[27][88] Some of the most common causes of poisoning in cats are antifreeze and rodent baits.[89] It has also been suggested that cats may be particularly sensitive to environmental pollutants.[87][90] When a cat has a sudden or prolonged serious illness without any obvious cause, it is possible that it has been exposed to a toxin.[citation needed]
Human medicines should never be given to cats. For example, the painkiller paracetamol (also Sony VAIO VGN-N250E/B Keyboard
called acetaminophen, sold as Tylenol and Panadol) is extremely toxic to cats: even very small doses need immediate treatment and can be fatal.[91][92] Even aspirin, which is sometimes used to treat arthritis in cats, is much more toxic to them than to humans and must be administered cautiously.[87] Similarly, application of minoxidil (Rogaine) to the skin of cats, either accidentally or by well-meaning owners attempting to counter loss of fur, has sometimes been fatal.[93] Essential oils can be toxic to cats and there have been reported cases of serious illnesses caused by tea tree oil, and tea tree oil-based flea treatments and shampoos.[94]
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Other common household substances that should be used with caution around cats include mothballs and other naphthalene products.[87] Phenol-based products (Pine-Sol, Dettol (Lysol) or hexachlorophene)[87] are often used for cleaning and disinfecting near cats' feeding areas or litter boxes but these can sometimes be fatal.[95] Ethylene glycol, often used as an automotive antifreeze, is particularly appealing to cats, and as little as a teaspoonful can be fatal.[96] Some human foods are toxic to cats; for example theobromine in chocolate can cause theobromine poisoning, although few cats will eat chocolate.[97] Large amounts of onions or garlic are also HP 640208-001 Keyboard
poisonous to cats.[87] Many houseplants are also dangerous,[98] such as Philodendron species and the leaves of the Easter Lily, which can cause permanent and life-threatening kidney damage.[99]
Behavior
See also: Cat behavior, cat communication, cognition in cats, and cat intelligence
Free-ranging cats are active both day and night, although they tend to be slightly more active at Toshiba Satellite L755D-SP5165RM Keyboard
night.[100][101] The timing of cats' activity is quite flexible and varied, which means that house cats may be more active in the morning and evening (crepuscular behavior), as a response to greater human activity at these times.[102] House cats have territories that vary considerably in size, in one study ranging from seven to 28 hectares (69 acres).[101] Although they spend the majority of their time in the vicinity of their home, they can range many hundreds of meters from this central point.[101] Cats conserve energy by sleeping more than most animals, especially as they grow older. The daily duration of sleep varies, usually 12–16 hours, with 13–14 being the Dell 0NK831 Keyboard
average. Some cats can sleep as much as 20 hours in a 24-hour period. The term cat nap refers to the cat's ability to fall asleep (lightly) for a brief period and has entered the English lexicon—someone who nods off for a few minutes is said to be "taking a cat nap". During sleep cats experience short periods of rapid eye movement sleep accompanied by muscle twitches, which suggests that they are dreaming.[103]
Sociability
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Social grooming in a pair
Although wildcats are solitary, the social behavior of domestic cats is much more variable and ranges from widely dispersed individuals to feral cat colonies that form around a food source, based on groups of co-operating females.[104][105] Within such groups one cat is usually dominant over the others.[106] Each cat in a colony holds a distinct territory, with sexually active males having the largest territories, which are about ten times larger than those of female cats Packard Bell NEW90 keyboard
and may overlap with several females' territories.[75] These territories are marked by urine spraying, by rubbing objects at head height with secretions from facial glands and by defecation.[75] Between these territories are neutral areas where cats watch and greet one another without territorial conflicts. Outside these neutral areas, territory holders usually chase away stranger cats, at first by staring, hissing, and growling, and if that does not work, by short but noisy and violent attacks. Despite some cats cohabiting in colonies, cats do not have a social survival strategy, or a pack mentality and always hunt alone.[107]
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Domestic cats use many vocalizations for communication, including purring, trilling, hissing, growling, snarling and several different forms of meowing.[10] In contrast, feral cats are generally silent.[108]:208 Their types of body language, including position of ears and tail, relaxation of whole body, and kneading of paws, are all indicators of mood. The tail and ears are particularly important social signal in cats, with a raised tail acting as a friendly greeting.[109][110] Tail raising also indicates the cat's position in the group's social hierarchy, with dominant individuals raising their tails less often than subordinate animals.[110] Nose-touching is also a common greeting Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
and may be followed by social grooming, which is solicited by one of the cats raising and tilting its head.[105] However, some pet cats are poorly socialized. In particular older cats may show aggressiveness towards newly arrived kittens, which may include biting and scratching; this type of behavior is known as Feline Asocial Aggression.[111]
For cats, life in proximity with humans (and other animals kept by humans) amounts to a "symbiotic social adaptation". They may express great affection towards their human companions, especially if they imprint on them at a very young age and are treated with Sony VAIO VGN-CR320D Keyboard
consistent affection. It has been suggested that, ethologically, the human keeper of a cat functions as a sort of surrogate for the cat's mother, and that adult domestic cats live their lives in a kind of extended kittenhood, a form of behavioral neoteny.[112] Conversely, the high-pitched purrs cats make to solicit food may mimic the cries of a hungry human infant, making them particularly hard for humans to ignore.[113]
Grooming
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The hooked papillae on a cat's tongue act like a hairbrush to help clean and detangle fur.
Cats intimidate opponents by arching their backs, raising their fur, turning sideways, and hissing.
Cats are known for their cleanliness, spending many hours licking their coats.[114] The cat's tongue has backwards-facing spines about 500 micrometers long, which are called papillae. Dell PVDG3 Keyboard
These are quite rigid, as they contain keratin.[115] These spines allow cats to groom themselves by licking their fur, with the rows of papillae acting like a hairbrush. Some cats, particularly longhaired cats, occasionally regurgitate hairballs of fur that have collected in their stomachs from grooming. These clumps of fur are usually sausage-shaped and about two to three centimeters long. Hairballs can be prevented with remedies that ease elimination of the hair through the gut, as well as regular grooming of the coat with a comb or stiff brush.[114] Some cats can develop a compulsive behavior known as psychogenic alopecia, or excessive Acer Aspire One D250-1326 Keyboard
grooming.[116]
Fighting
With domestic cats, males are more likely to fight than females.[117] With feral cats, the most common reason for cat fighting is competition between two males to mate with a female: here most fights will be won by the heavier male.[118] Another possible reason for fighting in domestic cats is the difficulty of establishing territories within a small home.[117] Female cats will also fight over territory or to defend their kittens. Spaying females and neutering males will Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
decrease or eliminate this behavior in many cases, suggesting that the behavior is linked to sex hormones.
When fighting, cats make themselves appear more impressive and threatening by raising their fur, arching their backs, and turning sideways, thus increasing their apparent size.[109] Often, the ears are pointed down and back to avoid damage to the inner ear and potentially listen for any changes behind them while focused forward. They may also vocalize loudly and bare their teeth in an effort to further intimidate their opponent. Fights usually comprise of grappling and Packard Bell NEW95 keyboard
delivering powerful slaps to the face and body with the forepaws as well as bites. Cats will also throw themselves to the ground in a defensive posture to rake their opponent's belly with their powerful hind legs.[119] Serious damage is rare as the fights are usually short in duration, with the loser running away with little more than a few scratches to the face and ears. However, fights for mating rights are typically more severe and injuries may include deep puncture wounds and lacerations. Normally, serious injuries from fighting will be limited to infections of scratches and bites, though these can occasionally kill cats if untreated. In addition, bites are probably the main HP Envy 15-1050es Keyboard
route of transmission of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV).[120] Sexually active males will usually be involved in many fights during their lives, and often have decidedly battered faces with obvious scars and cuts to the ears and nose.
Hunting and feeding
Cats feed on small prey, primarily birds and rodents.[121] Feral cats and house cats that are free-fed tend to consume many small meals in a single day, although the frequency and size of meals varies between individuals.[107] Cats use two hunting strategies, either stalking prey HP G72-110EL Keyboard
actively, or waiting in ambush until an animal comes close enough to be captured. Although it is not certain, the type of strategy used may depend on the prey species in the area, with for example, cats waiting in ambush outside burrows, but tending to actively stalk birds.[122]:153
Most breeds of cat have a noted fondness for settling in high places, or perching. In the wild, a higher place may serve as a concealed site from which to hunt; domestic cats may strike prey by pouncing from such a perch as a tree branch, as does a leopard.[123] Other possible explanations include that height gives the cat a better observation point, allowing it to survey its territory. Sony VAIO VGN-N21Z Keyboard
During a fall from a high place, a cat can reflexively twist its body and right itself using its acute sense of balance and flexibility.[124] This is known as the cat's "righting reflex". It always rights itself in the same way, provided it has the time to do so, during a fall. The height required for this to occur is around 90 cm (3 feet). Cats without a tail also have this ability, since a cat mostly moves its hind legs and relies on conservation of angular momentum to set up for landing, and the tail is in fact little used for this feat.[125] This leads to the proverb "a cat always lands on its feet".
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Eating a house sparrow.
One poorly understood element of cat hunting behavior is the presentation of prey to human owners. Ethologist Paul Leyhausen proposed that cats adopt humans into their social group, and share excess kill with others in the group according to the local pecking order, in which humans are placed at or near the top.[126] Anthropologist and animal scientist Desmond Morris, in his Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
1986 book Catwatching, suggests that when cats bring home mice or birds, they are teaching their human to hunt, or helping their human as if feeding "an elderly cat, or an inept kitten".[127] Morris's theory is inconsistent with the fact that male cats also bring home prey, despite males having no involvement with raising kittens.[122]:153
Domestic cats select food based on its temperature, smell and texture, strongly disliking chilled foods and responding most strongly to moist foods rich in amino acids, which are similar to meat.[61][107] Cats may reject novel flavors (a response termed neophobia) and learn quickly to Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
avoid foods that have tasted unpleasant in the past.[107] They may also avoid sugary foods and milk; since they are lactose intolerant, these sugars are not easily digested and may cause soft stools or diarrhea.[107][128] They can also develop odd eating habits. Some cats like to eat or chew on other things, most commonly wool, but also plastic, paper, string, aluminum foil/Christmas tree tinsel, or even coal. This condition is called pica and can threaten their health, depending on the amount and toxicity of the items eaten.[129][130]
Since cats cannot fully close their lips around something to create suction, they use a lapping Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
method with the tongue to draw liquid upwards into their mouths. Lapping at a rate of four times a second, the cat touches the smooth tip of its tongue to the surface of the water, and quickly retracts it, drawing water upwards.[131]
Play
Main article: Cat play and toys
Domestic cats, especially young kittens, are known for their love of play. This behavior mimics hunting and is important in helping kittens learn to stalk, capture, and kill prey.[132] Cats will also Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
engage in play fighting, with each other and with humans. This behavior may be a way for cats to practice the skills needed for real combat, and might also reduce any fear they associate with launching attacks on other animals.[133]
Owing to the close similarity between play and hunting, cats prefer to play with objects that resemble prey, such as small furry toys that move rapidly, but rapidly lose interest (they become habituated) in a toy they have played with before.[134] Cats also tend to play with toys more when they are hungry.[135] String is often used as a toy, but if it is eaten it can become caught at Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
the base of the cat's tongue and then move into the intestines, a medical emergency which can cause serious illness and death.[136] Owing to the risks posed by cats eating string, it is sometimes replaced with a laser pointer's dot, which cats may chase.[137] While concerns have been raised about the safety of these lasers, Professor John Marshall, an ophthalmologist at St Thomas' Hospital, has stated that it would be "virtually impossible" to blind a cat with a laser pointer.[138]
Reproduction
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A newborn kitten
When cats mate, the tomcat (male) bites the scruff of the female's neck as she assumes a position conducive to mating known as lordosis behavior.
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Female cats are seasonally polyestrous, which means they may have many periods of heat over the course of a year, the season beginning in spring and ending in late autumn. Heat periods occur about every two weeks and last about 4 to 7 days.[139] Multiple males will be attracted to a female in heat. The males will fight over her, and the victor wins the right to mate. At first, the female will reject the male, but eventually the female will allow the male to mate. The female will utter a loud yowl as the male pulls out of her. This is because a male cat's penis has a band of about 120–150 backwards-pointing spines, which are about one millimeter long;[140] upon HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo Keyboard
withdrawal of the penis, the spines rake the walls of the female's vagina, which is a trigger for ovulation. This act also occurs to clear the vagina of other sperm in the context of a second (or more) mating, thus giving the later males a larger chance of conception.[citation needed]
After mating, the female will wash her vulva thoroughly. If a male attempts to mate with her at this point, the female will attack him. After about 20 to 30 minutes, once the female is finished grooming, the cycle will repeat.[139]
Because ovulation is not always triggered by a single mating, females may not be impregnated by Toshiba Satellite L775-S7243 Keyboard
the first male with which they mate.[141] Furthermore, cats are superfecund; that is, a female may mate with more than one male when she is in heat, with the result that different kittens in a litter may have different fathers.[139]
The gestation period for cats is between 64–67 days, with an average length of 66 days.[142] The size of a litter averages three to five kittens, with the first litter usually smaller than subsequent litters. Kittens are weaned at between six and seven weeks, and cats normally reach sexual maturity at 5–10 months (females) and to 5–7 months (males), although this can vary depending Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
on breed.[139] Females can have two to three litters per year, so may produce up to 150 kittens in their breeding span of around ten years.[139]
Cats are ready to go to new homes at about 12 weeks old,[143] or when they are ready to leave their mother. Cats can be surgically sterilized (spayed or castrated) as early as 7 weeks to limit unwanted reproduction.[144] This surgery also prevents undesirable sex-related behavior, such as aggression, territory marking (spraying urine) in males and yowling (calling) in females. Traditionally, this surgery was performed at around six to nine months of age, but it is HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
increasingly being performed prior to puberty, at about three to six months.[145] In the USA approximately 80% of household cats are neutered.[146]
Vocalizations
Main article: Cat communication
The cat is a very vocal animal. Known for its trademark purring, it also produces a wide variety of other sounds.
The mechanism by which cats purr is elusive. The cat has no unique anatomical feature that is HP Mini 210-2090nr Keyboard
clearly responsible for the sound.[147] It was, until recent times, believed that only the cats of the Felis genus could purr.[148] However, felids of the Panthera genus (Tiger, Lion, Jaguar and Leopard) also produce sounds similar to purring, but only when exhaling.
Further information: Purr
Ecology
Habitats
HP G72-110EL Keyboard
A Black cat under the snow.
Cats are a cosmopolitan species and are found across much of the world.[29] They are extremely adaptable and are now present on all continents except Antarctica, and on 118 of the 131 main groups of islands – even on sub-Antarctic islands such as the Kerguelen Islands.[149][150] Feral cats can live in forests, grasslands, tundra, coastal areas, agricultural land, scrublands, urban IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
areas and wetlands.[151] Their habitats even include small oceanic islands with no human inhabitants.[152] This ability to thrive in almost any terrestrial habitat has led to the cat's designation as one of the world's worst invasive species.[153] Despite this general adaptability, the close relatives of domestic cats, the African Wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica) and the Arabian Sand Cat (Felis margarita) both inhabit desert environments,[4] and domestic cats still show similar adaptations and behaviors.[27]
Impact on prey species
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Young feral cat eating a cottontail rabbit.
To date, there are few scientific data available to assess the impact of cat predation on prey populations. Even well-fed domestic cats may hunt and kill, mainly catching small mammals, but also birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates.[121][154] Hunting by domestic cats may be contributing to the decline in the numbers of birds in urban areas, although the importance of HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
this effect remains controversial.[155] In the wild, the introduction of feral cats during human settlement can threaten native species with extinction.[152] In many cases controlling or eliminating the populations of non-native cats can produce a rapid recovery in native animals.[156] However, the ecological role of introduced cats can be more complicated: for example, cats can control the numbers of rats, which also prey on birds' eggs and young, so in some cases eliminating a cat population can actually accelerate the decline of an endangered bird species in the presence of a mesopredator, controlled by cats.[157]
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In the Southern Hemisphere, cats are a particular problem in landmasses such as Australasia, where cat species have never been native and there were few equivalent native medium-sized mammalian predators.[158] Native species such as the New Zealand Kakapo and the Australian Bettong, for example, tend to be more ecologically vulnerable and behaviorally "naive" to predation by feral cats.[159] Feral cats have had a major impact on these native species and have played a leading role in the endangerment and extinction of many animals.[160]
Cat numbers in the UK are growing annually and their abundance is far above the "natural" Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
carrying capacity, because their population sizes are independent of their prey's dynamics: i.e. cats are "recreational" hunters.[161] Population densities can be as high as 2,000 individuals per km2[162] and the current trend is an increase of 0.5 million cats annually.
Impact on birds
The domestic cat is probably a significant predator of birds. Current UK assessments indicate that they may be accountable for an estimated 64.8 million bird deaths each year.[121] Certain species appear more susceptible than others; for example, 30% of house sparrow mortality is IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
linked to the domestic cat.[163] In the recovery of ringed robins and dunnocks, it was also concluded that 31% of deaths were a result of cat predation.[164] The presence of larger carnivores such as coyotes which prey on cats and other small predators reduces the effect of predation by cats and other small predators such as opossums and raccoons on bird numbers and variety.[165] The proposal that cat populations will increase when the numbers of these top predators decline is called the mesopredator release hypothesis.
On islands, birds can contribute as much as 60% of a cat's diet.[166] In nearly all cases, however, ThinkPad Edge E520s
the cat cannot be identified as the sole cause for reducing the numbers of island birds, and in some instances eradication of cats has caused a ‘mesopredator release’ effect;[167] where the suppression of top carnivores creates an abundance of smaller predators that cause a severe decline in their shared prey. Domestic cats are, however, known to be a contributing factor to the decline of many species; a factor that has ultimately led, in some cases, to extinction. The South Island Piopio, Chatham Islands Rail,[164] the Auckland Islands Merganser,[168] and the common diving petrel[169] are a few from a long list, with the most extreme case being the flightless Sony VAIO VGN-N38E/W Keyboard
Stephens Island Wren, which was driven to extinction only a few years after its discovery.[170][171]
Some of the same factors that have promoted adaptive radiation of island avifauna over evolutionary time appear to promote vulnerability to non-native species in modern time. The susceptibility inherent of many island birds is undoubtedly due to evolution in the absence of mainland predators, competitors, diseases and parasites. In addition to lower reproductive rates and extended incubation periods.[172] The loss of flight, or reduced flying ability is also Toshiba Satellite A305-S6839 Keyboard
characteristic of many island endemics.[173] These biological aspects have increased vulnerability to extinction in the presence of introduced species, such as the domestic cat.[174] Equally, behavioural traits exhibited by island species, such as "predatory naivety"[175] and ground-nesting,[172] have also contributed to their susceptibility.
Cats and humans
Main article: Cats and humans
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Girl with young cat
Cats are a common companion animal in Europe and North America, and their worldwide population exceeds 500 million.[12] Although cat ownership has commonly been associated with women,[176] a 2007 Gallup poll reported that men and women were equally likely to own a cat.[177]
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According to the Humane Society of the United States, as well as being kept as pets, cats are also used in the international fur trade,[178] for making coats, gloves, hats, shoes, blankets and stuffed toys. About 24 cats are needed to make a cat fur coat.[179] This use has now been outlawed in several countries, including the United States, Australia and the European Union.[180] However, some cat furs are still made into blankets in Switzerland as folk remedies that are believed to help rheumatism.[181]
Cats are eaten in some parts of Asian countries and it is estimated that 4 million cats are killed SamsungNP-N145-JP01 Keyboard
and consumed in Asia every year.[182] Cats are also consumed in Switzerland, where the consumption of cat meat is not prohibited, in certain rural areas.[183] Additionally, cat consumption can be found in parts of Australia where residents have taken up the practice to reduce the feral cat population.[184]
Feral cats
Main article: Feral cat
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American feral farm cat
Feral cats are domestics cats that were born in or have reverted to a wild state. They are unfamiliar with and wary of humans and roam freely in urban and rural areas.[11] The numbers of feral cats are not known, but estimates of the US feral population range from 25 to 60 million.[11] Feral cats may live alone, but most are found in large groups called feral colonies, HP Pavilion G6-1215TX Keyboard
which occupy a specific territory and are usually associated with a source of food.[185] Famous feral cat colonies are found in Rome around the Colosseum and Forum Romanum, with cats at some of these sites being fed and vetted by volunteers.[186]
Public attitudes towards feral cats vary widely: ranging from seeing them as free-ranging pets, to regarding them as vermin.[187] One common approach to reducing the feral cat population is termed trap-neuter-return, where the cats are trapped, neutered, immunized against rabies and the feline leukemia virus, and then released. Before releasing them back into their feral colonies, HP Pavilion dv6-2160es Keyboard
the attending veterinarian often nips the tip off one ear to mark the feral as neutered and inoculated, since these cats may be trapped again. Volunteers continue to feed and give care to these cats throughout their lives. Given this support, their lifespan is increased, and behavior and nuisance problems caused by competition for food are reduced.[185]
History and mythology
Main articles: Cultural depictions of cats and Cats in ancient Egypt
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Egyptian sculpture at the Louvre
Traditionally, historians tended to think that ancient Egypt was the site of cat domestication, owing to the clear depictions of house cats in Egyptian paintings about 3,600 years old.[4] However, in 2004, a Neolithic grave was excavated in Shillourokambos, Cyprus, that contained the skeletons, laid close to one another, of both a human and a cat. The grave is estimated to be Sony Vaio PCG-K34FP Keyboard
9,500 years old, pushing back the earliest known feline-human association significantly.[14][188][189] The cat specimen is large and closely resembles the African wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), rather than present-day domestic cats. This discovery, combined with genetic studies, suggest that cats were probably domesticated in the Middle East, in the Fertile Crescent around the time of the development of agriculture and then they were brought to Cyprus and Egypt.[4]
In ancient Egypt cats were sacred animals, with Bast often depicted in cat form, sometimes taking
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on the warlike aspect of a lioness.[190]:220 The Romans are often credited with introducing the domestic cat from Egypt to Europe;[190]:223 in Roman Aquitaine, a 1st or 2nd century epitaph of a young girl holding a cat is one of two earliest depictions of the Roman domesticated cat.[191] However, it is possible that cats were already kept in Europe prior to the Roman Empire, as they may have already been present in Britain in the late Iron Age.[32] Domestic cats were spread throughout much of the rest of the world during the Age of Discovery, as they were carried on sailing ships to control shipboard rodents and as good-luck charms.[190]:223
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Freyja and her cats
Several ancient religions believed that cats are exalted souls, companions or guides for humans, that they are all-knowing but are mute so they cannot influence decisions made by humans. In Japan, the maneki neko is a cat that is a symbol of good fortune. Although there are no sacred IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200T Keyboard
species in Islam, some writers have stated that Muhammad had a favorite cat, Muezza.[192] He is
reported to have loved cats so much that "he would do without his cloak rather than disturb one that was sleeping on it".[193]
Freyja—the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility in Norse mythology—is depicted as riding a chariot drawn by cats.
Many cultures have negative superstitions about cats. An example would be the belief that a black cat "crossing your path" leads to bad luck, or that cats are witches' familiars used to IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201 Keyboard
augment a witch's powers and skills. The killing of cats in Medieval Ypres is commemorated in the
innocuous present-day Kattenstoet (cat parade).
According to a myth in many cultures, cats have multiple lives. In many countries, they are believed to have nine lives, but in some Spanish-speaking regions they are said to have seven lives,[194] while in Turkish and Arabic traditions the number of lives is six.[195] The myth is attributed to the natural suppleness and swiftness cats exhibit to escape life-threatening situations.[196] Also lending credence to this myth is the fact that falling cats often land on their IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
feet, using an instinctive righting reflex to twist their bodies around. Nonetheless, cats can still be
injured or killed by a high fall.[197]
Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felids, with strong, flexible bodies, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted to killing small prey. As crepuscular predators, cats use their Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
acute hearing and ability to see in near darkness to locate prey. Not only can cats hear sounds too faint for human ears, they can also hear sounds higher in frequency than humans can perceive. The usual prey of cats (particularly rodents such as mice) make high frequency noises, so being able to pinpoint these faint high-pitched sounds gave cats' ancestors an evolutionary advantage. Cats also have a much better sense of smell than humans.
Despite being solitary hunters, cats are a social species, and cat communication includes the use of a variety of vocalizations (meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting) as well as Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
pheromones and types of cat-specific body language.[10]
Cats have a rapid breeding rate. Under controlled breeding, they can be bred and shown as registered pedigree pets, a hobby known as cat fancy. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by spaying and neutering and the abandonment of former household pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, with a population of up to 60 million of these animals in the United States alone, while in Japan they are caught and disposed of.[11]
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Since cats were cult animals in ancient Egypt, they were commonly believed to have been domesticated there,[12] but there may have been instances of domestication as early as the Neolithic.[13] A genetic study in 2007 revealed that all house cats are descended from as few as five female African Wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) c. 8000 BCE, in the Middle East.[12][14] Cats are currently the most popular pet in the world, now found almost everywhere in the world.[15]
Contents [hide]
1 Nomenclature and etymology
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2 Taxonomy and evolution
3 Genetics
4 Anatomy
5 Physiology
6 Senses
7 Health
7.1 Diseases
7.2 Poisoning
8 Behavior
8.1 Sociability
8.2 Grooming
8.3 Fighting
8.4 Hunting and feeding
8.5 Play
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8.6 Reproduction
8.7 Vocalizations
9 Ecology
9.1 Habitats
9.2 Impact on prey species
9.3 Impact on birds
10 Cats and humans
11 Feral cats
12 History and mythology
13 See also
14 References
15 External links
15.1 Anatomy
15.2 Articles
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Nomenclature and etymology
The English word cat (Old English catt) is in origin a loanword, introduced to many languages of Europe from Latin cattus and Byzantine Greek κάτια, including Portuguese and Spanish gato, French chat, German Katze, Lithuanian katė and Old Church Slavonic kotka, among others. The ultimate source of the word is Afro-Asiatic, presumably from Late Egyptian čaute, the feminine of čaus "African wildcat". The word was introduced (together with the domestic animal) to the IBM Thinkpad T61 Keyboard
Roman Republic by the 1st century BCE. An alternative word with cognates in many languages is English puss (pussycat). Attested only from the 16th century, it may have been introduced from Dutch poes or from Low German puuskatte, related to Swedish kattepus, or Norwegian pus, pusekatt. The etymology of this word is unknown, but it appears to reflect the native Germanic name of the animal.[16]
Classification based on human interaction[17]
Population Food source Shelter Socialized
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Pedigree Fed by owner Human homes Yes
Pet Fed by owner Human homes Yes
Semi-feral General feeding Buildings Yes
Feral General feeding/foraging Buildings No
While wildcats are the ancestral species from which domestic cats are descended, there are several intermediate stages between domestic pet and pedigree cats and these entirely wild cats. The semi-feral cat is a cat that is not owned by any one individual, but is generally friendly to Acer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
people and may be fed by several households. Feral cats are associated with human habitations and may be fed by people or forage in rubbish, but are wary of human interaction.[17]
A group of cats is referred to as a "clowder", a male cat is called a "tom" (or a "gib", if neutered), and a female is called a "molly" or "queen". The male progenitor of a cat, especially a pedigreed cat, is its "sire", and its female progenitor is its "dam". An immature cat is called a "kitten". In English of the early modern period, the word kitten was interchangeable with the word catling.
A cat whose ancestry is formally registered is called a pedigreed cat, purebred cat, or a show cat. Sony VAIO VGN-SZ680N Keyboard
In strict terms, a pure-bred cat is one whose ancestry contains only individuals of the same breed. A pedigreed cat is one whose ancestry is recorded, but may have ancestors of different breeds. Cats of unrecorded mixed ancestry are referred to as domestic longhairs and domestic shorthairs or commonly as random-bred, moggies, mongrels, or mutt-cats.
Taxonomy and evolution
Main article: Cat evolution
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The wildcat Felis silvestris is a close relative and possible ancestor of the domestic cat.
The Felids are a rapidly evolving family of mammals that share a common ancestor only 10–15 million years ago,[18] and include, in addition to the domestic cat, lions, tigers, cougars, and many others. Within this family, domestic cats (Felis catus) are part of the genus Felis, which is a group of small cats containing seven species.[1][19] Members of the genus are found worldwide Sony VAIO VGN-SZ660N/C Keyboard
and include the Jungle Cat (Felis chaus) of southeast Asia, the African Wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), the Chinese Mountain Cat (Felis bieti) and the Arabian Sand Cat (Felis margarita).[20]
All the cats in this genus share a common ancestor that probably lived around 6–7 million years ago in Asia.[21] Although the exact relationships within the Felidae are still uncertain,[22][23] both the Chinese Mountain Cat and the African Wildcat are close relatives of the domestic cat and are both classed as subspecies of the Wildcat Felis silvestris.[4][22] As domestic cats are little altered from wildcats, they can readily interbreed. This hybridization may pose a danger to the Asus A6F Keyboard
genetic distinctiveness of wildcat populations, particularly in Scotland and Hungary.[24]
The domestic cat was first classified as Felis catus by Carolus Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae of 1758.[1][3] However, because of modern phylogenetics, domestic cats are now usually regarded as another subspecies of the Wildcat Felis silvestris.[1][4][25] This has resulted in mixed usage of the terms, as the domestic cat can be called by its subspecies name, Felis silvestris catus.[1][4][25] Wildcats have also been referred to as various subspecies of F. catus,[25] but in 2003 the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature fixed the name HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo Keyboard
for wildcats as F. silvestris.[26] The most common name in use for the domestic cat remains F. catus, following a convention for domesticated animals of using the earliest (the senior) synonym proposed.[26] Sometimes the domestic cat is called Felis domesticus[27] or Felis domestica,[1] the term coined by German naturalist Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben in 1777. These are not valid taxonomic names, and Linnaeus's binomial takes precedence.[28]
Cats have either a mutualistic or commensal relationship with humans. However, in comparison to dogs, cats have not undergone major changes during the domestication process, as the form Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
and behavior of the domestic cat are not radically different from those of wildcats, and domestic cats are perfectly capable of surviving in the wild.[29][30] This limited evolution during domestication means that domestic cats tend to interbreed freely with feral cats, which distinguishes them from other domesticated animals.[17] However, several natural behaviors and characteristics of wildcats may have preadapted them for domestication as pets.[30] These traits include their small size, social nature, obvious body language, love of play and relatively high intelligence;[31]:12–17 they may also have an inborn tendency towards tameness.[30]
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There are two main theories about how cats were domesticated. In one, people deliberately tamed cats in a process of artificial selection, as they were useful predators of vermin.[32] However, this has been criticized as implausible, because there may have been little reward for such an effort: cats generally do not carry out commands and, although they do eat rodents, other species such as ferrets or terriers may be better at controlling these pests.[4] The alternative idea is that cats were simply tolerated by people and gradually diverged from their 'wild' relatives through natural selection, as they adapted to hunting the vermin found around Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
humans in towns and villages.[4]
Genetics
Main article: Cat genetics
The domesticated cat and its closest wild ancestor are both diploid organisms that possess 38 chromosomes[33] and roughly 20,000 genes.[34] About 250 heritable genetic disorders have been identified in cats, many similar to human inborn errors.[35] The high level of similarity Packard Bell PEW71 keyboard
among the metabolisms of mammals allows many of these feline diseases to be diagnosed using genetic tests that were originally developed for use in humans, as well as the use of cats in the study of the human diseases.[36][37]
Anatomy
Main article: Cat anatomy
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Diagram of the general anatomy of a male
Domestic cats are similar in size to the other members of the genus Felis, typically weighing between 4 kilograms (8 lb 13 oz) and 5 kilograms (11 lb 0 oz).[22] However, some breeds, such as the Maine Coon, can exceed 11 kilograms (25 lb). Conversely, very small cats (less than 1.8 kilograms (3 lb 15 oz)) have been reported.[38] The world record for the largest cat is 21.297 kilograms (46 lb 15.2 oz).[39] The smallest adult cat ever officially recorded weighed around 1.36 Compaq Presario CQ50-130US Keyboard
kilograms (3 lb).[40] Cats average about 23–25 centimeters (9–10 in) in height and 46 centimeters (18.1 in) in head/body length (males being larger than females), with tails averaging 30 centimeters (11.8 in) in length.[41]
Cats have 7 cervical vertebrae like almost all mammals, 13 thoracic vertebrae (humans have 12), 7 lumbar vertebrae (humans have 5), 3 sacral vertebrae like most mammals (humans have 5 because of their bipedal posture), and a variable number of caudal vertebrae in the tail (humans retain 3 to 5 caudal vertebrae, fused into an internal coccyx).[42]:11 The extra lumbar and Acer AEZR1R00110 Keyboard
thoracic vertebrae account for the cat's spinal mobility and flexibility. Attached to the spine are 13 ribs, the shoulder, and the pelvis.[42] :16 Unlike human arms, cat forelimbs are attached to the shoulder by free-floating clavicle bones, which allow them to pass their body through any space into which they can fit their heads.[43]
Skull
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The cat skull is unusual among mammals in having very large eye sockets and a powerful and specialized jaw.[44]:35 Within the jaw, cats have teeth adapted for killing prey and tearing meat. When it overpowers its prey, a cat delivers a lethal neck bite with its two long canine teeth, inserting them between two of the prey's vertebrae and severing its spinal cord, causing irreversible paralysis and death.[45] Compared to other felines, domestic cats have narrowly spaced canine teeth; which is an adaptation to their preferred prey of small rodents, which have small vertebrae.[45] The premolar and first molar together compose the carnassial pair on each IBM Thinkpad R60 Keyboard
side of the mouth, which efficiently shears meat into small pieces, like a pair of scissors. These are vital in feeding, since cats' small molars cannot chew food effectively.[44]:37
Cats, like dogs, are digitigrades. They walk directly on their toes, with the bones of their feet making up the lower part of the visible leg.[46] Cats are capable of walking very precisely, because like all felines they directly register; that is, they place each hind paw (almost) directly in the print of the corresponding forepaw, minimizing noise and visible tracks. This also provides sure footing for their hind paws when they navigate rough terrain. Unlike most mammals, when Sony VAIO VPCF12AFM/H Keyboard
cats walk, they use a "pacing" gait; that is, they move the two legs on one side of the body before the legs on the other side. This trait is shared with camels and giraffes. As a walk speeds up into a trot, a cat's gait will change to be a "diagonal" gait, similar to other mammals: the diagonally opposite hind and forelegs will move simultaneously.[47]
Like almost all members of the Felidae family, cats have protractable claws.[48] In their normal, relaxed position the claws are sheathed with the skin and fur around the toe pads. This keeps the claws sharp by preventing wear from contact with the ground and allows the silent stalking of Sony VGN-FE865E/H Keyboard
prey. The claws on the forefeet are typically sharper than those on the hind feet.[49] Cats can voluntarily extend their claws on one or more paws. They may extend their claws in hunting or self-defense, climbing, "kneading", or for extra traction on soft surfaces. Most cats have five claws on their front paws, and four on their rear paws.[50] The fifth front claw (the dewclaw) is proximal to the other claws. More proximally, there is a protrusion which appears to be a sixth "finger". This special feature of the front paws, on the inside of the wrists, is the carpal pad, also found on the paws of big cats and dogs. It has no function in normal walking, but is thought to be Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
an anti-skidding device used while jumping. Some breeds of cats are prone to polydactylyism, and may have eight or even ten toes.[50] These are particularly common along the North-East coast of North America.[51]
Physiology
Normal physiological values[52]:330
Body temperature 38.6 °C (101.5 °F)
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Heart rate 120–140 beats per minute
Breathing rate 16–40 breaths per minute
As cats are familiar and easily kept animals, their physiology has been particularly well studied; it generally resembles that of other carnivorous mammals but displays several unusual features probably attributable to cats' descent from desert-dwelling species.[27] For instance, cats are able to tolerate quite high temperatures: humans generally start to feel uncomfortable when their skin temperature passes about 44.5 °C (112 °F), but cats show no discomfort until their skin Compaq Presario CQ71 Series Keyboard
reaches around 52 °C (126 °F),[44]:46 and can tolerate temperatures of up to 56 °C (133 °F) if they have access to water.[53]
Cats conserve heat by reducing the flow of blood to their skin and lose heat by evaporation through their mouth. They do not sweat, and pant only at very high temperatures.[54] Unusually, a cat's body temperature does not vary throughout the day; this is part of cats' general lack of circadian rhythms and may reflect their tendency to be active both during the day and at night.[55]:1 Cats' feces are usually dry and their urine is also highly concentrated, both of which Dell Inspiron N4020 Keyboard
are adaptations that allow cats to retain as much fluid as possible.[27] Their kidneys are so efficient that cats can survive on a diet consisting only of meat, with no additional water,[56] and can even rehydrate by drinking seawater.[55]:29[57]
Cats are obligate carnivores: their physiology has evolved to efficiently process meat, and they have difficulty digesting plant matter.[27] In contrast to omnivores such as rats, which only require about 4% protein in their diet, about 20% of a cat's diet must be protein.[27] Cats are unusually dependent on a constant supply of the amino acid arginine, and a diet lacking arginine HP 505999-001 Keyboard
causes marked weight loss and can be rapidly fatal.[58] Another unusual feature is that the cat also cannot produce the amino acid taurine, with taurine deficiency causing macular degeneration, where the cat's retina slowly degenerates, causing irreversible blindness.[27] Since cats tend to eat all of their prey, they obtain minerals by digesting animal bones, and a diet composed only of meat may cause calcium deficiency.[27]
A cat's digestive tract is also adapted to meat eating, being much shorter than that of omnivores and having low levels of several of the digestive enzymes that are needed to digest Acer Extensa 5635G 5635Z Keyboard
carbohydrates.[59] These traits severely limit the cat's ability to digest and use plant-derived nutrients, as well as certain fatty acids.[59] Despite the cat's meat-oriented physiology, several vegetarian or vegan cat foods have been marketed that are supplemented with chemically synthesized taurine and other nutrients, in attempts to produce a complete diet. However, some of these products still fail to provide all the nutrients that cats require,[60] and diets containing no animal products pose the risk of causing severe nutritional deficiencies.[61]
Cats also eat grass occasionally. Proposed explanations include that grass is a source of folic acid Acer PK1301K0100 Keyboard
or dietary fiber.[62]
Senses
Main article: Cat senses
Eyes of a tabby cat
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Cats have excellent night vision and can see at only one-sixth the light level required for human vision.[44]:43 This is partly the result of cat eyes having a tapetum lucidum, which reflects any light that passes through the retina back into the eye, thereby increasing the eye's sensitivity to dim light.[63] Another adaptation to dim light is the large pupils of cats' eyes. Unlike some big cats, such as tigers, domestic cats have slit pupils.[64] These slit pupils can focus bright light without chromatic aberration, and are needed since the domestic cat's pupils are much larger, relative to their eyes, than the pupils of the big cats.[64] Indeed, at low light levels a cat's pupils Sony Vaio PCG-K215Z Keyboard
will expand to cover most of the exposed surface of its eyes.[65] However, domestic cats have rather poor color vision and (like most non-primate mammals) have only two types of cones, optimized for sensitivity to blue and yellowish green; they have limited ability to distinguish between red and green,[66] although they can achieve this in some conditions.[67]
Cats' whiskers are highly sensitive to touch.
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Cats have excellent hearing and can detect an extremely broad range of frequencies. They can hear higher-pitched sounds than either dogs or humans, detecting frequencies from 55 Hz up to 79 kHz, a range of 10.5 octaves; while humans can only hear from 31 Hz up to 18 kHz, and dogs hear from 67 Hz to 44 kHz, which are both ranges of about 9 octaves.[68][69] Cats do not use this ability to hear ultrasound for communication but it is probably important in hunting,[70] since many species of rodents make ultrasonic calls.[71] Cat hearing is also extremely sensitive and is among the best of any mammal,[68] being most acute in the range of 500 Hz to 32 kHz.[72] This HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
sensitivity is further enhanced by the cat's large movable outer ears (their pinnae), which both amplify sounds and help a cat sense the direction from which a noise is coming.[70]
Cats have an acute sense of smell, which is due in part to their well-developed olfactory bulb and also to a large surface of olfactory mucosa, in cats this mucosa is about 5.8 cm2 in area, which is about twice that of humans and only 1.7-fold less than the average dog.[73] Cats are very sensitive to pheromones such as 3-mercapto-3-methylbutan-1-ol,[74] which they use to communicate through urine spraying and marking with scent glands.[75] Cats also respond HP Mini 210-2090nr Keyboard
strongly to plants that contain nepetalactone, especially catnip, as they can detect that substance at less than one part per billion.[76] This response is also produced by other plants, such as Silver Vine and valerian, and may be caused by the smell of these plants mimicking a pheromone and stimulating cats' social or sexual behaviors.[77]
Cats have relatively few taste buds compared to humans. Owing to a mutation in an early cat ancestor, one of two genes necessary to taste sweetness may have been lost by the cat family.[78] Their taste buds instead respond to amino acids, bitter tastes and acids.[79] To aid with Toshiba Satellite pro 4280xdvd Keyboard
navigation and sensation, cats have dozens of movable vibrissae (whiskers) over their body, especially their face. These provide information on the width of gaps and on the location of objects in the dark, both by touching objects directly and by sensing air currents; they also trigger protective blink reflexes to protect the eyes from damage.[44]:47
Health
Main article: Cat health
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The average life expectancy for male indoor cats at birth is around 12 to 14 years,[80] with females usually living a year or two longer.[81] However, there have been reports of cats reaching into their 30s,[82] with the oldest known cat, Creme Puff, dying at a verified age of 38.[83] Feline life expectancy has increased significantly in recent decades.[84] Having a cat neutered or spayed confers some health benefits, since castrated males cannot develop testicular cancer, spayed females cannot develop uterine or ovarian cancer, and both have a reduced risk of mammary cancer.[85] The lifespan of feral cats is hard to determine accurately, although one study reported Compaq Presario CQ60-310eq Keyboard
a median age of 4.7 years, with a range between 0 to 8.3 years.[86]
Diseases
Cats can suffer from a wide range of health problems, including infectious diseases, parasites, injuries and chronic disease. Vaccinations are available for many of these diseases, and domestic cats are regularly given treatments to eliminate parasites such as worms and fleas.
Poisoning
In addition to obvious dangers such as rodenticides, insecticides and weed killers, cats may be FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
poisoned by many chemicals that are usually considered safe.[87] This is because their livers are less effective at some forms of detoxification than those of other animals, including humans and dogs.[27][88] Some of the most common causes of poisoning in cats are antifreeze and rodent baits.[89] It has also been suggested that cats may be particularly sensitive to environmental pollutants.[87][90] When a cat has a sudden or prolonged serious illness without any obvious cause, it is possible that it has been exposed to a toxin.[citation needed]
Human medicines should never be given to cats. For example, the painkiller paracetamol (also Sony VAIO VGN-N250E/B Keyboard
called acetaminophen, sold as Tylenol and Panadol) is extremely toxic to cats: even very small doses need immediate treatment and can be fatal.[91][92] Even aspirin, which is sometimes used to treat arthritis in cats, is much more toxic to them than to humans and must be administered cautiously.[87] Similarly, application of minoxidil (Rogaine) to the skin of cats, either accidentally or by well-meaning owners attempting to counter loss of fur, has sometimes been fatal.[93] Essential oils can be toxic to cats and there have been reported cases of serious illnesses caused by tea tree oil, and tea tree oil-based flea treatments and shampoos.[94]
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Other common household substances that should be used with caution around cats include mothballs and other naphthalene products.[87] Phenol-based products (Pine-Sol, Dettol (Lysol) or hexachlorophene)[87] are often used for cleaning and disinfecting near cats' feeding areas or litter boxes but these can sometimes be fatal.[95] Ethylene glycol, often used as an automotive antifreeze, is particularly appealing to cats, and as little as a teaspoonful can be fatal.[96] Some human foods are toxic to cats; for example theobromine in chocolate can cause theobromine poisoning, although few cats will eat chocolate.[97] Large amounts of onions or garlic are also HP 640208-001 Keyboard
poisonous to cats.[87] Many houseplants are also dangerous,[98] such as Philodendron species and the leaves of the Easter Lily, which can cause permanent and life-threatening kidney damage.[99]
Behavior
See also: Cat behavior, cat communication, cognition in cats, and cat intelligence
Free-ranging cats are active both day and night, although they tend to be slightly more active at Toshiba Satellite L755D-SP5165RM Keyboard
night.[100][101] The timing of cats' activity is quite flexible and varied, which means that house cats may be more active in the morning and evening (crepuscular behavior), as a response to greater human activity at these times.[102] House cats have territories that vary considerably in size, in one study ranging from seven to 28 hectares (69 acres).[101] Although they spend the majority of their time in the vicinity of their home, they can range many hundreds of meters from this central point.[101] Cats conserve energy by sleeping more than most animals, especially as they grow older. The daily duration of sleep varies, usually 12–16 hours, with 13–14 being the Dell 0NK831 Keyboard
average. Some cats can sleep as much as 20 hours in a 24-hour period. The term cat nap refers to the cat's ability to fall asleep (lightly) for a brief period and has entered the English lexicon—someone who nods off for a few minutes is said to be "taking a cat nap". During sleep cats experience short periods of rapid eye movement sleep accompanied by muscle twitches, which suggests that they are dreaming.[103]
Sociability
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Social grooming in a pair
Although wildcats are solitary, the social behavior of domestic cats is much more variable and ranges from widely dispersed individuals to feral cat colonies that form around a food source, based on groups of co-operating females.[104][105] Within such groups one cat is usually dominant over the others.[106] Each cat in a colony holds a distinct territory, with sexually active males having the largest territories, which are about ten times larger than those of female cats Packard Bell NEW90 keyboard
and may overlap with several females' territories.[75] These territories are marked by urine spraying, by rubbing objects at head height with secretions from facial glands and by defecation.[75] Between these territories are neutral areas where cats watch and greet one another without territorial conflicts. Outside these neutral areas, territory holders usually chase away stranger cats, at first by staring, hissing, and growling, and if that does not work, by short but noisy and violent attacks. Despite some cats cohabiting in colonies, cats do not have a social survival strategy, or a pack mentality and always hunt alone.[107]
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Domestic cats use many vocalizations for communication, including purring, trilling, hissing, growling, snarling and several different forms of meowing.[10] In contrast, feral cats are generally silent.[108]:208 Their types of body language, including position of ears and tail, relaxation of whole body, and kneading of paws, are all indicators of mood. The tail and ears are particularly important social signal in cats, with a raised tail acting as a friendly greeting.[109][110] Tail raising also indicates the cat's position in the group's social hierarchy, with dominant individuals raising their tails less often than subordinate animals.[110] Nose-touching is also a common greeting Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
and may be followed by social grooming, which is solicited by one of the cats raising and tilting its head.[105] However, some pet cats are poorly socialized. In particular older cats may show aggressiveness towards newly arrived kittens, which may include biting and scratching; this type of behavior is known as Feline Asocial Aggression.[111]
For cats, life in proximity with humans (and other animals kept by humans) amounts to a "symbiotic social adaptation". They may express great affection towards their human companions, especially if they imprint on them at a very young age and are treated with Sony VAIO VGN-CR320D Keyboard
consistent affection. It has been suggested that, ethologically, the human keeper of a cat functions as a sort of surrogate for the cat's mother, and that adult domestic cats live their lives in a kind of extended kittenhood, a form of behavioral neoteny.[112] Conversely, the high-pitched purrs cats make to solicit food may mimic the cries of a hungry human infant, making them particularly hard for humans to ignore.[113]
Grooming
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The hooked papillae on a cat's tongue act like a hairbrush to help clean and detangle fur.
Cats intimidate opponents by arching their backs, raising their fur, turning sideways, and hissing.
Cats are known for their cleanliness, spending many hours licking their coats.[114] The cat's tongue has backwards-facing spines about 500 micrometers long, which are called papillae. Dell PVDG3 Keyboard
These are quite rigid, as they contain keratin.[115] These spines allow cats to groom themselves by licking their fur, with the rows of papillae acting like a hairbrush. Some cats, particularly longhaired cats, occasionally regurgitate hairballs of fur that have collected in their stomachs from grooming. These clumps of fur are usually sausage-shaped and about two to three centimeters long. Hairballs can be prevented with remedies that ease elimination of the hair through the gut, as well as regular grooming of the coat with a comb or stiff brush.[114] Some cats can develop a compulsive behavior known as psychogenic alopecia, or excessive Acer Aspire One D250-1326 Keyboard
grooming.[116]
Fighting
With domestic cats, males are more likely to fight than females.[117] With feral cats, the most common reason for cat fighting is competition between two males to mate with a female: here most fights will be won by the heavier male.[118] Another possible reason for fighting in domestic cats is the difficulty of establishing territories within a small home.[117] Female cats will also fight over territory or to defend their kittens. Spaying females and neutering males will Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
decrease or eliminate this behavior in many cases, suggesting that the behavior is linked to sex hormones.
When fighting, cats make themselves appear more impressive and threatening by raising their fur, arching their backs, and turning sideways, thus increasing their apparent size.[109] Often, the ears are pointed down and back to avoid damage to the inner ear and potentially listen for any changes behind them while focused forward. They may also vocalize loudly and bare their teeth in an effort to further intimidate their opponent. Fights usually comprise of grappling and Packard Bell NEW95 keyboard
delivering powerful slaps to the face and body with the forepaws as well as bites. Cats will also throw themselves to the ground in a defensive posture to rake their opponent's belly with their powerful hind legs.[119] Serious damage is rare as the fights are usually short in duration, with the loser running away with little more than a few scratches to the face and ears. However, fights for mating rights are typically more severe and injuries may include deep puncture wounds and lacerations. Normally, serious injuries from fighting will be limited to infections of scratches and bites, though these can occasionally kill cats if untreated. In addition, bites are probably the main HP Envy 15-1050es Keyboard
route of transmission of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV).[120] Sexually active males will usually be involved in many fights during their lives, and often have decidedly battered faces with obvious scars and cuts to the ears and nose.
Hunting and feeding
Cats feed on small prey, primarily birds and rodents.[121] Feral cats and house cats that are free-fed tend to consume many small meals in a single day, although the frequency and size of meals varies between individuals.[107] Cats use two hunting strategies, either stalking prey HP G72-110EL Keyboard
actively, or waiting in ambush until an animal comes close enough to be captured. Although it is not certain, the type of strategy used may depend on the prey species in the area, with for example, cats waiting in ambush outside burrows, but tending to actively stalk birds.[122]:153
Most breeds of cat have a noted fondness for settling in high places, or perching. In the wild, a higher place may serve as a concealed site from which to hunt; domestic cats may strike prey by pouncing from such a perch as a tree branch, as does a leopard.[123] Other possible explanations include that height gives the cat a better observation point, allowing it to survey its territory. Sony VAIO VGN-N21Z Keyboard
During a fall from a high place, a cat can reflexively twist its body and right itself using its acute sense of balance and flexibility.[124] This is known as the cat's "righting reflex". It always rights itself in the same way, provided it has the time to do so, during a fall. The height required for this to occur is around 90 cm (3 feet). Cats without a tail also have this ability, since a cat mostly moves its hind legs and relies on conservation of angular momentum to set up for landing, and the tail is in fact little used for this feat.[125] This leads to the proverb "a cat always lands on its feet".
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Eating a house sparrow.
One poorly understood element of cat hunting behavior is the presentation of prey to human owners. Ethologist Paul Leyhausen proposed that cats adopt humans into their social group, and share excess kill with others in the group according to the local pecking order, in which humans are placed at or near the top.[126] Anthropologist and animal scientist Desmond Morris, in his Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
1986 book Catwatching, suggests that when cats bring home mice or birds, they are teaching their human to hunt, or helping their human as if feeding "an elderly cat, or an inept kitten".[127] Morris's theory is inconsistent with the fact that male cats also bring home prey, despite males having no involvement with raising kittens.[122]:153
Domestic cats select food based on its temperature, smell and texture, strongly disliking chilled foods and responding most strongly to moist foods rich in amino acids, which are similar to meat.[61][107] Cats may reject novel flavors (a response termed neophobia) and learn quickly to Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
avoid foods that have tasted unpleasant in the past.[107] They may also avoid sugary foods and milk; since they are lactose intolerant, these sugars are not easily digested and may cause soft stools or diarrhea.[107][128] They can also develop odd eating habits. Some cats like to eat or chew on other things, most commonly wool, but also plastic, paper, string, aluminum foil/Christmas tree tinsel, or even coal. This condition is called pica and can threaten their health, depending on the amount and toxicity of the items eaten.[129][130]
Since cats cannot fully close their lips around something to create suction, they use a lapping Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
method with the tongue to draw liquid upwards into their mouths. Lapping at a rate of four times a second, the cat touches the smooth tip of its tongue to the surface of the water, and quickly retracts it, drawing water upwards.[131]
Play
Main article: Cat play and toys
Domestic cats, especially young kittens, are known for their love of play. This behavior mimics hunting and is important in helping kittens learn to stalk, capture, and kill prey.[132] Cats will also Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
engage in play fighting, with each other and with humans. This behavior may be a way for cats to practice the skills needed for real combat, and might also reduce any fear they associate with launching attacks on other animals.[133]
Owing to the close similarity between play and hunting, cats prefer to play with objects that resemble prey, such as small furry toys that move rapidly, but rapidly lose interest (they become habituated) in a toy they have played with before.[134] Cats also tend to play with toys more when they are hungry.[135] String is often used as a toy, but if it is eaten it can become caught at Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
the base of the cat's tongue and then move into the intestines, a medical emergency which can cause serious illness and death.[136] Owing to the risks posed by cats eating string, it is sometimes replaced with a laser pointer's dot, which cats may chase.[137] While concerns have been raised about the safety of these lasers, Professor John Marshall, an ophthalmologist at St Thomas' Hospital, has stated that it would be "virtually impossible" to blind a cat with a laser pointer.[138]
Reproduction
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A newborn kitten
When cats mate, the tomcat (male) bites the scruff of the female's neck as she assumes a position conducive to mating known as lordosis behavior.
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Female cats are seasonally polyestrous, which means they may have many periods of heat over the course of a year, the season beginning in spring and ending in late autumn. Heat periods occur about every two weeks and last about 4 to 7 days.[139] Multiple males will be attracted to a female in heat. The males will fight over her, and the victor wins the right to mate. At first, the female will reject the male, but eventually the female will allow the male to mate. The female will utter a loud yowl as the male pulls out of her. This is because a male cat's penis has a band of about 120–150 backwards-pointing spines, which are about one millimeter long;[140] upon HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo Keyboard
withdrawal of the penis, the spines rake the walls of the female's vagina, which is a trigger for ovulation. This act also occurs to clear the vagina of other sperm in the context of a second (or more) mating, thus giving the later males a larger chance of conception.[citation needed]
After mating, the female will wash her vulva thoroughly. If a male attempts to mate with her at this point, the female will attack him. After about 20 to 30 minutes, once the female is finished grooming, the cycle will repeat.[139]
Because ovulation is not always triggered by a single mating, females may not be impregnated by Toshiba Satellite L775-S7243 Keyboard
the first male with which they mate.[141] Furthermore, cats are superfecund; that is, a female may mate with more than one male when she is in heat, with the result that different kittens in a litter may have different fathers.[139]
The gestation period for cats is between 64–67 days, with an average length of 66 days.[142] The size of a litter averages three to five kittens, with the first litter usually smaller than subsequent litters. Kittens are weaned at between six and seven weeks, and cats normally reach sexual maturity at 5–10 months (females) and to 5–7 months (males), although this can vary depending Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
on breed.[139] Females can have two to three litters per year, so may produce up to 150 kittens in their breeding span of around ten years.[139]
Cats are ready to go to new homes at about 12 weeks old,[143] or when they are ready to leave their mother. Cats can be surgically sterilized (spayed or castrated) as early as 7 weeks to limit unwanted reproduction.[144] This surgery also prevents undesirable sex-related behavior, such as aggression, territory marking (spraying urine) in males and yowling (calling) in females. Traditionally, this surgery was performed at around six to nine months of age, but it is HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
increasingly being performed prior to puberty, at about three to six months.[145] In the USA approximately 80% of household cats are neutered.[146]
Vocalizations
Main article: Cat communication
The cat is a very vocal animal. Known for its trademark purring, it also produces a wide variety of other sounds.
The mechanism by which cats purr is elusive. The cat has no unique anatomical feature that is HP Mini 210-2090nr Keyboard
clearly responsible for the sound.[147] It was, until recent times, believed that only the cats of the Felis genus could purr.[148] However, felids of the Panthera genus (Tiger, Lion, Jaguar and Leopard) also produce sounds similar to purring, but only when exhaling.
Further information: Purr
Ecology
Habitats
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A Black cat under the snow.
Cats are a cosmopolitan species and are found across much of the world.[29] They are extremely adaptable and are now present on all continents except Antarctica, and on 118 of the 131 main groups of islands – even on sub-Antarctic islands such as the Kerguelen Islands.[149][150] Feral cats can live in forests, grasslands, tundra, coastal areas, agricultural land, scrublands, urban IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
areas and wetlands.[151] Their habitats even include small oceanic islands with no human inhabitants.[152] This ability to thrive in almost any terrestrial habitat has led to the cat's designation as one of the world's worst invasive species.[153] Despite this general adaptability, the close relatives of domestic cats, the African Wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica) and the Arabian Sand Cat (Felis margarita) both inhabit desert environments,[4] and domestic cats still show similar adaptations and behaviors.[27]
Impact on prey species
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Young feral cat eating a cottontail rabbit.
To date, there are few scientific data available to assess the impact of cat predation on prey populations. Even well-fed domestic cats may hunt and kill, mainly catching small mammals, but also birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates.[121][154] Hunting by domestic cats may be contributing to the decline in the numbers of birds in urban areas, although the importance of HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
this effect remains controversial.[155] In the wild, the introduction of feral cats during human settlement can threaten native species with extinction.[152] In many cases controlling or eliminating the populations of non-native cats can produce a rapid recovery in native animals.[156] However, the ecological role of introduced cats can be more complicated: for example, cats can control the numbers of rats, which also prey on birds' eggs and young, so in some cases eliminating a cat population can actually accelerate the decline of an endangered bird species in the presence of a mesopredator, controlled by cats.[157]
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In the Southern Hemisphere, cats are a particular problem in landmasses such as Australasia, where cat species have never been native and there were few equivalent native medium-sized mammalian predators.[158] Native species such as the New Zealand Kakapo and the Australian Bettong, for example, tend to be more ecologically vulnerable and behaviorally "naive" to predation by feral cats.[159] Feral cats have had a major impact on these native species and have played a leading role in the endangerment and extinction of many animals.[160]
Cat numbers in the UK are growing annually and their abundance is far above the "natural" Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
carrying capacity, because their population sizes are independent of their prey's dynamics: i.e. cats are "recreational" hunters.[161] Population densities can be as high as 2,000 individuals per km2[162] and the current trend is an increase of 0.5 million cats annually.
Impact on birds
The domestic cat is probably a significant predator of birds. Current UK assessments indicate that they may be accountable for an estimated 64.8 million bird deaths each year.[121] Certain species appear more susceptible than others; for example, 30% of house sparrow mortality is IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
linked to the domestic cat.[163] In the recovery of ringed robins and dunnocks, it was also concluded that 31% of deaths were a result of cat predation.[164] The presence of larger carnivores such as coyotes which prey on cats and other small predators reduces the effect of predation by cats and other small predators such as opossums and raccoons on bird numbers and variety.[165] The proposal that cat populations will increase when the numbers of these top predators decline is called the mesopredator release hypothesis.
On islands, birds can contribute as much as 60% of a cat's diet.[166] In nearly all cases, however, ThinkPad Edge E520s
the cat cannot be identified as the sole cause for reducing the numbers of island birds, and in some instances eradication of cats has caused a ‘mesopredator release’ effect;[167] where the suppression of top carnivores creates an abundance of smaller predators that cause a severe decline in their shared prey. Domestic cats are, however, known to be a contributing factor to the decline of many species; a factor that has ultimately led, in some cases, to extinction. The South Island Piopio, Chatham Islands Rail,[164] the Auckland Islands Merganser,[168] and the common diving petrel[169] are a few from a long list, with the most extreme case being the flightless Sony VAIO VGN-N38E/W Keyboard
Stephens Island Wren, which was driven to extinction only a few years after its discovery.[170][171]
Some of the same factors that have promoted adaptive radiation of island avifauna over evolutionary time appear to promote vulnerability to non-native species in modern time. The susceptibility inherent of many island birds is undoubtedly due to evolution in the absence of mainland predators, competitors, diseases and parasites. In addition to lower reproductive rates and extended incubation periods.[172] The loss of flight, or reduced flying ability is also Toshiba Satellite A305-S6839 Keyboard
characteristic of many island endemics.[173] These biological aspects have increased vulnerability to extinction in the presence of introduced species, such as the domestic cat.[174] Equally, behavioural traits exhibited by island species, such as "predatory naivety"[175] and ground-nesting,[172] have also contributed to their susceptibility.
Cats and humans
Main article: Cats and humans
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Girl with young cat
Cats are a common companion animal in Europe and North America, and their worldwide population exceeds 500 million.[12] Although cat ownership has commonly been associated with women,[176] a 2007 Gallup poll reported that men and women were equally likely to own a cat.[177]
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According to the Humane Society of the United States, as well as being kept as pets, cats are also used in the international fur trade,[178] for making coats, gloves, hats, shoes, blankets and stuffed toys. About 24 cats are needed to make a cat fur coat.[179] This use has now been outlawed in several countries, including the United States, Australia and the European Union.[180] However, some cat furs are still made into blankets in Switzerland as folk remedies that are believed to help rheumatism.[181]
Cats are eaten in some parts of Asian countries and it is estimated that 4 million cats are killed SamsungNP-N145-JP01 Keyboard
and consumed in Asia every year.[182] Cats are also consumed in Switzerland, where the consumption of cat meat is not prohibited, in certain rural areas.[183] Additionally, cat consumption can be found in parts of Australia where residents have taken up the practice to reduce the feral cat population.[184]
Feral cats
Main article: Feral cat
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American feral farm cat
Feral cats are domestics cats that were born in or have reverted to a wild state. They are unfamiliar with and wary of humans and roam freely in urban and rural areas.[11] The numbers of feral cats are not known, but estimates of the US feral population range from 25 to 60 million.[11] Feral cats may live alone, but most are found in large groups called feral colonies, HP Pavilion G6-1215TX Keyboard
which occupy a specific territory and are usually associated with a source of food.[185] Famous feral cat colonies are found in Rome around the Colosseum and Forum Romanum, with cats at some of these sites being fed and vetted by volunteers.[186]
Public attitudes towards feral cats vary widely: ranging from seeing them as free-ranging pets, to regarding them as vermin.[187] One common approach to reducing the feral cat population is termed trap-neuter-return, where the cats are trapped, neutered, immunized against rabies and the feline leukemia virus, and then released. Before releasing them back into their feral colonies, HP Pavilion dv6-2160es Keyboard
the attending veterinarian often nips the tip off one ear to mark the feral as neutered and inoculated, since these cats may be trapped again. Volunteers continue to feed and give care to these cats throughout their lives. Given this support, their lifespan is increased, and behavior and nuisance problems caused by competition for food are reduced.[185]
History and mythology
Main articles: Cultural depictions of cats and Cats in ancient Egypt
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Egyptian sculpture at the Louvre
Traditionally, historians tended to think that ancient Egypt was the site of cat domestication, owing to the clear depictions of house cats in Egyptian paintings about 3,600 years old.[4] However, in 2004, a Neolithic grave was excavated in Shillourokambos, Cyprus, that contained the skeletons, laid close to one another, of both a human and a cat. The grave is estimated to be Sony Vaio PCG-K34FP Keyboard
9,500 years old, pushing back the earliest known feline-human association significantly.[14][188][189] The cat specimen is large and closely resembles the African wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), rather than present-day domestic cats. This discovery, combined with genetic studies, suggest that cats were probably domesticated in the Middle East, in the Fertile Crescent around the time of the development of agriculture and then they were brought to Cyprus and Egypt.[4]
In ancient Egypt cats were sacred animals, with Bast often depicted in cat form, sometimes taking
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on the warlike aspect of a lioness.[190]:220 The Romans are often credited with introducing the domestic cat from Egypt to Europe;[190]:223 in Roman Aquitaine, a 1st or 2nd century epitaph of a young girl holding a cat is one of two earliest depictions of the Roman domesticated cat.[191] However, it is possible that cats were already kept in Europe prior to the Roman Empire, as they may have already been present in Britain in the late Iron Age.[32] Domestic cats were spread throughout much of the rest of the world during the Age of Discovery, as they were carried on sailing ships to control shipboard rodents and as good-luck charms.[190]:223
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Freyja and her cats
Several ancient religions believed that cats are exalted souls, companions or guides for humans, that they are all-knowing but are mute so they cannot influence decisions made by humans. In Japan, the maneki neko is a cat that is a symbol of good fortune. Although there are no sacred IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200T Keyboard
species in Islam, some writers have stated that Muhammad had a favorite cat, Muezza.[192] He is
reported to have loved cats so much that "he would do without his cloak rather than disturb one that was sleeping on it".[193]
Freyja—the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility in Norse mythology—is depicted as riding a chariot drawn by cats.
Many cultures have negative superstitions about cats. An example would be the belief that a black cat "crossing your path" leads to bad luck, or that cats are witches' familiars used to IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201 Keyboard
augment a witch's powers and skills. The killing of cats in Medieval Ypres is commemorated in the
innocuous present-day Kattenstoet (cat parade).
According to a myth in many cultures, cats have multiple lives. In many countries, they are believed to have nine lives, but in some Spanish-speaking regions they are said to have seven lives,[194] while in Turkish and Arabic traditions the number of lives is six.[195] The myth is attributed to the natural suppleness and swiftness cats exhibit to escape life-threatening situations.[196] Also lending credence to this myth is the fact that falling cats often land on their IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
feet, using an instinctive righting reflex to twist their bodies around. Nonetheless, cats can still be
injured or killed by a high fall.[197]
The middle class
The middle class is a class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class. The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary significantly between cultures.
Contents [hide]
1 History and evolution of the term
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2 Marxism
3 Recent growth of the global middle class
4 Professional-managerial class
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]History and evolution of the term
The term "middle class" is first attested in James Bradshaw's 1745 pamphlet Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France.[1][2] The term has had several, sometimes contradictory, meanings. It was once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry of Europe.[by whom?] While the nobility owned the countryside, and the pAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
easantry worked the countryside, a new bourgeoisie (literally "town-dwellers") arose around mercantile functions in the city. Another definition equated the middle class to the original meaning of capitalist: someone with so much capital that they could rival nobles. In fact, to be a capital-owning millionaire was the essential criterion of the middle class in the industrial revolution. In France, the middle classes helped drive the French Revolution.[3]
The modern sociological usage of the term "middle class", however, dates to the 1911 UK Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
Registrar-General's report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as that falling between the upper class and the working class. Included as belonging to the middle class are professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is possession of significant human capital.
Within capitalism, middle class initially referred to the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie. However, with the immiserisation and proletarianisation of much of the petit bourgeois world, Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
and the growth of finance capitalism, middle class came to refer to the combination of labour aristocracy, professionals and white collar workers.
The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined, whether by education, wealth, environment of upbringing, social network, manners or values, etc. These are all related, though far from deterministically dependent. The following factors are often ascribed in modern usage to a "middle class":[by whom?]
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Achievement of tertiary education.
Holding professional qualifications, including academics, lawyers, chartered engineers, politicians and doctors regardless of their leisure or wealth.
Belief in bourgeois values, such as high rates of house ownership and jobs which are perceived to be "secure".
Lifestyle. In the United Kingdom, social status has historically been linked less directly to wealth Ideapad U550
than in the United States,[4] and has also been judged by pointers such as accent, manners, place of education, occupation and the class of a person's family, circle of friends and acquaintances.[5][6]
Cultural identification. Often in the United States, the middle class are the most eager participants in pop culture whereas the reverse is true in Britain.[7]
The second generation of new immigrants will often enthusiastically forsake their traditional folk Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
culture as a sign of having arrived in the middle class.[citation needed]
In the United States by the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle class than as lower or "working" class (with insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper class).[8] The British Labour Party, which grew out of the organized labour movement and originally drew almost all of its support from the working class, reinvented itself under Tony Blair in the 1990s as "New Labour", a party competing with the Conservative Party for the votes SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
of the middle class as well as the working class. By 2011, almost three quarters of British people were also found to identify themselves as Middle Class.[9]
[edit]Marxism
In Marxism, which defines social classes according to their relationship with the means of production, the "middle class" is said to be the class below the ruling class and above the HP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
proletariat in the Marxist social schema. Marxist writers have used the term in two distinct but related ways.[10] In the first sense it is used for the bourgeoisie, the urban merchant and professional class that stood between the aristocracy and the proletariat in the Marxist model. However, in modern developed countries, the bourgeoisie is taken to be the class that owns and controls the means of production, and is thus considered the ruling class in capitalist societies. As such, some Marxist writers specify the petite bourgeoisie – owners of small property who may Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
not employ wage labor – as the "middle class" between the ruling and working classes.[10] Marx himself regarded this version of the "middle class" as becoming merged with the working classes.[10] The fact that recent decades have seen a large section of small businessmen (shopkeepers, restaurants) replaced by wage-workers (in supermarkets or chains of restaurants) has led most marxists to theorize an expansion of the working class at the expense of the middle class.
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[edit]Recent growth of the global middle class
In February 2009, The Economist announced that over half the world's population now belongs to the middle class, as a result of rapid growth in emerging countries. It characterized the middle class as having a reasonable amount of discretionary income, so that they do not live from hand to mouth as the poor do, and defined it as beginning at the point where people have roughly a tSamsungR19 Keyboard
hird of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter. This allows people to buy consumer goods, improve their health care, and provide for their children's education. Most of the emerging middle class consists of people who are middle-class by the standards of the developing world but not the rich one, since their money incomes do not match developed country levels, but the percentage of it which is discretionary does. By this definition, the number of middle-class people in Asia exceeded that in the West sometime around 2007 or Compaq 6720 Keyboard
2008.[11]
The Economist's article pointed out that in many emerging countries the middle class has not grown incrementally, but explosively. The rapid growth results from the fact that the majority of the people fall into the middle of a right-skewed bell-shaped curve, and when the peak of the population curve crosses the threshold into the middle class, the number of people in the middle class grows enormously. In addition, when the curve crosses the threshold, economic forces Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
cause the bulge to become taller as incomes at that level grow faster than incomes in other ranges. The point at which the poor start entering the middle class by the millions is the time when poor countries get the maximum benefit from cheap labour through international trade, before they price themselves out of world markets for cheap goods. It is also a period of rapid urbanization, when subsistence farmers abandon marginal farms to work in factories, resulting in a several-fold increase in their economic productivity before their wages catch up to international Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
levels. That stage was reached in China some time between 1990 and 2005, when the middle class grew from 15% to 62% of the population, and is just being reached in India now.
The Economist predicted that surge across the poverty line should continue for a couple of decades and the global middle class will grow enormously between now and 2030.
As the American middle class is estimated at approximately 45% of the population,[12][13][14] The Economist's article would put the size of the American middle class below the world average. HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
This difference is due to the extreme difference in definitions between The Economist's and many other models.[discuss]
In 2010, a working paper by the OECD estimated that 1.8 billion people were now members of the global middle class.[15]
[edit]Professional-managerial class
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In 1977 Barbara Ehrenreich and her then husband John defined a new Marxist class in United States as "salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor...(is)...the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations"; the Ehrenreichs named this group the "professional-managerial class".[16] This group of middle-class professionals are distinguished from other social classes by their training and education (typically business qualifications and university degrees),[17] with example Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
occupations including academics and teachers, social workers, engineers, managers, nurses, and middle-level administrators.[18] The Ehrenreichs developed their definition from studies by André Gorz, Serge Mallet, and others, of a "new working class", which, despite education and a perception of themselves as being middle class, were part of the working class because they did not own the means of production, and were wage earners paid to produce a piece of capital.[19] The professional-managerial class seeks higher rank status and salary,[20] and tend to have Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
incomes above the average for their country.[21]
Compare the term "managerial caste".[22]
Cash flow is the movement of money into or out of a business, project, or financial product. It is usually measured during a specified, finite period of time. Measurement of cash flow can be used for calculating other parameters that give information on a company's value and situation. Cash flow can be used, for example, for calculating parameters:
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to determine a project's rate of return or value. The time of cash flows into and out of projects are used as inputs in financial models such as internal rate of return and net present value.
to determine problems with a business's liquidity. Being profitable does not necessarily mean being liquid. A company can fail because of a shortage of cash even while profitable.
as an alternative measure of a business's profits when it is believed that accrual accounting concepts do not represent economic realities. For example, a company may be notionally Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
profitable but generating little operational cash (as may be the case for a company that barters its products rather than selling for cash). In such a case, the company may be deriving additional operating cash by issuing shares or raising additional debt finance.
cash flow can be used to evaluate the 'quality' of income generated by accrual accounting. When net income is composed of large non-cash items it is considered low quality.
to evaluate the risks within a financial product, e.g. matching cash requirements, evaluating Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
default risk, re-investment requirements, etc.
Cash flow is a generic term used differently depending on the context. It may be defined by users for their own purposes. It can refer to actual past flows or projected future flows. It can refer to the total of all flows involved or a subset of those flows. Subset terms include net cash flow, operating cash flow and free cash flow.
Contents [hide]
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1 Statement of cash flow in a business's financials
2 Ways Companies Can Augment Reported Cash Flow
3 Examples
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
[edit]Statement of cash flow in a business's financials
The (total) net cash flow of a company over a period (typically a quarter or a full year) is equal to the change in cash balance over this period: positive if the cash balance increases (more cash becomes available), negative if the cash balance decreases. The total net cash flow is the sum of cash flows that are classified in three areas:
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perational cash flows: Cash received or expended as a result of the company's internal business activities. It includes cash earnings plus changes to working capital. Over the medium term this must be net positive if the company is to remain solvent.
Investment cash flows: Cash received from the sale of long-life assets, or spent on capital expenditure (investments, acquisitions and long-life assets).
Financing cash flows: Cash received from the issue of debt and equity, or paid out as dividends, HP 608558-001 Keyboard
share repurchases or debt repayments.
[edit]Ways Companies Can Augment Reported Cash Flow
Common methods include:
Sales - Sell the receivables to a factor for instant cash. (leading)
Inventory - Don't pay your suppliers for an additional few weeks at period end. (lagging)
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Sales Commissions - Management can form a separate (but unrelated) company and act as its agent. The book of business can then be purchased quarterly as an investment.
Wages - Remunerate with stock options.
Maintenance - Contract with the predecessor company that you prepay five years worth for them to continue doing the work
Equipment Leases - Buy it
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Rent - Buy the property (sale and lease back, for example).
Oil Exploration costs - Replace reserves by buying another company's.
Research & Development - Wait for the product to be proven by a start-up lab; then buy the lab.
Consulting Fees - Pay in shares from treasury since usually to related parties
Interest - Issue convertible debt where the conversion rate changes with the unpaid interest.
Taxes - Buy shelf companies with TaxLossCarryForward's. Or gussy up the purchase by buying a Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
lab or O&G explore co. with the same TLCF.[1]
[edit]Examples
The Bhoys from Seville is a nickname used to refer to Celtic F.C.'s team and fans during Celtic's 2002–03 UEFA Cup campaign, which culminated in their defeat in the final in Seville, Spain.[1][2][3][4] Over 80,000 Celtic fans travelled to support their team in the final.[5][6]
The name "The Bhoys from Seville" is a play on words from the book and film The Boys from Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
Brazil, the nickname of Celtic F.C. (the Bhoys), and the location of the UEFA Cup final. As the first Scottish team for 16 years to reach a European final and the first Celtic team to reach a European final since the 1970 European Cup Final, the team was compared to Celtic's European Cup winning team in 1967, the Lisbon Lions.[1][7][8][9]
Contents [hide]
1 Background
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1.1 First round v FK Sūduva
1.2 Second round v Blackburn Rovers
1.3 Third round v Celta Vigo
1.4 Fourth round v VfB Stuttgart
1.5 Quarter-final v Liverpool
1.6 Semi-final v Boavista
2 Celtic fans and Seville
2.1 The final vs. F.C. Porto
2.1.1 The team for the final
2.2 Match facts
2.3 Viewing figures
3 Celtic fans win awards
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4 Legacy of the Bhoys from Seville
5 Campaign results
6 See also
7 References
[edit]Background
Celtic's participation in the 2002/03 UEFA Cup came as a result of defeat in the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round to FC Basel (3–3 aggregate score with the Swiss team progressing to the group stage on away goals). During the 2003 UEFA Cup competition, goalkeeper Rab Douglas and defender Bobo Balde both featured in twelve matches, which led the team in that category. They both missed the 2nd leg of the first round against FK Sūduva. Douglas conceded twelve goals and had six clean sheets. Celtic outscored opponents 26 to 11 on their run to the Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
final. Striker Henrik Larsson scored eleven goals, including a hat-trick in the first game against FK Sūduva.
The motto "V for Victory" was coined during the campaign as every team Celtic faced; FK Sūduva, Blackburn Rovers, Celta Vigo, VfB Stuttgart, Liverpool, and Boavista, each had V in their name, with the exception of the team Celtic played in the final, Porto, although it was highlighted that the game would be in Seville.[10][11][12]
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In another reference to the letter V, for the days leading up to the game the Daily Record, a Scottish tabloid newspaper, sent an open topped double decker bus to Seville with the slogan "Here V Go" on the side of the bus.
[edit]First round v FK Sūduva
The first game of the campaign was against Lithuanian team FK Sūduva. Sudūva stated that they could not send a scout to Glasgow to spy on Celtic to prepare for their match and had to watch Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
videotapes of Celtic.[13]
Celtic all but won the tie in the first leg at home in Celtic Park on 14 August 2002 which they won 8–1. Henrik Larsson scored a hat-trick, while Stilian Petrov, Chris Sutton, Paul Lambert, Joos Valgaeren and John Hartson all netted a goal each.[14] Martin O'Neill rested a number of players for the second leg, with first-team regulars such as Larsson, Sutton, Lambert, Valgaeren, Petrov and Neil Lennon all being left in Glasgow.[15] Celtic won the second leg 2–0 and went through to Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
the second round on an aggregate of 10–1.
[edit]Second round v Blackburn Rovers
Celtic's next opponents were English side Blackburn Rovers, who at were managed by former Rangers player-manager Graeme Souness. The tie was dubbed the Battle of Britain.
The first leg of the tie was at Celtic Park which resulted in a 1–0 win for Celtic, though some commentators stated that Blackburn had dominated the game. After the game Souness was Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
quoted as saying that Blackburn should have won the game and that it was like watching "men against boys" and further stated before the second leg that if Celtic scored one goal then Blackburn would score three. Celtic went on to win 2–0 away from home in the second leg with goals from Larsson and Sutton to the joy of the 8,000 travelling fans.[16][17][18]
[edit]Third round v Celta Vigo
Martin O'Neill received a two-game touchline ban after he was sent from the home dugout Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
during Celtic's 1–0 victory over Celta Vigo; this was later reduced to a one match ban after an appeal. The second leg finished 2–1 to Celta Vigo and Celtic went through on away goals.[19][20] John Hartson scored the equaliser in the second leg for Celtic, after Benni McCarthy had given Vigo the lead. This was the first of two defeats for Celtic on the way to the final.
[edit]Fourth round v VfB Stuttgart
The opponent for Celtic in the fourth round was German Bundesliga team VfB Stuttgart. As in Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
every round before this Celtic had the advantage of playing the first leg of the tie at home. Celtic won the first leg, coming from a goal down after Kevin Kurányi scored in the 27th minute, but were 2–1 at half-time after 2 goals from Paul Lambert and Shaun Maloney. They won 3–1. In the second leg Celtic went 2–0 up after the first 14 minutes, but after a comeback and a late goal Stuttgart won 3–2. Celtic won 5–4 on aggregate.
[edit]Quarter-final v Liverpool
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Liverpool were competing in the UEFA Cup having finished third in Group B of the Champions League which also featured Celtic's conquerors in the qualifying round FC Basel, who finished second. The first leg of the quarter-final game against Liverpool took place at Celtic Park on 13 March. This clash was again billed as the Battle of Britain. The first leg ended 1–1 with Larsson scoring for Celtic but the away goal giving Liverpool the advantage going in to their home tie at Anfield. Liverpool player El Hadji Diouf spat at a Celtic supporter, and was later fined £5,000 at Sony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
Glasgow's Sheriff Court for the incident.[21]
The return match at Anfield took place the following week on 20 March. Celtic won 2–0, with the goals coming from an Alan Thompson free kick and a long-range strike from John Hartson.
[edit]Semi-final v Boavista
Celtic won the semi-final to stop an all-Portugal, and all-Porto final, with Henrik Larsson scoring in both legs of the tie against Boavista. In the first leg Celtic went a goal down through an own goal Sony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
from Joos Valgaeren in the 48th minute. Larsson equalised seconds later, but then missed a 75th minute penalty. The 1–1 draw was Martin O'Neill's 50th unbeaten match at Celtic Park, a record of results that stretched back to Ajax in August 2001. 60,000 fans attended that match at Celtic Park.[22]
In the return leg, Larsson scored in the 80th minute,[23] to win the game 1–0 meaning Celtic would go through to the UEFA Cup Final, with a 2–1 aggregate score.
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[edit]Celtic fans and Seville
Tickets for the match had been selling for £500 in the lead up to the game and Celtic fans were warned to avoid the estimated 700 fake tickets that were circulating before the game.[24][25]
There was a scramble to arrange travel to Spain for what was called "one of the biggest events in sporting history"[citation needed] and Celtic fans travelled by plane, car, bus, train and ferry in oHP 519265-001 Keyboard
rder to get to Seville on time.[25]
Around 80,000 Celtic supporters travelled to watch the club compete in the final at the Estadio Olímpico in Seville in southern Spain.[26][27]
The Celtic players train at the stadium before the final
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Tens of thousands of Celtic fans partied in Seville during the days leading up to the match. Many of the supporters congregated in the Cathedral area of the city.
[edit]The final vs. F.C. Porto
Main article: 2003 UEFA Cup Final
Celtic lost the final match 3–2 to Porto after Porto became the first team to win a trophy on the silver goal rule to claim their first UEFA Cup. The bad weather meant that the game was played at Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
a relatively slow pace which seemed to favour Porto, and led to a number of rash challenges from Celtic, one of which led to Joos Valgaeren getting a yellow card on 8 minutes. After this it was very much a stoic affair, until 32 minutes into the first half when Capucho played in Deco, but he could do no more than fire his shot straight at Robert Douglas. Straight after this attack Celtic broke on the counter with Henrik Larsson putting Didier Agathe through on the right but his cross was too high for Chris Sutton. Larsson had a chance to make it 1–0 on 35 minutes, but he was Acer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
unable to get enough contact on the ball. Porto came close on 41 minutes when Deco moved past Bobo Baldé to go one on one with Robert Douglas, who saved Deco's shot with his legs. Porto finally found a way through on 45 minutes when, after some great work from Deco, Derlei followed up Dmitri Alenichev's shot which was saved by Robert Douglas, to give Porto a 1–0 lead on the stroke of half time and his 11th goal of the competition.
Porto's lead did not last long after the restart as Celtic equalised when Henrik Larsson met Didier HP 491274-031 Keyboard
Agathe's cross to send a looping header in over the helpless Vítor Baía to get his tenth goal of the tournament and his 200th Celtic goal. However within 5 minutes it was 2–1 when Deco's through ball found Dmitri Alenichev who scored. Just 3 minutes later Celtic equalised once again through Henrik Larsson when he headed in Alan Thompson's corner. After this the game stagnated until a couple of minutes from time when Jackie McNamara's errant pass found Dmitri Alenichev, however he shot over.
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Normal time ended with the game at 2–2, the ensuing periods of extra time saw cagey football from both sides and Celtic were down to ten men when Bobo Balde was dismissed on 95 minutes after his second yellow card. On 112 minutes Derlei reacted quickest to a Robert Douglas block and rounded McNamara to make it 3–2. Porto managed to hang on even after having Nuno Valente sent off, thus ensuring that Porto had ended their 16 year wait between European trophies.[28][29]
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After the match Henrik Larsson said in an interview that he was disappointed to have scored two goals in the final and still come away with a runners up medal. He was named man of the match.
The Porto manager, José Mourinho led his team to the Champions League title the following year, before moving to Chelsea.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders, are a professional football team based in Regina, Saskatchewan who play in the West Division of the Canadian Football League. Founded in 1910, they have Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
played their games at Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field since 1936. Originally known as the Regina Rugby Club from 1910 to 1923, they changed their name to the Regina Roughriders in 1924 and finally to the current moniker in 1946.
The team draws fans from across Saskatchewan and Canada who are affectionately known as the "Rider Nation".[1] They have finished first in the Western Division seven times and have won the Western championship a record 27 times. But, despite playing in the championship game 18 HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
times, they have won only three Grey Cups over their 100-year history. Their loyalty is all the more remarkable since the Roughriders play in the smallest market in the CFL, and the second-smallest major-league market in North America (behind only Green Bay, Wisconsin).
The team has had 20 players inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. The Riders' biggest rival is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers; games between the two are often sold out before the beginning of the season.[2] The Roughriders Football Club and the city of Regina have been HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
chosen to host the 101st Grey Cup.[3] In July of 2012, the Province of Saskatchewan announced that the Roughriders will have a new stadium completed in time for the 2017 season.
Contents [hide]
1 Team facts
2 Public company
2.1 Board of directors
2.2 Financial statements
3 Franchise history
3.1 Club origins and the early years
3.2 The Regina Roughriders
3.3 Western Interprovincial Football Union
3.4 The Saskatchewan Roughriders
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3.5 The Ronnie and George show
3.5.1 1966 Grey Cup champions
3.6 Decline and drought
3.7 Return to the playoffs
3.7.1 1989 Grey Cup champions
3.8 Roy Shivers and Danny Barrett
3.9 The Ken Miller era
3.9.1 2007 Grey Cup champions
3.10 A new beginning
4 Mascot
5 Band
6 Cheer Team
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7 Anthem Singer
8 Popularity
8.1 Fan support
8.2 University Section
9 Fight and theme songs
10 Radio and television
11 Current roster
12 Current coaches and directors
13 Players of note
13.1 Retired numbers
13.2 Canadian Football Hall of Famers
14 Recent regular season and playoff results
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14.1 Season-by-season records
14.2 The 1990s
14.3 The Danny Barrett era
14.4 The Ken Miller era
15 See also
16 References
17 External links
18 Media
[edit]Team facts
Formerly known as: Regina Rugby Club 1910 to 1923, Regina Roughriders 1924 to 1945
Helmet design: Green helmet with a black and white "S" and stalks of wheat on each side with a
black background.
Retro helmet design: Green helmet with logo of a green wreath surrounding a green S on a white background
Uniform colours: Green and white, with black accents
Nickname: Riders, the green and white
Saskatchewan regular season championships: 23—1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1916, 1919, 1920, Asus X53S Keyboard
1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935
Western regular season championships: 7—1951, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1976, 2009
Western Division championships: 27—1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1919, 1920, 1923, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1936, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936, 1951, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1989, 1997, 2007, 2009, 2010
Grey Cup final appearances: 18—1923 (lost), 1928 (lost), 1929 (lost), 1930 (lost), 1931 (lost), Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
1932 (lost), 1934 (lost), 1951 (lost), 1966 (won), 1967 (lost), 1969 (lost), 1972 (lost), 1976 (lost), 1989 (won), 1997 (lost), 2007 (won), 2009 (lost), 2010 (lost)
Grey Cup wins: 3—1966, 1989, 2007
Hosted the Grey Cup two times: 1995 (83rd Grey Cup), 2003 (91st Grey Cup)
Main rivals: Winnipeg Blue Bombers (see Labour Day Classic and Banjo Bowl), Edmonton Eskimos, Calgary Stampeders, BC Lions.
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2011 regular season record: 5 wins, 13 losses, 0 ties.
[edit]Public company
The Roughriders are one of only a few publicly owned professional sports companies in North America, complete with a board of directors. The Roughriders' public ownership model is similar to the Green Bay Packers where a limited number of shares have been sold to the public. It is not Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
possible to resell these shares, no dividend payment is possible and no person may hold more than 20 voting shares. A recent public offering of Rider Shares — Series 1 — commenced in 2004 at an offering price of $250 per share[4] In 2006 the Ottawa Sun reported that the Roughriders had sold around 3,000 at $250 each.[5] The Series 1 offering closed in 2008 after all 6,000 shares were sold. A second public offering, Series 2, was launched in 2010 in honour of the team's 100th anniversary.[6]
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[edit]Board of directors
Saskatchewan Roughriders Football Club, Inc., is governed by an Eleven-member Board of Directors. As of 2011 the board consists of Chairman Roger Brandvold, Vice-Chair Rory Picklyk, Doug Emsley, Paul Hill, Twyla Meredith, Wayne Morsky, Dennis Mulvihill, Robert Leurer, Laurie Powers, Jeff Stusek and Joel Teal. Although not technically a member of the Board of Directors, Jim Hopson serves as the teams President and Chief Executive Officer.
[Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
edit]Financial statements
On April 5, 2008, a report was released saying that the Roughriders set a new record for earnings in a single season. In 2007 the Roughriders generated $22,950,489 in revenue, with a profit of $1,737,377. These earnings were due in part to the championship season the Roughriders sported, which included 8 home game sellouts and their first home playoff game in 19 years.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders Football Club generated $6.6 million in profits in 2010. The club Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
exceeded the $38 million plateau in total gross revenues.[7] The team enjoyed record sales in all areas of its operation, from sell-out crowds in the stands to merchandise sales and sponsorship deals.[8]
The Saskatchewan Roughriders exceeded the 2010 CFL SEC of the Salary Management System by $26,677. The team was fined $26,677 in accordance with the punishment provisions set out in the SMS.[9][10]
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[edit]Franchise history
[edit]Club origins and the early years
The team was founded as the Regina Rugby Club on Tuesday, September 13, 1910, adopting the colours of old gold and purple.[11] They played their home games at Park Hughes on 10th Avenue in Regina's north central section, where they remain based to this day. The team was also aToshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
founding member of the Saskatchewan Rugby Football Union as it was organized on September 22 of that year. Regina played their first game against the Moose Jaw Tigers on October 1, 1910, at the Moose Jaw Baseball Grounds where they were defeated 16–6. For the 1911 season, the team changed their colours to blue and white to match the Regina Amateur Athletic Association and won their first SRFU championship, but lost in the first season of the Western Canada Rugby Football Union playoffs.[12]
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The Regina Rugby Club changed their colours again in 1912 to red and black and began an era of western football dominance.[11] For every season of play in the SRFU, Regina would win the league championship, exerting their prowess over teams from Moose Jaw, Saskatoon, and any other clubs in Saskatchewan. Beginning in the 1912 season, Regina would go on to win seven straight WCRFU titles, excluding 1917 and 1918 when World War I interrupted league play. In 1921, the western champion was invited to compete for the Grey Cup national championship, HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
but it was also the first time since 1911 that the Regina Rugby Club didn't win the West Championship as the Edmonton Eskimos traveled east to play in the 9th Grey Cup.[13]
In 1923, Regina returned to power as they won their eighth western championship over the Winnipeg Victorias and earned the right to compete in the national playoffs. The club was given a bye and advanced straight to the Grey Cup final for the first time, but were severely outmatched, losing 54–0 to Queen's University at Varsity Stadium in Toronto.[13] This was, and still is, the Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
most lopsided defeat in Grey Cup history as the defending champion Queen's won their third straight national championship at the expense of the Regina Rugby Club.[14]
[edit]The Regina Roughriders
Following their first Grey Cup loss, the club changed their name to the Regina Roughriders in 1924 while retaining the colours of red and black.[13] Ottawa also had a team called the Ottawa Rough Riders, but the spelling was different and the two clubs played in different leagues. The Acer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
origin of the name has multiple theories, one of which describes how the North-West Mounted Police were called Roughriders because they broke the wild horse broncos that were used by the force and the moniker was adopted from them. Another states that the name was adopted from Theodore Roosevelt's cavalry contingent that was known as the Rough Riders, who fought in the Spanish–American War. It was believed that there were Canadian troops in the contingent that returned to Canada following the war and moved out west.[12]
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During the first two years of their name change, the Roughriders failed to reclaim their western championship title, losing both times to clubs from Winnipeg.[15][16] The 1926 season marked the beginning of their next reign of dominance as the club matched their own WCRFU record with seven consecutive western championships from 1926 to 1932. With dominant players such as Canadian Football Hall of Famer Eddie James, the Roughriders were a perennial contender from the West, reaching the Grey Cup finals five consecutive years from 1928 to 1932, the Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
second-longest streak in the championship's history.[12] Unfortunately, Regina remained winless in the national championship, being outscored 102-15 in those Grey Cup games. The Roughriders won their last WCRFU title in 1934, representing the west for the seventh time in the 22nd Grey Cup, but lost to the Sarnia Imperials in that club's first Grey Cup win.[17]
[edit]Western Interprovincial Football Union
In 1936, Regina joined the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Calgary Bronks as the founding franchises Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
of the Western Interprovincial Football Union, the highest level of Canadian football play in Western Canada. Also in 1936, a permanent grandstand was built at Park Hughes and Park de Young--what is now Taylor Field. The Roughriders would become the first WIFU champions after they defeated the Blue Bombers and Bronks in the West Semi-Finals and West Finals respectively. However, due to a rules dispute with the Canadian Rugby Union over use of their five import players from the United States, Regina was barred from competing for the 24th Grey Cup.[18] HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
Winnipeg had won the Grey Cup championship one year earlier with seven imports and the move to prevent Regina from competing was seen as a reaction to the previous year's western win. While the Roughriders had planned on traveling east without the five ineligible players, the CRU remained steadfast in their decision to disallow the team from competition.[18][19]
The next decade in the WIFU would not be as successful as the first as the team would not win another Western Final as the Regina Roughriders, nor ever finish in first place in that time span. HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
After qualifying for the playoffs in three of their next five seasons, play from 1942 to 1944 was interrupted due the World War II. While there was no regular season in 1945, the Roughriders did play the newly named Calgary Stampeders in the West Semi-Finals, but lost the series two games to none.[20]
[edit]The Saskatchewan Roughriders
With the folding of both clubs in Moose Jaw and Saskatoon, the Regina Roughriders became a Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
provincially community-owned club, and, consequently, changed their name to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1946.[20] Prior to the 1948 season, the Roughriders were in need of new uniforms as their red and black ones had become old and worn out. While visiting a surplus store in Chicago, executive member Jack Fyffe found a set of green and white uniforms and purchased them for the Roughriders, which have remained as the team's primary colours to this day.[12] The name change was made official on April 1, 1950.[21][22]
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After three years of first-round playoff exits, the Roughriders finally returned to prominence in 1951, winning their first WIFU regular season championship with an 8-6 record. Saskatchewan, led by quarterback Glenn Dobbs, defeated the Edmonton Eskimos in the West Final and advanced to the Grey Cup for the first time since 1934. In this game, they faced the Ottawa Rough Riders for the first time, marking the first Roughriders versus Rough Riders championship game in Canadian football history. Unfortunately, Saskatchewan could not win their first championship as HP 633736-001 Keyboard
they were defeated by Ottawa 21-14 in the 39th Grey Cup.[23]
Saskatchewan contended on and off in the 1950s, with four consecutive winning seasons and second-place regular season finishes from 1953 to 1956. Teams from this era featured standouts such as Frank Tripucka, Reggie Whitehouse, Ken Carpenter, Mike Cassidy, player-coach Frank Filchock and Cookie Gilchrist who was the first Roughrider player to rush for 1,000 yards in 1958. Even with that talent, they couldn't return to the Grey Cup as clubs fielded by either the Toshiba Satellite 1800-614 Keyboard
Edmonton Eskimos and Winnipeg Blue Bombers would end their season in each of these years. Their strongest season was in 1956 when the Roughriders recorded a 10-6 record and won their first playoff series since 1951, only to lose to the Eskimos in the Western Finals.
Following their 1956 campaign, tragedy struck the Roughriders franchise when four members of the team were killed in a plane crash on December 9, 1956, while returning from the CFL All-Star Game in Vancouver. Gordon Sturtridge, Mel Becket, Ray Syrnyk, and Mario DeMarco were killed Toshiba Satellite P105-S6177 Keyboard
when Flight 810 crashed into Slesse Mountain near Chilliwack, British Columbia. The team retired the numbers of the four players shortly after the tragedy.[24] The following season, the Roughriders finished with seven fewer wins and a last place finish in the WIFU.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders became charter members of the Canadian Football League in 1958, as the team finished with a respectable 7-7-2 record and a third place finish.[22] However, the following season proved to be the worst in franchise history, as the team finished with just HP Pavilion dv2-1008ax Keyboard
one win and 15 losses, the third-worst winning percentage in CFL history.[25] The years ahead would feature similar results, as the Roughriders would miss the playoffs for three consecutive seasons, their worst such streak since joining the WIFU in 1936.
[edit]The Ronnie and George show
Following a 1962 season that saw the Roughriders return to the playoffs, the team made roster moves that would define a generation of football in Saskatchewan. In the off-season, the Sony Vaio PCG-K37 Keyboard
Roughriders signed fullback George Reed from Washington State to replace Fred Burket, who had been traded to the Alouettes.[26] Then, prior to their season opening game of the 1963 season, Saskatchewan acquired Ottawa Rough Riders quarterback Ron Lancaster on July 30 on a straight cash basis following three years with the Eastern Riders.[27][28] The duo would contribute to a productive season for Saskatchewan as they finished with a 7-7-2 record and won a playoff series for the first time since 1956 before losing their first playoff match-up with the BC Lions. The Toshiba PK13AT10600 Keyboard
Roughriders would continue to make progress in the next two seasons, posting back-to-back winning records, but lost in the West Semi-Finals in both years.
[edit]1966 Grey Cup champions
Led by second-year head coach Eagle Keys, the Roughriders would finally break through and capture the Western Conference regular season title in the 1966 season, the first time they had accomplished that feat since 1951. Ron Lancaster won the Jeff Nicklin Memorial Trophy as the Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
Western Conference's most outstanding player while George Reed, receiver Hugh Campbell and four other Riders were named league all-stars, the most from any team that year. Saskatchewan swept Winnipeg in the West Finals, winning two games to no losses, and qualified for the ninth Grey Cup final in franchise history. In the 54th Grey Cup, Saskatchewan once again faced the Ottawa Rough Riders in a rematch of the 1951 championship game. After the score was tied 14-14 at halftime, Saskatchewan scored 15 fourth-quarter points to win the franchise's first Grey HP Pavilion dv6-3141se Keyboard
Cup championship 29-14 on November 26, 1966.[29][30] Saskatchewan was the last of the
original nine CFL franchises to win the Grey Cup, doing so in Vancouver at Empire Stadium.
Contents [hide]
1 History and evolution of the term
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2 Marxism
3 Recent growth of the global middle class
4 Professional-managerial class
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]History and evolution of the term
The term "middle class" is first attested in James Bradshaw's 1745 pamphlet Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France.[1][2] The term has had several, sometimes contradictory, meanings. It was once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry of Europe.[by whom?] While the nobility owned the countryside, and the pAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
easantry worked the countryside, a new bourgeoisie (literally "town-dwellers") arose around mercantile functions in the city. Another definition equated the middle class to the original meaning of capitalist: someone with so much capital that they could rival nobles. In fact, to be a capital-owning millionaire was the essential criterion of the middle class in the industrial revolution. In France, the middle classes helped drive the French Revolution.[3]
The modern sociological usage of the term "middle class", however, dates to the 1911 UK Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
Registrar-General's report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as that falling between the upper class and the working class. Included as belonging to the middle class are professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is possession of significant human capital.
Within capitalism, middle class initially referred to the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie. However, with the immiserisation and proletarianisation of much of the petit bourgeois world, Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
and the growth of finance capitalism, middle class came to refer to the combination of labour aristocracy, professionals and white collar workers.
The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined, whether by education, wealth, environment of upbringing, social network, manners or values, etc. These are all related, though far from deterministically dependent. The following factors are often ascribed in modern usage to a "middle class":[by whom?]
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Achievement of tertiary education.
Holding professional qualifications, including academics, lawyers, chartered engineers, politicians and doctors regardless of their leisure or wealth.
Belief in bourgeois values, such as high rates of house ownership and jobs which are perceived to be "secure".
Lifestyle. In the United Kingdom, social status has historically been linked less directly to wealth Ideapad U550
than in the United States,[4] and has also been judged by pointers such as accent, manners, place of education, occupation and the class of a person's family, circle of friends and acquaintances.[5][6]
Cultural identification. Often in the United States, the middle class are the most eager participants in pop culture whereas the reverse is true in Britain.[7]
The second generation of new immigrants will often enthusiastically forsake their traditional folk Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
culture as a sign of having arrived in the middle class.[citation needed]
In the United States by the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle class than as lower or "working" class (with insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper class).[8] The British Labour Party, which grew out of the organized labour movement and originally drew almost all of its support from the working class, reinvented itself under Tony Blair in the 1990s as "New Labour", a party competing with the Conservative Party for the votes SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
of the middle class as well as the working class. By 2011, almost three quarters of British people were also found to identify themselves as Middle Class.[9]
[edit]Marxism
In Marxism, which defines social classes according to their relationship with the means of production, the "middle class" is said to be the class below the ruling class and above the HP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
proletariat in the Marxist social schema. Marxist writers have used the term in two distinct but related ways.[10] In the first sense it is used for the bourgeoisie, the urban merchant and professional class that stood between the aristocracy and the proletariat in the Marxist model. However, in modern developed countries, the bourgeoisie is taken to be the class that owns and controls the means of production, and is thus considered the ruling class in capitalist societies. As such, some Marxist writers specify the petite bourgeoisie – owners of small property who may Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
not employ wage labor – as the "middle class" between the ruling and working classes.[10] Marx himself regarded this version of the "middle class" as becoming merged with the working classes.[10] The fact that recent decades have seen a large section of small businessmen (shopkeepers, restaurants) replaced by wage-workers (in supermarkets or chains of restaurants) has led most marxists to theorize an expansion of the working class at the expense of the middle class.
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[edit]Recent growth of the global middle class
In February 2009, The Economist announced that over half the world's population now belongs to the middle class, as a result of rapid growth in emerging countries. It characterized the middle class as having a reasonable amount of discretionary income, so that they do not live from hand to mouth as the poor do, and defined it as beginning at the point where people have roughly a tSamsungR19 Keyboard
hird of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter. This allows people to buy consumer goods, improve their health care, and provide for their children's education. Most of the emerging middle class consists of people who are middle-class by the standards of the developing world but not the rich one, since their money incomes do not match developed country levels, but the percentage of it which is discretionary does. By this definition, the number of middle-class people in Asia exceeded that in the West sometime around 2007 or Compaq 6720 Keyboard
2008.[11]
The Economist's article pointed out that in many emerging countries the middle class has not grown incrementally, but explosively. The rapid growth results from the fact that the majority of the people fall into the middle of a right-skewed bell-shaped curve, and when the peak of the population curve crosses the threshold into the middle class, the number of people in the middle class grows enormously. In addition, when the curve crosses the threshold, economic forces Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
cause the bulge to become taller as incomes at that level grow faster than incomes in other ranges. The point at which the poor start entering the middle class by the millions is the time when poor countries get the maximum benefit from cheap labour through international trade, before they price themselves out of world markets for cheap goods. It is also a period of rapid urbanization, when subsistence farmers abandon marginal farms to work in factories, resulting in a several-fold increase in their economic productivity before their wages catch up to international Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
levels. That stage was reached in China some time between 1990 and 2005, when the middle class grew from 15% to 62% of the population, and is just being reached in India now.
The Economist predicted that surge across the poverty line should continue for a couple of decades and the global middle class will grow enormously between now and 2030.
As the American middle class is estimated at approximately 45% of the population,[12][13][14] The Economist's article would put the size of the American middle class below the world average. HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
This difference is due to the extreme difference in definitions between The Economist's and many other models.[discuss]
In 2010, a working paper by the OECD estimated that 1.8 billion people were now members of the global middle class.[15]
[edit]Professional-managerial class
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In 1977 Barbara Ehrenreich and her then husband John defined a new Marxist class in United States as "salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor...(is)...the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations"; the Ehrenreichs named this group the "professional-managerial class".[16] This group of middle-class professionals are distinguished from other social classes by their training and education (typically business qualifications and university degrees),[17] with example Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
occupations including academics and teachers, social workers, engineers, managers, nurses, and middle-level administrators.[18] The Ehrenreichs developed their definition from studies by André Gorz, Serge Mallet, and others, of a "new working class", which, despite education and a perception of themselves as being middle class, were part of the working class because they did not own the means of production, and were wage earners paid to produce a piece of capital.[19] The professional-managerial class seeks higher rank status and salary,[20] and tend to have Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
incomes above the average for their country.[21]
Compare the term "managerial caste".[22]
Cash flow is the movement of money into or out of a business, project, or financial product. It is usually measured during a specified, finite period of time. Measurement of cash flow can be used for calculating other parameters that give information on a company's value and situation. Cash flow can be used, for example, for calculating parameters:
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to determine a project's rate of return or value. The time of cash flows into and out of projects are used as inputs in financial models such as internal rate of return and net present value.
to determine problems with a business's liquidity. Being profitable does not necessarily mean being liquid. A company can fail because of a shortage of cash even while profitable.
as an alternative measure of a business's profits when it is believed that accrual accounting concepts do not represent economic realities. For example, a company may be notionally Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
profitable but generating little operational cash (as may be the case for a company that barters its products rather than selling for cash). In such a case, the company may be deriving additional operating cash by issuing shares or raising additional debt finance.
cash flow can be used to evaluate the 'quality' of income generated by accrual accounting. When net income is composed of large non-cash items it is considered low quality.
to evaluate the risks within a financial product, e.g. matching cash requirements, evaluating Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
default risk, re-investment requirements, etc.
Cash flow is a generic term used differently depending on the context. It may be defined by users for their own purposes. It can refer to actual past flows or projected future flows. It can refer to the total of all flows involved or a subset of those flows. Subset terms include net cash flow, operating cash flow and free cash flow.
Contents [hide]
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1 Statement of cash flow in a business's financials
2 Ways Companies Can Augment Reported Cash Flow
3 Examples
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
[edit]Statement of cash flow in a business's financials
The (total) net cash flow of a company over a period (typically a quarter or a full year) is equal to the change in cash balance over this period: positive if the cash balance increases (more cash becomes available), negative if the cash balance decreases. The total net cash flow is the sum of cash flows that are classified in three areas:
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perational cash flows: Cash received or expended as a result of the company's internal business activities. It includes cash earnings plus changes to working capital. Over the medium term this must be net positive if the company is to remain solvent.
Investment cash flows: Cash received from the sale of long-life assets, or spent on capital expenditure (investments, acquisitions and long-life assets).
Financing cash flows: Cash received from the issue of debt and equity, or paid out as dividends, HP 608558-001 Keyboard
share repurchases or debt repayments.
[edit]Ways Companies Can Augment Reported Cash Flow
Common methods include:
Sales - Sell the receivables to a factor for instant cash. (leading)
Inventory - Don't pay your suppliers for an additional few weeks at period end. (lagging)
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Sales Commissions - Management can form a separate (but unrelated) company and act as its agent. The book of business can then be purchased quarterly as an investment.
Wages - Remunerate with stock options.
Maintenance - Contract with the predecessor company that you prepay five years worth for them to continue doing the work
Equipment Leases - Buy it
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Rent - Buy the property (sale and lease back, for example).
Oil Exploration costs - Replace reserves by buying another company's.
Research & Development - Wait for the product to be proven by a start-up lab; then buy the lab.
Consulting Fees - Pay in shares from treasury since usually to related parties
Interest - Issue convertible debt where the conversion rate changes with the unpaid interest.
Taxes - Buy shelf companies with TaxLossCarryForward's. Or gussy up the purchase by buying a Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
lab or O&G explore co. with the same TLCF.[1]
[edit]Examples
The Bhoys from Seville is a nickname used to refer to Celtic F.C.'s team and fans during Celtic's 2002–03 UEFA Cup campaign, which culminated in their defeat in the final in Seville, Spain.[1][2][3][4] Over 80,000 Celtic fans travelled to support their team in the final.[5][6]
The name "The Bhoys from Seville" is a play on words from the book and film The Boys from Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
Brazil, the nickname of Celtic F.C. (the Bhoys), and the location of the UEFA Cup final. As the first Scottish team for 16 years to reach a European final and the first Celtic team to reach a European final since the 1970 European Cup Final, the team was compared to Celtic's European Cup winning team in 1967, the Lisbon Lions.[1][7][8][9]
Contents [hide]
1 Background
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1.1 First round v FK Sūduva
1.2 Second round v Blackburn Rovers
1.3 Third round v Celta Vigo
1.4 Fourth round v VfB Stuttgart
1.5 Quarter-final v Liverpool
1.6 Semi-final v Boavista
2 Celtic fans and Seville
2.1 The final vs. F.C. Porto
2.1.1 The team for the final
2.2 Match facts
2.3 Viewing figures
3 Celtic fans win awards
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4 Legacy of the Bhoys from Seville
5 Campaign results
6 See also
7 References
[edit]Background
Celtic's participation in the 2002/03 UEFA Cup came as a result of defeat in the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round to FC Basel (3–3 aggregate score with the Swiss team progressing to the group stage on away goals). During the 2003 UEFA Cup competition, goalkeeper Rab Douglas and defender Bobo Balde both featured in twelve matches, which led the team in that category. They both missed the 2nd leg of the first round against FK Sūduva. Douglas conceded twelve goals and had six clean sheets. Celtic outscored opponents 26 to 11 on their run to the Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
final. Striker Henrik Larsson scored eleven goals, including a hat-trick in the first game against FK Sūduva.
The motto "V for Victory" was coined during the campaign as every team Celtic faced; FK Sūduva, Blackburn Rovers, Celta Vigo, VfB Stuttgart, Liverpool, and Boavista, each had V in their name, with the exception of the team Celtic played in the final, Porto, although it was highlighted that the game would be in Seville.[10][11][12]
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In another reference to the letter V, for the days leading up to the game the Daily Record, a Scottish tabloid newspaper, sent an open topped double decker bus to Seville with the slogan "Here V Go" on the side of the bus.
[edit]First round v FK Sūduva
The first game of the campaign was against Lithuanian team FK Sūduva. Sudūva stated that they could not send a scout to Glasgow to spy on Celtic to prepare for their match and had to watch Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
videotapes of Celtic.[13]
Celtic all but won the tie in the first leg at home in Celtic Park on 14 August 2002 which they won 8–1. Henrik Larsson scored a hat-trick, while Stilian Petrov, Chris Sutton, Paul Lambert, Joos Valgaeren and John Hartson all netted a goal each.[14] Martin O'Neill rested a number of players for the second leg, with first-team regulars such as Larsson, Sutton, Lambert, Valgaeren, Petrov and Neil Lennon all being left in Glasgow.[15] Celtic won the second leg 2–0 and went through to Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
the second round on an aggregate of 10–1.
[edit]Second round v Blackburn Rovers
Celtic's next opponents were English side Blackburn Rovers, who at were managed by former Rangers player-manager Graeme Souness. The tie was dubbed the Battle of Britain.
The first leg of the tie was at Celtic Park which resulted in a 1–0 win for Celtic, though some commentators stated that Blackburn had dominated the game. After the game Souness was Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
quoted as saying that Blackburn should have won the game and that it was like watching "men against boys" and further stated before the second leg that if Celtic scored one goal then Blackburn would score three. Celtic went on to win 2–0 away from home in the second leg with goals from Larsson and Sutton to the joy of the 8,000 travelling fans.[16][17][18]
[edit]Third round v Celta Vigo
Martin O'Neill received a two-game touchline ban after he was sent from the home dugout Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
during Celtic's 1–0 victory over Celta Vigo; this was later reduced to a one match ban after an appeal. The second leg finished 2–1 to Celta Vigo and Celtic went through on away goals.[19][20] John Hartson scored the equaliser in the second leg for Celtic, after Benni McCarthy had given Vigo the lead. This was the first of two defeats for Celtic on the way to the final.
[edit]Fourth round v VfB Stuttgart
The opponent for Celtic in the fourth round was German Bundesliga team VfB Stuttgart. As in Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
every round before this Celtic had the advantage of playing the first leg of the tie at home. Celtic won the first leg, coming from a goal down after Kevin Kurányi scored in the 27th minute, but were 2–1 at half-time after 2 goals from Paul Lambert and Shaun Maloney. They won 3–1. In the second leg Celtic went 2–0 up after the first 14 minutes, but after a comeback and a late goal Stuttgart won 3–2. Celtic won 5–4 on aggregate.
[edit]Quarter-final v Liverpool
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Liverpool were competing in the UEFA Cup having finished third in Group B of the Champions League which also featured Celtic's conquerors in the qualifying round FC Basel, who finished second. The first leg of the quarter-final game against Liverpool took place at Celtic Park on 13 March. This clash was again billed as the Battle of Britain. The first leg ended 1–1 with Larsson scoring for Celtic but the away goal giving Liverpool the advantage going in to their home tie at Anfield. Liverpool player El Hadji Diouf spat at a Celtic supporter, and was later fined £5,000 at Sony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
Glasgow's Sheriff Court for the incident.[21]
The return match at Anfield took place the following week on 20 March. Celtic won 2–0, with the goals coming from an Alan Thompson free kick and a long-range strike from John Hartson.
[edit]Semi-final v Boavista
Celtic won the semi-final to stop an all-Portugal, and all-Porto final, with Henrik Larsson scoring in both legs of the tie against Boavista. In the first leg Celtic went a goal down through an own goal Sony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
from Joos Valgaeren in the 48th minute. Larsson equalised seconds later, but then missed a 75th minute penalty. The 1–1 draw was Martin O'Neill's 50th unbeaten match at Celtic Park, a record of results that stretched back to Ajax in August 2001. 60,000 fans attended that match at Celtic Park.[22]
In the return leg, Larsson scored in the 80th minute,[23] to win the game 1–0 meaning Celtic would go through to the UEFA Cup Final, with a 2–1 aggregate score.
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[edit]Celtic fans and Seville
Tickets for the match had been selling for £500 in the lead up to the game and Celtic fans were warned to avoid the estimated 700 fake tickets that were circulating before the game.[24][25]
There was a scramble to arrange travel to Spain for what was called "one of the biggest events in sporting history"[citation needed] and Celtic fans travelled by plane, car, bus, train and ferry in oHP 519265-001 Keyboard
rder to get to Seville on time.[25]
Around 80,000 Celtic supporters travelled to watch the club compete in the final at the Estadio Olímpico in Seville in southern Spain.[26][27]
The Celtic players train at the stadium before the final
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Tens of thousands of Celtic fans partied in Seville during the days leading up to the match. Many of the supporters congregated in the Cathedral area of the city.
[edit]The final vs. F.C. Porto
Main article: 2003 UEFA Cup Final
Celtic lost the final match 3–2 to Porto after Porto became the first team to win a trophy on the silver goal rule to claim their first UEFA Cup. The bad weather meant that the game was played at Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
a relatively slow pace which seemed to favour Porto, and led to a number of rash challenges from Celtic, one of which led to Joos Valgaeren getting a yellow card on 8 minutes. After this it was very much a stoic affair, until 32 minutes into the first half when Capucho played in Deco, but he could do no more than fire his shot straight at Robert Douglas. Straight after this attack Celtic broke on the counter with Henrik Larsson putting Didier Agathe through on the right but his cross was too high for Chris Sutton. Larsson had a chance to make it 1–0 on 35 minutes, but he was Acer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
unable to get enough contact on the ball. Porto came close on 41 minutes when Deco moved past Bobo Baldé to go one on one with Robert Douglas, who saved Deco's shot with his legs. Porto finally found a way through on 45 minutes when, after some great work from Deco, Derlei followed up Dmitri Alenichev's shot which was saved by Robert Douglas, to give Porto a 1–0 lead on the stroke of half time and his 11th goal of the competition.
Porto's lead did not last long after the restart as Celtic equalised when Henrik Larsson met Didier HP 491274-031 Keyboard
Agathe's cross to send a looping header in over the helpless Vítor Baía to get his tenth goal of the tournament and his 200th Celtic goal. However within 5 minutes it was 2–1 when Deco's through ball found Dmitri Alenichev who scored. Just 3 minutes later Celtic equalised once again through Henrik Larsson when he headed in Alan Thompson's corner. After this the game stagnated until a couple of minutes from time when Jackie McNamara's errant pass found Dmitri Alenichev, however he shot over.
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Normal time ended with the game at 2–2, the ensuing periods of extra time saw cagey football from both sides and Celtic were down to ten men when Bobo Balde was dismissed on 95 minutes after his second yellow card. On 112 minutes Derlei reacted quickest to a Robert Douglas block and rounded McNamara to make it 3–2. Porto managed to hang on even after having Nuno Valente sent off, thus ensuring that Porto had ended their 16 year wait between European trophies.[28][29]
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After the match Henrik Larsson said in an interview that he was disappointed to have scored two goals in the final and still come away with a runners up medal. He was named man of the match.
The Porto manager, José Mourinho led his team to the Champions League title the following year, before moving to Chelsea.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders, are a professional football team based in Regina, Saskatchewan who play in the West Division of the Canadian Football League. Founded in 1910, they have Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
played their games at Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field since 1936. Originally known as the Regina Rugby Club from 1910 to 1923, they changed their name to the Regina Roughriders in 1924 and finally to the current moniker in 1946.
The team draws fans from across Saskatchewan and Canada who are affectionately known as the "Rider Nation".[1] They have finished first in the Western Division seven times and have won the Western championship a record 27 times. But, despite playing in the championship game 18 HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
times, they have won only three Grey Cups over their 100-year history. Their loyalty is all the more remarkable since the Roughriders play in the smallest market in the CFL, and the second-smallest major-league market in North America (behind only Green Bay, Wisconsin).
The team has had 20 players inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. The Riders' biggest rival is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers; games between the two are often sold out before the beginning of the season.[2] The Roughriders Football Club and the city of Regina have been HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
chosen to host the 101st Grey Cup.[3] In July of 2012, the Province of Saskatchewan announced that the Roughriders will have a new stadium completed in time for the 2017 season.
Contents [hide]
1 Team facts
2 Public company
2.1 Board of directors
2.2 Financial statements
3 Franchise history
3.1 Club origins and the early years
3.2 The Regina Roughriders
3.3 Western Interprovincial Football Union
3.4 The Saskatchewan Roughriders
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3.5 The Ronnie and George show
3.5.1 1966 Grey Cup champions
3.6 Decline and drought
3.7 Return to the playoffs
3.7.1 1989 Grey Cup champions
3.8 Roy Shivers and Danny Barrett
3.9 The Ken Miller era
3.9.1 2007 Grey Cup champions
3.10 A new beginning
4 Mascot
5 Band
6 Cheer Team
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7 Anthem Singer
8 Popularity
8.1 Fan support
8.2 University Section
9 Fight and theme songs
10 Radio and television
11 Current roster
12 Current coaches and directors
13 Players of note
13.1 Retired numbers
13.2 Canadian Football Hall of Famers
14 Recent regular season and playoff results
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14.1 Season-by-season records
14.2 The 1990s
14.3 The Danny Barrett era
14.4 The Ken Miller era
15 See also
16 References
17 External links
18 Media
[edit]Team facts
Formerly known as: Regina Rugby Club 1910 to 1923, Regina Roughriders 1924 to 1945
Helmet design: Green helmet with a black and white "S" and stalks of wheat on each side with a
black background.
Retro helmet design: Green helmet with logo of a green wreath surrounding a green S on a white background
Uniform colours: Green and white, with black accents
Nickname: Riders, the green and white
Saskatchewan regular season championships: 23—1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1916, 1919, 1920, Asus X53S Keyboard
1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935
Western regular season championships: 7—1951, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1976, 2009
Western Division championships: 27—1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1919, 1920, 1923, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1936, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936, 1951, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1989, 1997, 2007, 2009, 2010
Grey Cup final appearances: 18—1923 (lost), 1928 (lost), 1929 (lost), 1930 (lost), 1931 (lost), Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
1932 (lost), 1934 (lost), 1951 (lost), 1966 (won), 1967 (lost), 1969 (lost), 1972 (lost), 1976 (lost), 1989 (won), 1997 (lost), 2007 (won), 2009 (lost), 2010 (lost)
Grey Cup wins: 3—1966, 1989, 2007
Hosted the Grey Cup two times: 1995 (83rd Grey Cup), 2003 (91st Grey Cup)
Main rivals: Winnipeg Blue Bombers (see Labour Day Classic and Banjo Bowl), Edmonton Eskimos, Calgary Stampeders, BC Lions.
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2011 regular season record: 5 wins, 13 losses, 0 ties.
[edit]Public company
The Roughriders are one of only a few publicly owned professional sports companies in North America, complete with a board of directors. The Roughriders' public ownership model is similar to the Green Bay Packers where a limited number of shares have been sold to the public. It is not Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
possible to resell these shares, no dividend payment is possible and no person may hold more than 20 voting shares. A recent public offering of Rider Shares — Series 1 — commenced in 2004 at an offering price of $250 per share[4] In 2006 the Ottawa Sun reported that the Roughriders had sold around 3,000 at $250 each.[5] The Series 1 offering closed in 2008 after all 6,000 shares were sold. A second public offering, Series 2, was launched in 2010 in honour of the team's 100th anniversary.[6]
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[edit]Board of directors
Saskatchewan Roughriders Football Club, Inc., is governed by an Eleven-member Board of Directors. As of 2011 the board consists of Chairman Roger Brandvold, Vice-Chair Rory Picklyk, Doug Emsley, Paul Hill, Twyla Meredith, Wayne Morsky, Dennis Mulvihill, Robert Leurer, Laurie Powers, Jeff Stusek and Joel Teal. Although not technically a member of the Board of Directors, Jim Hopson serves as the teams President and Chief Executive Officer.
[Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
edit]Financial statements
On April 5, 2008, a report was released saying that the Roughriders set a new record for earnings in a single season. In 2007 the Roughriders generated $22,950,489 in revenue, with a profit of $1,737,377. These earnings were due in part to the championship season the Roughriders sported, which included 8 home game sellouts and their first home playoff game in 19 years.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders Football Club generated $6.6 million in profits in 2010. The club Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
exceeded the $38 million plateau in total gross revenues.[7] The team enjoyed record sales in all areas of its operation, from sell-out crowds in the stands to merchandise sales and sponsorship deals.[8]
The Saskatchewan Roughriders exceeded the 2010 CFL SEC of the Salary Management System by $26,677. The team was fined $26,677 in accordance with the punishment provisions set out in the SMS.[9][10]
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[edit]Franchise history
[edit]Club origins and the early years
The team was founded as the Regina Rugby Club on Tuesday, September 13, 1910, adopting the colours of old gold and purple.[11] They played their home games at Park Hughes on 10th Avenue in Regina's north central section, where they remain based to this day. The team was also aToshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
founding member of the Saskatchewan Rugby Football Union as it was organized on September 22 of that year. Regina played their first game against the Moose Jaw Tigers on October 1, 1910, at the Moose Jaw Baseball Grounds where they were defeated 16–6. For the 1911 season, the team changed their colours to blue and white to match the Regina Amateur Athletic Association and won their first SRFU championship, but lost in the first season of the Western Canada Rugby Football Union playoffs.[12]
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The Regina Rugby Club changed their colours again in 1912 to red and black and began an era of western football dominance.[11] For every season of play in the SRFU, Regina would win the league championship, exerting their prowess over teams from Moose Jaw, Saskatoon, and any other clubs in Saskatchewan. Beginning in the 1912 season, Regina would go on to win seven straight WCRFU titles, excluding 1917 and 1918 when World War I interrupted league play. In 1921, the western champion was invited to compete for the Grey Cup national championship, HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
but it was also the first time since 1911 that the Regina Rugby Club didn't win the West Championship as the Edmonton Eskimos traveled east to play in the 9th Grey Cup.[13]
In 1923, Regina returned to power as they won their eighth western championship over the Winnipeg Victorias and earned the right to compete in the national playoffs. The club was given a bye and advanced straight to the Grey Cup final for the first time, but were severely outmatched, losing 54–0 to Queen's University at Varsity Stadium in Toronto.[13] This was, and still is, the Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
most lopsided defeat in Grey Cup history as the defending champion Queen's won their third straight national championship at the expense of the Regina Rugby Club.[14]
[edit]The Regina Roughriders
Following their first Grey Cup loss, the club changed their name to the Regina Roughriders in 1924 while retaining the colours of red and black.[13] Ottawa also had a team called the Ottawa Rough Riders, but the spelling was different and the two clubs played in different leagues. The Acer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
origin of the name has multiple theories, one of which describes how the North-West Mounted Police were called Roughriders because they broke the wild horse broncos that were used by the force and the moniker was adopted from them. Another states that the name was adopted from Theodore Roosevelt's cavalry contingent that was known as the Rough Riders, who fought in the Spanish–American War. It was believed that there were Canadian troops in the contingent that returned to Canada following the war and moved out west.[12]
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During the first two years of their name change, the Roughriders failed to reclaim their western championship title, losing both times to clubs from Winnipeg.[15][16] The 1926 season marked the beginning of their next reign of dominance as the club matched their own WCRFU record with seven consecutive western championships from 1926 to 1932. With dominant players such as Canadian Football Hall of Famer Eddie James, the Roughriders were a perennial contender from the West, reaching the Grey Cup finals five consecutive years from 1928 to 1932, the Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
second-longest streak in the championship's history.[12] Unfortunately, Regina remained winless in the national championship, being outscored 102-15 in those Grey Cup games. The Roughriders won their last WCRFU title in 1934, representing the west for the seventh time in the 22nd Grey Cup, but lost to the Sarnia Imperials in that club's first Grey Cup win.[17]
[edit]Western Interprovincial Football Union
In 1936, Regina joined the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Calgary Bronks as the founding franchises Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
of the Western Interprovincial Football Union, the highest level of Canadian football play in Western Canada. Also in 1936, a permanent grandstand was built at Park Hughes and Park de Young--what is now Taylor Field. The Roughriders would become the first WIFU champions after they defeated the Blue Bombers and Bronks in the West Semi-Finals and West Finals respectively. However, due to a rules dispute with the Canadian Rugby Union over use of their five import players from the United States, Regina was barred from competing for the 24th Grey Cup.[18] HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
Winnipeg had won the Grey Cup championship one year earlier with seven imports and the move to prevent Regina from competing was seen as a reaction to the previous year's western win. While the Roughriders had planned on traveling east without the five ineligible players, the CRU remained steadfast in their decision to disallow the team from competition.[18][19]
The next decade in the WIFU would not be as successful as the first as the team would not win another Western Final as the Regina Roughriders, nor ever finish in first place in that time span. HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
After qualifying for the playoffs in three of their next five seasons, play from 1942 to 1944 was interrupted due the World War II. While there was no regular season in 1945, the Roughriders did play the newly named Calgary Stampeders in the West Semi-Finals, but lost the series two games to none.[20]
[edit]The Saskatchewan Roughriders
With the folding of both clubs in Moose Jaw and Saskatoon, the Regina Roughriders became a Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
provincially community-owned club, and, consequently, changed their name to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1946.[20] Prior to the 1948 season, the Roughriders were in need of new uniforms as their red and black ones had become old and worn out. While visiting a surplus store in Chicago, executive member Jack Fyffe found a set of green and white uniforms and purchased them for the Roughriders, which have remained as the team's primary colours to this day.[12] The name change was made official on April 1, 1950.[21][22]
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After three years of first-round playoff exits, the Roughriders finally returned to prominence in 1951, winning their first WIFU regular season championship with an 8-6 record. Saskatchewan, led by quarterback Glenn Dobbs, defeated the Edmonton Eskimos in the West Final and advanced to the Grey Cup for the first time since 1934. In this game, they faced the Ottawa Rough Riders for the first time, marking the first Roughriders versus Rough Riders championship game in Canadian football history. Unfortunately, Saskatchewan could not win their first championship as HP 633736-001 Keyboard
they were defeated by Ottawa 21-14 in the 39th Grey Cup.[23]
Saskatchewan contended on and off in the 1950s, with four consecutive winning seasons and second-place regular season finishes from 1953 to 1956. Teams from this era featured standouts such as Frank Tripucka, Reggie Whitehouse, Ken Carpenter, Mike Cassidy, player-coach Frank Filchock and Cookie Gilchrist who was the first Roughrider player to rush for 1,000 yards in 1958. Even with that talent, they couldn't return to the Grey Cup as clubs fielded by either the Toshiba Satellite 1800-614 Keyboard
Edmonton Eskimos and Winnipeg Blue Bombers would end their season in each of these years. Their strongest season was in 1956 when the Roughriders recorded a 10-6 record and won their first playoff series since 1951, only to lose to the Eskimos in the Western Finals.
Following their 1956 campaign, tragedy struck the Roughriders franchise when four members of the team were killed in a plane crash on December 9, 1956, while returning from the CFL All-Star Game in Vancouver. Gordon Sturtridge, Mel Becket, Ray Syrnyk, and Mario DeMarco were killed Toshiba Satellite P105-S6177 Keyboard
when Flight 810 crashed into Slesse Mountain near Chilliwack, British Columbia. The team retired the numbers of the four players shortly after the tragedy.[24] The following season, the Roughriders finished with seven fewer wins and a last place finish in the WIFU.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders became charter members of the Canadian Football League in 1958, as the team finished with a respectable 7-7-2 record and a third place finish.[22] However, the following season proved to be the worst in franchise history, as the team finished with just HP Pavilion dv2-1008ax Keyboard
one win and 15 losses, the third-worst winning percentage in CFL history.[25] The years ahead would feature similar results, as the Roughriders would miss the playoffs for three consecutive seasons, their worst such streak since joining the WIFU in 1936.
[edit]The Ronnie and George show
Following a 1962 season that saw the Roughriders return to the playoffs, the team made roster moves that would define a generation of football in Saskatchewan. In the off-season, the Sony Vaio PCG-K37 Keyboard
Roughriders signed fullback George Reed from Washington State to replace Fred Burket, who had been traded to the Alouettes.[26] Then, prior to their season opening game of the 1963 season, Saskatchewan acquired Ottawa Rough Riders quarterback Ron Lancaster on July 30 on a straight cash basis following three years with the Eastern Riders.[27][28] The duo would contribute to a productive season for Saskatchewan as they finished with a 7-7-2 record and won a playoff series for the first time since 1956 before losing their first playoff match-up with the BC Lions. The Toshiba PK13AT10600 Keyboard
Roughriders would continue to make progress in the next two seasons, posting back-to-back winning records, but lost in the West Semi-Finals in both years.
[edit]1966 Grey Cup champions
Led by second-year head coach Eagle Keys, the Roughriders would finally break through and capture the Western Conference regular season title in the 1966 season, the first time they had accomplished that feat since 1951. Ron Lancaster won the Jeff Nicklin Memorial Trophy as the Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
Western Conference's most outstanding player while George Reed, receiver Hugh Campbell and four other Riders were named league all-stars, the most from any team that year. Saskatchewan swept Winnipeg in the West Finals, winning two games to no losses, and qualified for the ninth Grey Cup final in franchise history. In the 54th Grey Cup, Saskatchewan once again faced the Ottawa Rough Riders in a rematch of the 1951 championship game. After the score was tied 14-14 at halftime, Saskatchewan scored 15 fourth-quarter points to win the franchise's first Grey HP Pavilion dv6-3141se Keyboard
Cup championship 29-14 on November 26, 1966.[29][30] Saskatchewan was the last of the
original nine CFL franchises to win the Grey Cup, doing so in Vancouver at Empire Stadium.
Mouse (computing)
Mouse (computing)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Computer mouse)
Jump to: navigation, search
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A computer mouse with the most common standard features: two buttons and a scroll wheel, which can also act as a third button.
In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the
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user's hands, with one or more buttons.
The mouse sometimes features other elements, such as "wheels", which allow the user to perform various system-dependent operations, or extra buttons or features that can add more control or dimensional input. The mouse's motion typically translates into the motion of a
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pointer on a display, which allows for fine control of a graphical user interface.
The earliest known publication of the term mouse as a computer pointing device is in Bill English's 1965 publication "Computer-Aided Display Control".[1]
The online Oxford Dictionaries entry for mouse states the plural for the small rodent is mice,
while the plural for the small computer connected device is either mice or mouses. However, in Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
the usage section of the entry it states that the more common plural is mice, and that the first recorded use of the term in the plural is mice as well (though it cites a 1984 use of mice when there were actually several earlier ones).[2] The term mice was seen in print in "The Computer as
a Communication Device", written by J. C. R. Licklider in 1968.
The fourth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language endorses both Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
computer mice and computer mouses as correct plural forms for computer mouse. Some authors of technical documents may prefer either mouse devices or the more generic pointing devices.
The plural mouses treats mouse as a "headless noun".[3]
Early mouse patents. From left to right: Opposing track wheels by Engelbart, Nov. 1970, U.S. Acer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
Patent 3,541,541. Ball and wheel by Rider, Sept. 1974, U.S. Patent 3,835,464. Ball and two rollers with spring by Opocensky, Oct. 1976, U.S. Patent 3,987,685
The trackball, a related pointing device, was invented by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor working on the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR project in 1952. It used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball. It was not patented, as it was a secret military project.[4]
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Independently, Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International)
invented the first mouse prototype in 1963, with the assistance of his colleague Bill English.[5] They christened the device the mouse as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the
device looking like a tail and generally resembling the common mouse.[6] Engelbart never Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
received any royalties for it, as his patent ran out before it became widely used in personal
computers.[7] The invention of the mouse was just a small part of Engelbart's much larger project, aimed at augmenting human intellect via the Augmentation Research Center.[8]
The first computer mouse, held by inventor Douglas Engelbart, showing the wheels that make SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
contact with the working surface
Several other experimental pointing-devices developed for Engelbart's oN-Line System (NLS) exploited different body movements – for example, head-mounted devices attached to the chin or nose – but ultimately the mouse won out because of its simplicity and convenience. The first mouse, a bulky device (pictured) used two wheels perpendicular to each other: the rotation of
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each wheel translated into motion along one axis.
Engelbart received patent US3,541,541 on November 17, 1970 for an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System".[9] At the time, Engelbart envisaged that users would hold the mouse continuously in one hand and type on a five-key chord keyset with the other.[10] The concept
was preceded in the 19th century by the telautograph, which also anticipated the fax machine.
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Just a few weeks before Engelbart released his demo in 1968, a mouse had already been developed and published by the German company Telefunken. Unlike Engelbart's mouse, the Telefunken model had a ball, as it can be seen in most later models until today. Since 1970, it was shipped as part and sold together with Telefunken Computers. Some models from the year 1972 are still well preserved.[11]
SamsungR19 Keyboard
The second marketed integrated mouse shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation came with the Xerox 8010 Star Information System in 1981. However, the mouse remained relatively obscure until the 1984 appearance of the Macintosh 128K, which included an updated version of the original Lisa Mouse. In 1982, Microsoft decided that because no one had come up with a good way to use Microsoft Word, they would create Packard Bell PEW91 keyboard
first PC-compatible mouse. Microsoft's mouse shipped in 1983, beginning Microsoft Hardware.[3] In 1984 PC columnist John C. Dvorak stated the mouse as a reason the Macintosh would fail.[12]
Operating an opto-mechanical mouse.
1.moving the mouse turns the ball.
2.X and Y rollers grip the ball and transfer movement
3.Optical encoding disks include light holes.
Compaq 6720 Keyboard
4.Infrared LEDs shine through the disks.
5.Sensors gather light pulses to convert to X and Y vectors.
German company Telefunken published on their early ball mouse, called "Rollkugel" (German for "rolling ball"), on October 2, 1968.[13] Telefunken's mouse was then sold commercially as optional equipment for their TR-440 computer, which was first marketed in 1968. Telefunken did not apply for a patent on their device. Bill English, builder of Engelbart's original mouse,[14] Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
created a ball mouse in 1972 while working for Xerox PARC.[15]
The ball mouse replaced the external wheels with a single ball that could rotate in any direction. It came as part of the hardware package of the Xerox Alto computer. Perpendicular chopper wheels housed inside the mouse's body chopped beams of light on the way to light sensors, thus Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
detecting in their turn the motion of the ball. This variant of the mouse resembled an inverted trackball and became the predominant form used with personal computers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Xerox PARC group also settled on the modern technique of using both hands to type on a full-size keyboard and grabbing the mouse when required.
Mechanical mouse, shown with the top cover removed. The scroll wheel is grey, to the right of HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
the ball.
The ball mouse has two freely rotating rollers. They are located 90 degrees apart. One roller detects the forward–backward motion of the mouse and other the left–right motion. Opposite the two rollers is a third one (white, in the photo, at 45 degrees) that is spring-loaded to push the ball against the other two rollers. Each roller is on the same shaft as an encoder wheel that has Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
slotted edges; the slots interrupt infrared light beams to generate electrical pulses that represent wheel movement. Each wheel's disc, however, has a pair of light beams, located so that a given beam becomes interrupted, or again starts to pass light freely, when the other beam of the pair is about halfway between changes.
Simple logic circuits interpret the relative timing to indicate which direction the wheel is rotating. Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
This incremental rotary encoder scheme is sometimes called quadrature encoding of the wheel rotation, as the two optical sensor produce signals that are in approximately quadrature phase. The mouse sends these signals to the computer system via the mouse cable, directly as logic signals in very old mice such as the Xerox mice, and via a data-formatting IC in modern mice. The driver software in the system converts the signals into motion of the mouse cursor along X and Y Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
axes on the computer screen.
Hawley Mark II Mice from the Mouse House
The ball is mostly steel, with a precision spherical rubber surface. The weight of the ball, given an appropriate working surface under the mouse, provides a reliable grip so the mouse's movement Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
is transmitted accurately. Ball mice and wheel mice were manufactured for Xerox by Jack Hawley, doing business as The Mouse House in Berkeley, California, starting in 1975.[16][17] Based on another invention by Jack Hawley, proprietor of the Mouse House, Honeywell produced another type of mechanical mouse.[18][19] Instead of a ball, it had two wheels rotating at off axes. Key Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
Tronic later produced a similar product.[20]
Modern computer mice took form at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) under the inspiration of Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and at the hands of engineer and watchmaker André Guignard.[21] This new design incorporated a single hard rubber mouseball and three Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
buttons, and remained a common design until the mainstream adoption of the scroll-wheel mouse during the 1990s.[22] In 1985, René Sommer added a microprocessor to Nicoud's and Guignard's design.[23] Through this innovation, Sommer is credited with inventing a significant component of the mouse, which made it more "intelligent;"[23] though optical mice from Mouse Systems had incorporated microprocessors by 1984.[24]
Acer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Another type of mechanical mouse, the "analog mouse" (now generally regarded as obsolete), uses potentiometers rather than encoder wheels, and is typically designed to be plug compatible with an analog joystick. The "Color Mouse", originally marketed by RadioShack for their Color Computer (but also usable on MS-DOS machines equipped with analog joystick ports, provided HP 608558-001 Keyboard
the software accepted joystick input) was the best-known example.
A wireless optical mouse on a mousepad
Main article: Optical mouse
Optical mice make use of one or more light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and an imaging array of Asus F80L Keyboard
photodiodes to detect movement relative to the underlying surface, rather than internal moving parts as does a mechanical mouse. A laser mouse is an optical mouse that uses coherent (laser) light.
The earliest optical mice detected movement on pre-printed mousepad surfaces, whereas the modern optical mouse works on most opaque surfaces; it is unable to detect movement on Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
specular surfaces like glass. Laser diodes are also used for better resolution and precision. Battery powered, wireless optical mice flash the LED intermittently to save power, and only glow steadily when movement is detected.
[edit] Inertial and gyroscopic mice
Often called "air mice" since they do not require a surface to operate, inertial mice use a tuning Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
fork or other accelerometer (US Patent 4787051) to detect rotary movement for every axis supported. The most common models (manufactured by Logitech and Gyration) work using 2 degrees of rotational freedom and are insensitive to spatial translation. The user requires only small wrist rotations to move the cursor, reducing user fatigue or "gorilla arm".
Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
Usually cordless, they often have a switch to deactivate the movement circuitry between use, allowing the user freedom of movement without affecting the cursor position. A patent for an inertial mouse claims that such mice consume less power than optically based mice, and offer increased sensitivity, reduced weight and increased ease-of-use.[25] In combination with a Asus A9Rp Keyboard
wireless keyboard an inertial mouse can offer alternative ergonomic arrangements which do not require a flat work surface, potentially alleviating some types of repetitive motion injuries related to workstation posture.
ultrasound and provide at least three degrees of freedom. Probably the best known example would be 3Dconnexion/Logitech's SpaceMouse from the early 1990s. In the late 1990s Kantek Toshiba Satellite 1870 Keyboard
introduced the 3D RingMouse. This wireless mouse was worn on a ring around a finger, which enabled the thumb to access three buttons. The mouse was tracked in three dimensions by a base station.[28] Despite a certain appeal, it was finally discontinued because it did not provide sufficient resolution.
ThinkPad Edge E125
A recent consumer 3D pointing device is the Wii Remote. While primarily a motion-sensing device (that is, it can determine its orientation and direction of movement), Wii Remote can also detect its spatial position by comparing the distance and position of the lights from the IR emitter using its integrated IR camera (since the nunchuk accessory lacks a camera, it can only tell its Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
current heading and orientation). The obvious drawback to this approach is that it can only produce spatial coordinates while its camera can see the sensor bar.
A mouse-related controller called the SpaceBall[29] has a ball placed above the work surface that can easily be gripped. With spring-loaded centering, it sends both translational as well as angular Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
displacements on all six axes, in both directions for each. In November 2010 a German Company called Axsotic introduced a new concept of 3D mouse called 3D Spheric Mouse. This new concept of a true six degree-of-freedom input device uses a ball to rotate in 3 axes without any
In 2000, Logitech introduced the "tactile mouse", which contained a small actuator that made Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
the mouse vibrate. Such a mouse can augment user-interfaces with haptic feedback, such as giving feedback when crossing a window boundary. To surf by touch requires the user to be able to feel depth or hardness; this ability was realized with the first electrorheological tactile mice[31] but never marketed.
Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
[edit] Ergonomic mouse
As the name suggests, this type of mouse is intended to provide optimum comfort and avoid injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and other repetitive strain injuries. It is designed to fit natural hand position and movements, to reduce discomfort.
Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
[edit] Connectivity and communication protocols
A Microsoft wireless Arc mouse
To transmit their input, typical cabled mice use a thin electrical cord terminating in a standard connector, such as RS-232C, PS/2, ADB or USB. Cordless mice instead transmit data via infrared Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth), although many such cordless interfaces are themselves connected through the aforementioned wired serial buses.
While the electrical interface and the format of the data transmitted by commonly available mice is currently standardized on USB, in the past it varied between different manufacturers. A bus HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
mouse used a dedicated interface card for connection to an IBM PC or compatible computer.
Mouse use in DOS applications became more common after the introduction of the Microsoft mouse, largely because Microsoft provided an open standard for communication between applications and mouse driver software. Thus, any application written to use the Microsoft Sony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
standard could use a mouse with a Microsoft compatible driver (even if the mouse hardware itself was incompatible with Microsoft's). An interesting footnote is that the Microsoft driver standard communicates mouse movements in standard units called "mickeys",[32] as does the Allegro library.[33]
ThinkPad Edge E520
[edit] Serial interface and protocol
Standard PC mice once used the RS-232C serial port via a D-subminiature connector, which provided power to run the mouse's circuits as well as data on mouse movements. The Mouse Systems Corporation version used a five-byte protocol and supported three buttons. The HP 519265-001 Keyboard
Microsoft version used a three-byte protocol and supported two buttons. Due to the incompatibility between the two protocols, some manufacturers sold serial mice with a mode switch: "PC" for MSC mode, "MS" for Microsoft mode.[34]
[edit] PS/2 interface and protocol
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For more details on this topic, see PS/2 connector.
With the arrival of the IBM PS/2 personal-computer series in 1987, IBM introduced the eponymous PS/2 interface for mice and keyboards, which other manufacturers rapidly adopted. The most visible change was the use of a round 6-pin mini-DIN, in lieu of the former 5-pin Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
connector. In default mode (called stream mode) a PS/2 mouse communicates motion, and the state of each button, by means of 3-byte packets.[35] For any motion, button press or button release event, a PS/2 mouse sends, over a bi-directional serial port, a sequence of three bytes, with the following format:
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Here, XS and YS represent the sign bits of the movement vectors, XV and YV indicate an overflow in the respective vector component, and LB, MB and RB indicate the status of the left, middle and right mouse buttons (1 = pressed). PS/2 mice also understand several commands for reset and self-test, switching between different operating modes, and changing the resolution of the HP 491274-031 Keyboard
reported motion vectors.
A Microsoft IntelliMouse relies on an extension of the PS/2 protocol: the ImPS/2 or IMPS/2 protocol (the abbreviation combines the concepts of "IntelliMouse" and "PS/2"). It initially operates in standard PS/2 format, for backwards compatibility. After the host sends a special HP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
command sequence, it switches to an extended format in which a fourth byte carries information about wheel movements. The IntelliMouse Explorer works analogously, with the difference that its 4-byte packets also allow for two additional buttons (for a total of five).[36]
Mouse vendors also use other extended formats, often without providing public documentation. HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
The Typhoon mouse uses 6-byte packets which can appear as a sequence of two standard 3-byte packets, such that an ordinary PS/2 driver can handle them.[37] For 3-D (or 6-degree-of-freedom) input, vendors have made many extensions both to the hardware and to software. In the late 1990s Logitech created ultrasound based tracking which gave 3D input to a few millimetres Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
accuracy, which worked well as an input device but failed as a profitable product. In 2008, Motion4U introduced its "OptiBurst" system using IR tracking for use as a Maya (graphics software) plugin.
Apple Macintosh Plus mice (left) Beige mouse (right) Platinum mouse 1986
HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
In 1986 Apple first implemented the Apple Desktop Bus allowing the daisy-chaining together of up to 16 devices, including arbitrarily many mice and other devices on the same bus with no configuration whatsoever. Featuring only a single data pin, the bus used a purely polled approach to computer/mouse communications and survived as the standard on mainstream models HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
(including a number of non-Apple workstations) until 1998 when iMac joined the industry-wide switch to using USB. Beginning with the "Bronze Keyboard" PowerBook G3 in May 1999, Apple dropped the external ADB port in favor of USB, but retained an internal ADB connection in the PowerBook G4 for communication with its built-in keyboard and trackpad until early 2005.
HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
The industry-standard USB (Universal Serial Bus) protocol and its connector have become widely used for mice; it's currently among the most popular types.[38]
A wireless mouse made for notebook computers
Cordless or wireless mice transmit data via infrared radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth). The receiver is connected to the computer through a serial or USB port, or can be HP Pavilion G6-1139TX Keyboard
built in (as is sometimes the case with Bluetooth). Modern non-Bluetooth wireless mice use USB receivers. Some of these can be stored inside the mouse for safe transport while not in use, while other, newer mice use newer "nano" receivers, designed to be small enough to remain plugged into a laptop during transport, while still being large enough to easily remove.[39]
[edit] Atari standard joystick connectivity
Sony V072078BS1 Keyboard
The Amiga and the Atari ST use an Atari standard DE-9 connector for mice, the same connector that is used for joysticks on the same computers and numerous 8-bit systems, such as the Commodore 64 and the Atari 2600. However, the signals used for mice are different from those used for joysticks. As a result, plugging a mouse into a joystick port causes the "joystick" to continuously move in some direction, even if the mouse stays still, whereas plugging a joystick Asus X53S Keyboard
into a mouse port causes the "mouse" to only be able to move a single pixel in each direction.
A mouse typically controls the motion of a pointer in two dimensions in a graphical user interface (GUI). Clicking or hovering (stopping movement while the cursor is within the bounds of an area) can select files, programs or actions from a list of names, or (in graphical interfaces) through small images called "icons" and other elements. For example, a text file might be represented by Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
a picture of a paper notebook, and clicking while the cursor hovers this icon might cause a text editing program to open the file in a window. (See also Point and click)
Users can also employ mice gesturally; meaning that a stylized motion of the mouse cursor itself, HP 496878-001 Keyboard
called a "gesture", can issue a command or map to a specific action. For example, in a drawing program, moving the mouse in a rapid "x" motion over a shape might delete the shape.
Gestural interfaces occur more rarely than plain pointing-and-clicking; and people often find them more difficult to use, because they require finer motor-control from the user. However, a Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
few gestural conventions have become widespread, including the drag and drop gesture, in which:
1.The user presses the mouse button while the mouse cursor hovers over an interface object
2.The user moves the cursor to a different location while holding the button down
3.The user releases the mouse button
Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
For example, a user might drag-and-drop a picture representing a file onto a picture of a trash can, thus instructing the system to delete the file.
Other uses of the mouse's input occur commonly in special application-domains. In interactive three-dimensional graphics, the mouse's motion often translates directly into changes in the Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
virtual camera's orientation. For example, in the first-person shooter genre of games (see below), players usually employ the mouse to control the direction in which the virtual player's "head" faces: moving the mouse up will cause the player to look up, revealing the view above the player's head. A related function makes an image of an object rotate, so that all sides can be HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
examined.
When mice have more than one button, software may assign different functions to each button. Often, the primary (leftmost in a right-handed configuration) button on the mouse will select items, and the secondary (rightmost in a right-handed) button will bring up a menu of alternative Acer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
actions applicable to that item. For example, on platforms with more than one button, the Mozilla web browser will follow a link in response to a primary button click, will bring up a contextual menu of alternative actions for that link in response to a secondary-button click, and will often open the link in a new tab or window in response to a click with the tertiary (middle) Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
mouse button.
Different ways of operating the mouse cause specific things to happen in the GUI:
Click: pressing and releasing a button. (left) Single-click: clicking the main button.
(left) Double-click: clicking the button two times in quick succession counts as a different HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
gesture than two separate single clicks.
(left) Triple-click: clicking the button three times in quick succession.
Right-click: clicking the secondary button.
Middle-click: clicking the ternary button.
HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
Drag: pressing and holding a button, then moving the mouse without releasing. (Use the command "drag with the right mouse button" instead of just "drag" when you instruct a user to drag an object while holding the right mouse button down instead of the more commonly used Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
left mouse button.)
Button chording (a.k.a. Rocker navigation). Combination of right-click then left-click.
Combination of left-click then right-click or keyboard letter.
Combination of left or right-click and the mouse wheel.
HP 633736-001 Keyboard
Clicking while holding down a modifier key.
Moving the pointer a long distance: When a practical limit of mouse movement is reached, one lifts up the mouse, brings it to the opposite edge of the working area while it's held above the surface, and then replaces it down onto the working surface. This is often not necessary, because Toshiba Satellite 1800-614 Keyboard
acceleration software detects fast movement, and moves the pointer significantly faster in proportion than for slow mouse motion.
Standard semantic gestures include:
Crossing-based goal
Toshiba Satellite P105-S6177 Keyboard
[edit] Multiple-mouse systems
Some systems allow two or more mice to be used at once as input devices. 16-bit era home computers such as the Amiga used this to allow computer games with two players interacting on the same computer. The same idea is sometimes used in collaborative software, e.g. to simulate HP Pavilion dv2-1008ax Keyboard
a whiteboard that multiple users can draw on without passing a single mouse around.
Because Windows only provides a single screen cursor, using more than one device at the same time requires cooperation of users or applications designed for multiple input devices.
Multiple mice are often used in multi-user gaming in addition to specially designed devices that Sony Vaio PCG-K37 Keyboard
provide several input interfaces.
Windows also has full support for multiple input/mouse configurations for multiuser environments.
Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft introduced a SDK for developing applications that allow Packard Bell Easynote TK81 keyboard
multiple input devices to be used at the same time with independent cursors and independent input points.[40]
The introduction of Vista and Microsoft Surface (now known as Microsoft PixelSense) introduced a new set of input APIs that were adopted into Windows 7, allowing for 50 points/cursors, all Toshiba PK13AT10600 Keyboard
controlled by independent users. The new input points provide traditional mouse input; however, are designed for more advanced input technology like touch and image. They inherently offer 3D coordinates along with pressure, size, tilt, angle, mask, and even an image bitmap to see and Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
recognize the input point/object on the screen.
As of 2009, Linux distributions and other operating systems that use X.Org, such as OpenSolaris and FreeBSD, support 255 cursors/input points through Multi-Pointer X. However, current no HP Pavilion dv6-3141se Keyboard
window managers support Multi-Pointer X leaving it relegated to custom software usage.
There have also been propositions of having a single operator use two mice simultaneously as a
Mouse buttons are microswitches which can be pressed to select or interact with an element of a graphical user interface, producing a distinctive clicking sound.
Compaq Presario CQ41-209AU Keyboard
The three-button scrollmouse has become the most commonly available design. As of 2007 (and roughly since the late 1990s), users most commonly employ the second button to invoke a contextual menu in the computer's software user interface, which contains options specifically tailored to the interface element over which the mouse cursor currently sits. By default, the primary mouse button sits located on the left-hand side of the mouse, for the benefit of Sony Vaio PCG-K86SP Keyboard
right-handed users; left-handed users can usually reverse this configuration via software.
The computer industry often measures mouse sensitivity in terms of counts per inch (CPI), commonly expressed as dots per inch (DPI) – the number of steps the mouse will report when it moves one inch. In early mice, this specification was called pulses per inch (ppi).[16] If the default Sony VAIO VGN-FZ240E/B Keyboard
mouse-tracking condition involves moving the cursor by one screen-pixel or dot on-screen per reported step, then the CPI does equate to DPI: dots of cursor motion per inch of mouse motion. The CPI or DPI as reported by manufacturers depends on how they make the mouse; the higher the CPI, the faster the cursor moves with mouse movement. However, software can adjust the HP Probook 4325s Keyboard
mouse sensitivity, making the cursor move faster or slower than its CPI. Current software can change the speed of the cursor dynamically, taking into account the mouse's absolute speed and the movement from the last stop-point. In most software[specify] this setting is named "speed", referring to "cursor precision". However, some software[specify] names this setting "Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Keyboard
acceleration", but this term is in fact incorrect. The mouse acceleration, in the majority of mouse software, refers to the setting allowing the user to modify the cursor acceleration: the change in speed of the cursor over time while the mouse movement is constant.
For simple software, when the mouse starts to move, the software will count the number of HP 317443-001 Keyboard
"counts" or "mickeys" received from the mouse and will move the cursor across the screen by that number of pixels (or multiplied by a rate factor, typically less than 1). The cursor will move slowly on the screen, having a good precision. When the movement of the mouse passes the value set for "threshold", the software will start to move the cursor more quickly, with a greater rate factor. Usually, the user can set the value of the second rate factor by changing the Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
"acceleration" setting.
Operating systems sometimes apply acceleration, referred to as "ballistics", to the motion reported by the mouse. For example, versions of Windows prior to Windows XP doubled Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
reported values above a configurable threshold, and then optionally doubled them again above a second configurable threshold. These doublings applied separately in the X and Y directions,
Main article: Mousepad
Engelbart's original mouse did not require a mousepad;[43] the mouse had two large wheels Thinkpad T420i
which could roll on virtually any surface. However, most subsequent mechanical mice starting with the steel roller ball mouse have required a mousepad for optimal performance.
The mousepad, the most common mouse accessory, appears most commonly in conjunction with mechanical mice, because to roll smoothly the ball requires more friction than common desk Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
surfaces usually provide. So-called "hard mousepads" for gamers or optical/laser mice also exist.
Most optical and laser mice do not require a pad. Whether to use a hard or soft mousepad with an optical mouse is largely a matter of personal preference. One exception occurs when the desk surface creates problems for the optical or laser tracking, for example, a transparent or reflective
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Computer mice built between 1986 and 2007
Around 1981 Xerox included mice with its Xerox Star, based on the mouse used in the 1970s on the Alto computer at Xerox PARC. Sun Microsystems, Symbolics, Lisp Machines Inc., and Tektronix also shipped workstations with mice, starting in about 1981. Later, inspired by the Star, Apple Computer released the Apple Lisa, which also used a mouse. However, none of these products HP Pavilion dv6-3149sl Keyboard
achieved large-scale success. Only with the release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984 did the mouse see widespread use.[44]
The Macintosh design,[45] commercially successful and technically influential, led many other vendors to begin producing mice or including them with their other computer products (by 1986, Atari ST, Amiga, Windows 1.0, GEOS for the Commodore 64, and the Apple IIGS).[46]
Sony VAIO VGN-NW11Z Keyboard
The widespread adoption of graphical user interfaces in the software of the 1980s and 1990s made mice all but indispensable for controlling computers. In November 2008, Logitech built their billionth mouse.[47]
Mice often function as an interface for PC-based computer games and sometimes for video game consoles.
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[edit] First-person shooters
This section does not cite any references or sources. (August 2012)
Due to the cursor-like nature of the crosshairs in first-person shooters (FPS), a combination of mouse and keyboard provides a popular way to play FPS games. Players use the X-axis of the IBM Thinkpad T61 Keyboard
mouse for looking (or turning) left and right, leaving the Y-axis for looking up and down. Many gamers prefer this primarily in FPS games over a gamepad or joypad because it provides a higher resolution for input, so they are able to make small, precise motions in the game more easily. The Sony VAIO VGN-NW50JB Keyboard
left button usually controls primary fire. If the game supports multiple fire modes, the right button often provides secondary fire from the selected weapon. Games with only a single fire mode will generally map secondary fire to ironsights. In older games, the right button may also Acer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
provide bonus options for a particular weapon, such as allowing access to the scope of a sniper rifle or allowing the mounting of a bayonet or silencer.
Gamers can use a scroll wheel for changing weapons (or for controlling scope-zoom magnification, in older games). On most FPS games, programming may also assign more functions to additional Sony VAIO VGN-SZ680N Keyboard
buttons on mice with more than three controls. A keyboard usually controls movement (for example, WASD, for moving forward, left, backward and right, respectively) and other functions such as changing posture. Since the mouse serves for aiming, a mouse that tracks movement accurately and with less lag (latency) will give a player an advantage over players with less accurate or slower mice.
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An early technique of players, circle strafing, saw a player continuously strafing while aiming and shooting at an opponent by walking in circle around the opponent with the opponent at the center of the circle. Players could achieve this by holding down a key for strafing while continuously aiming the mouse towards the opponent.
Sony VAIO VGN-SZ660N/C Keyboard
Games using mice for input are so popular that many manufacturers make mice specifically for gaming. Such mice may feature adjustable weights, high-resolution optical or laser components, additional buttons, ergonomic shape, and other features such as adjustable CPI.
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Many games, such as first- or third-person shooters, have a setting named "invert mouse" or similar (not to be confused with "button inversion", sometimes performed by left-handed users) which allows the user to look downward by moving the mouse forward and upward by moving the mouse backward (the opposite of non-inverted movement). This control system resembles HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo Keyboard
that of aircraft control sticks, where pulling back causes pitch up and pushing forward causes pitch down; computer joysticks also typically emulate this control-configuration.
After id Software's Doom, the game that popularized FPS games but which did not support vertical aiming with a mouse (the y-axis served for forward/backward movement), competitor 3D Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
Realms' Duke Nukem 3D became one of the first games that supported using the mouse to aim up and down. This and other games using the Build engine had an option to invert the Y-axis. The "invert" feature actually made the mouse behave in a manner that users now regard as non-inverted (by default, moving mouse forward resulted in looking down). Soon after, id Acer Aspire One AOA150-1001 Keyboard
Software released Quake, which introduced the invert feature as users now know it. Other games using the Quake engine have come on the market following this standard, likely due to the overall popularity of Quake.
[edit] Home consoles
IAcer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
n 1988 the educational video game system, the VTech Socrates, featured a wireless mouse with an attached mouse pad as an optional controller used for some games. In the early 1990s the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game system featured a mouse in addition to its Packard Bell PEW71 keyboard
controllers. The Mario Paint game in particular used the mouse's capabilities, as did its successor on the Nintendo 64. Sega released official mice for their Genesis/Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast consoles. NEC sold official mice for its PC Engine and PC-FX consoles. Sony Computer Entertainment released an official mouse product for the PlayStation console, and included one along with the Linux for PlayStation 2 kit. However, users can attach virtually any USB mouse to Toshiba Satellite L775-S7243 Keyboard
the PlayStation 2 console. In addition the PlayStation 3 also fully supports USB mice. Recently the Wii also has this latest development added on in a recent software update.
History
This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2008)
Compaq Presario CQ50-130US Keyboard
Main article: History of personal computers
See also: Microcomputer revolution
The Programma 101, released in 1965, was the first commercial "desktop computer",[4] but today would usually be considered a printing programmable calculator.
Acer AEZR1R00110 Keyboard
In what was later to be called The Mother of All Demos, SRI researcher Douglas Engelbart in 1968 gave a preview of what would become the staples of daily working life in the 21st century - e-mail, hypertext, word processing, video conferencing, and the mouse. The demonstration required technical support staff and a mainframe time-sharing computer that were far too costly for Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
individual business use at the time.
By the early 1970s, people in academic or research institutions had the opportunity for single-person use of a computer system in interactive mode for extended durations, although IBM Thinkpad R60 Keyboard
these systems would still have been too expensive to be owned by a single person.
In the 1970s Hewlett Packard introduced fully BASIC programmable computers that fit entirely on top of a desk, including a keyboard, a small one-line display and printer. The Xerox Alto, developed in 1973 at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), had a graphical user interface (GUI) that later served as inspiration for Apple Computer's Macintosh, and Microsoft's Windows Sony VAIO VPCF12AFM/H Keyboard
operating system. The Wang 2200 of 1973 had a full-size cathode ray tube (CRT) and cassette tape storage. The IBM 5100 in 1975 had a small CRT display and could be programmed in BASIC and APL. These were generally expensive specialized computers sold for business or scientific Sony VGN-FE865E/H Keyboard
uses. The introduction of the microprocessor, a single chip with all the circuitry that formerly occupied large cabinets, led to the proliferation of personal computers after 1975.
Early personal computers — generally called microcomputers — were sold often in kit form and in limited volumes, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians. Minimal Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
programming was done with toggle switches to enter instructions, and output was provided by front panel lamps. Practical use required adding peripherals such as keyboards, computer displays, disk drives, and printers. Micral N was the earliest commercial, non-kit microcomputer based on a microprocessor, the Intel 8008. It was built starting in 1972 and about 90,000 units Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/S Keyboard
were sold. In 1976 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold the Apple I computer circuit board, which was fully prepared and contained about 30 chips. The first successfully mass marketed personal computer was the Commodore PET introduced in January 1977. It was soon followed by the Apple II (usually referred to as the "Apple") in June 1977, and the TRS-80 from Radio Shack in Compaq Presario CQ71 Series Keyboard
November 1977. Mass-market ready-assembled computers allowed a wider range of people to use computers, focusing more on software applications and less on development of the processor hardware.
Into the beginning of the 1980s, home computers were further developed for household use, Dell Inspiron N4020 Keyboard
with software for personal productivity, programming and games. They typically could be used with a television already in the home as the computer display, with low-detail blocky graphics and a limited color range, and text about 40 characters wide by 25 characters tall. One such HP 505999-001 Keyboard
machine, the Commodore 64, totaled 17 million units sold, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time.[5] Another such computer, the NEC PC-98, sold more than 18 million units.[6]
Somewhat larger and more expensive systems (for example, running CP/M), or sometimes a Acer Extensa 5635G 5635Z Keyboard
home computer with additional interfaces and devices, although still low-cost compared with minicomputers and mainframes, were aimed at office and small business use, typically using "high resolution" monitors capable of at least 80 column text display, and often no graphical or color drawing capability.
Acer PK1301K0100 Keyboard
Workstations were characterized by high-performance processors and graphics displays, with large local disk storage, networking capability, and running under a multitasking operating system.
IBM 5150 as of 1981
HP COMPAQ NC6140 keyboard
Eventually, due to the influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market, personal computers and home computers lost any technical distinction. Business computers acquired color graphics capability and sound, and home computers and game systems users used the same processors and operating systems as office workers. Mass-market computers had graphics Sony Vaio PCG-K215Z Keyboard
capabilities and memory comparable to dedicated workstations of a few years before. Even local area networking, originally a way to allow business computers to share expensive mass storage and peripherals, became a standard feature of personal computers used at home.
Dell Latitude D400 Keyboard
In 1982 "The Computer" was named Machine of the Year by Time Magazine.
[edit] Market and sales
See also: Market share of leading PC vendors
HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
Personal computers worldwide in million distinguished by developed and developing world
In 2001, 125 million personal computers were shipped in comparison to 48 thousand in 1977. More than 500 million personal computers were in use in 2002 and one billion personal HP Mini 210-2090nr Keyboard
computers had been sold worldwide from the mid-1970s up to this time. Of the latter figure, 75 percent were professional or work related, while the rest were sold for personal or home use. About 81.5 percent of personal computers shipped had been desktop computers, 16.4 percent Toshiba Satellite pro 4280xdvd Keyboard
laptops and 2.1 percent servers. The United States had received 38.8 percent (394 million) of the computers shipped, Europe 25 percent and 11.7 percent had gone to the Asia-Pacific region, the fastest-growing market as of 2002. The second billion was expected to be sold by 2008.[7] Almost half of all the households in Western Europe had a personal computer and a computer could be HP Pavilion dm1-1028tu Keyboard
found in 40 percent of homes in United Kingdom, compared with only 13 percent in 1985.[8]
The global personal computer shipments were 350.9 million units in 2010,[9] 308.3 million units in 2009[10] and 302.2 million units in 2008.[11][12] The shipments were 264 million units in the year 2007, according to iSuppli,[13] up 11.2 percent from 239 million in 2006.[14] In 2004, the Compaq Presario CQ60-310eq Keyboard
global shipments were 183 million units, an 11.6 percent increase over 2003.[15] In 2003, 152.6 million computers were shipped, at an estimated value of $175 billion.[16] In 2002, 136.7 million PCs were shipped, at an estimated value of $175 billion.[16] In 2000, 140.2 million personal FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
computers were shipped, at an estimated value of $226 billion.[16] Worldwide shipments of personal computers surpassed the 100-million mark in 1999, growing to 113.5 million units from 93.3 million units in 1998.[17] In 1999, Asia had 14.1 million units shipped.[18]
For 2011, global PC shipments are expected to reach 364 million units, a 3.8% growth comparing Sony VAIO VGN-N250E/B Keyboard
to 2010.[19]
As of June 2008, the number of personal computers in use worldwide hit one billion, while another billion is expected to be reached by 2014. Mature markets like the United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. The emerging markets were expected to double their installed PCs by 2012 and to take 70 percent of Asus F3Jr Keyboard
the second billion PCs. About 180 million computers (16 percent of the existing installed base) were expected to be replaced and 35 million to be dumped into landfill in 2008. The whole installed base grew 12 percent annually.[20][21]
Based on IDC data for Q2 2011, for the first time China surpassed US in PC shipments by 18.5 HP 640208-001 Keyboard
million and 17.7 million respectively. It is reflects the rising of emerging markets as well as the relative stagnation of mature regions.[22]
In the developed world, there has been a vendor tradition to keep adding functions to maintain Toshiba Satellite L755D-SP5165RM Keyboard
high prices of personal computers. However, since the introduction of the One Laptop per Child foundation and its low-cost XO-1 laptop, the computing industry started to pursue the price too. Although introduced only one year earlier, there were 14 million netbooks sold in 2008.[23] Dell 0NK831 Keyboard
Besides the regular computer manufacturers, companies making especially rugged versions of computers have sprung up, offering alternatives for people operating their machines in extreme weather or environments.[24]
Deloitte consulting firm predicted that in 2011, smartphones and tablet computers as computing devices would surpass the PCs sales.[25]
SamsungR470 Keyboard
[edit] Average selling price
Selling prices of personal computers, unlike other consumer commodities, steadily declined due to lower costs of production and manufacture. Capabilities of the computers also increased. In 1975, an Altair kit sold for only around US $400, but required customers to solder components Packard Bell NEW90 keyboard
into circuit boards; peripherals required to interact with the system in alphanumeric form instead of blinking lights would add another $2000, and the resultant system was only of use to hobbyists.[26]
At their introduction in 1981, the US $1,795 price of the Osborne 1 and its competitor Kaypro Toshiba Satellite M105-SP3027 Keyboard
was considered an attractive price point; these systems had text-only displays and only floppy disks for storage. By 1982, Michael Dell observed that a personal computer system selling at retail for about $3,000 US was made of components that cost the dealer about $600; typical gross margin on a computer unit was around $1,000.[27] The total value of personal computer Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
purchases in the US in 1983 was about $4 billion, comparable to total sales of pet food. By late 1998, the average selling price of personal computer systems in the United States had dropped below $1000.[28]
For Microsoft Windows systems, the average selling price (ASP) showed a decline in 2008/2009, Sony VAIO VGN-CR320D Keyboard
possibly due to low-cost netbooks, drawing $569 for desktop computers and $689 for laptops at U.S. retail in August 2008. In 2009, ASP had further fallen to $533 for desktops and to $602 for notebooks by January and to $540 and $560 in February.[29] According to research firm NPD, the average selling price of all Windows portable PCs has fallen from $659 in October 2008 to $519 in Sony 147996611 Keyboard
October 2009.[30]
Sun SPARCstation 1+, 25 MHz RISC processor from early 1990s
Main article: Workstation
A workstation is a high-end personal computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Dell PVDG3 Keyboard
Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. Workstations are used for tasks such as computer-aided design, drafting and modeling, computation-intensive scientific and engineering calculations, image processing, architectural modeling, and computer graphics for animation and Acer Aspire One D250-1326 Keyboard
motion picture visual effects.[31]
Dell OptiPlex desktop computer
Prior to the wide spread usage of PCs, a computer that could fit on a desk was remarkably small. Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
Today the phrase usually indicates a particular style of computer case. Desktop computers come in a variety of styles ranging from large vertical tower cases to small form factor models that can be tucked behind an LCD monitor. In this sense, the term 'desktop' refers specifically to a horizontally oriented case, usually intended to have the display screen placed on top to save Packard Bell NEW95 keyboard
space on the desk top. Most modern desktop computers have separate screens and keyboards.
[edit] Gaming Computer
Main article: Gaming computer
HP Envy 15-1050es Keyboard
A gaming computer is a standard desktop computer that typically has high-performance hardware, such as a more powerful video card, processor, and memory, in order to handle the requirements of demanding video games. A number of companies, such as Alienware, HP G72-110EL Keyboard
manufacture prebuilt gaming computers, and companies such as Razer and Logitech market mice, keyboards, and headsets geared towards gamers.
[edit] Single unit
Further information: All-in-one computer
Sony VAIO VGN-N21Z Keyboard
Single unit PCs (also known as all-in-one PCs) are a subtype of desktop computers, which combine the monitor and case of the computer within a single unit. The monitor often utilizes a touchscreen as an optional method of user input, however detached keyboards and mice are normally still included. The inner components of the PC are often located directly behind the HP G42-351TX Keyboard
monitor, and many are built similarly to laptops.
A subtype of desktops, called nettops, was introduced by Intel in February 2008 to describe low-cost, lean-function, desktop computers. A similar subtype of laptops (or notebooks) are the Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
netbooks (see below). The product line features the new Intel Atom processor which specially enables them to consume less power and to be built into small enclosures.
Antec Fusion V2 home theater PC with keyboard on top.
A home theater PC (HTPC) is a convergence device that combines the functions of a personal Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
computer and a digital video recorder. It is connected to a television or a television-sized computer display and is often used as a digital photo, music, video player, TV receiver and digital video recorder. Home theater PCs are also referred to as media center systems or media servers. Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
The general goal in a HTPC is usually to combine many or all components of a home theater setup into one box. They can be purchased pre-configured with the required hardware and software needed to add television programming to the PC, or can be cobbled together out of Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
discrete components as is commonly done with MythTV, Windows Media Center, GB-PVR, SageTV, Famulent or LinuxMCE. More recently, home theatre PCs have been given the ability to connect to services that play movies and TV shows on demand.
A modern laptop computer
Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
A laptop computer or simply laptop, also called a notebook computer, is a small personal computer designed for portability. Usually all of the interface hardware needed to operate the laptop, such as USB ports (previously parallel and serial ports), graphics card, sound channel, etc., are built in to a single unit. Laptops contain high capacity batteries that can power the device for HP Pavilion dv6-3149sl Keyboard
extensive periods of time, enhancing portability. Once the battery charge is depleted, it will have to be recharged through a power outlet. In the interest of saving power, weight and space, they usually share RAM with the video channel, slowing their performance compared to an equivalent desktop machine. For this reason, Desktop or Gaming computers are generally preferred to Toshiba Satellite U305-S7477 Keyboard
laptop PCs for gaming purposes.
One main drawback of the laptop is sometimes, due to the size and configuration of components, relatively little can be done to upgrade the overall computer from its original design. Internal upgrades are either not manufacturer recommended, can damage the laptop if done with poor HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo Keyboard
care or knowledge, or in some cases impossible, making the desktop PC more modular. Some internal upgrades, such as memory and hard disks upgrades are often easy, a display or keyboard upgrade is usually impossible. The laptop has the same access as the desktop to the wide variety of devices, such as external displays, mice, cameras, storage devices and keyboards, which may Toshiba Satellite L775-S7243 Keyboard
be attached externally through USB ports and other less common ports such as external video.
A subtype of notebooks, called subnotebooks, are computers with most of the features of a standard laptop computer but smaller. They are larger than hand-held computers, and usually run full versions of desktop/laptop operating systems. Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPC) are usually Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
considered subnotebooks, or more specifically, subnotebook Tablet PCs (see below). Netbooks are sometimes considered in this category, though they are sometimes separated in a category of their own (see below).
HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
An Acer 18'4 inch screen Desktop Replacement Laptop
A desktop replacement computer (DTR) is a personal computer that provides the full capabilities of a desktop computer while remaining mobile. They are often larger, bulkier laptops. Because of HP Mini 210-2090nr Keyboard
their increased size, this class of computer usually includes more powerful components and a larger display than generally used in smaller portable computers and can have a relatively limited battery capacity (or none at all). Some use a limited range of desktop components to provide HP G72-110EL Keyboard
better performance at the expense of battery life. These are sometimes called desknotes, a portmanteau of the words "desktop" and "notebook," though the term is also applied to desktop replacement computers in general.[32]
An HP netbook
Toshiba Mini NB 255 Series Keyboard
Netbooks (also called mini notebooks or subnotebooks) are a rapidly evolving[33] category of small, light and inexpensive laptop computers suited for general computing and accessing web-based applications; they are often marketed as "companion devices," that is, to augment a Toshiba NB100 Keyboard
user's other computer access.[33] Walt Mossberg called them a "relatively new category of small, light, minimalist and cheap laptops."[34] By August 2009, CNET called netbooks "nothing more than smaller, cheaper notebooks.".[33]
Toshiba Satellite A200 Keyboard
Initially, their primary defining characteristic was the lack of an optical disc drive, requiring it to be a separate and external device. This has become less important as flash memory devices have gradually increased in capacity, replacing the writable optical disc (e.g. CD-RW, DVD-RW) as a transportable storage medium.
Toshiba Satellite A205 Keyboard
At their inception in late 2007 — as smaller notebooks optimized for low weight and low cost[35] — netbooks omitted key features (e.g., the optical drive), featured smaller screens and keyboards, and offered reduced specification and computing power. Over the course of their evolution, netbooks have ranged in size from below 5 in[36] to over 13 in,[37] and from ~1 kg (2-3 pounds). IBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
Often significantly less expensive than other laptops,[38] by mid-2009, netbooks had been offered to users "free of charge", with an extended service contract purchase of a cellular data plan.[39]
IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
In the short period since their appearance, netbooks have grown in size and features, now converging with new smaller, lighter notebooks. By mid 2009, CNET noted "the specs are so similar that the average shopper would likely be confused as to why one is better than the other," HP Pavilion G6-1212TX Keyboard
noting "the only conclusion is that there really is no distinction between the devices."[33]
HP Compaq tablet PC with rotating/removable keyboard.
A tablet PC is a notebook or slate-shaped mobile computer. Its touchscreen or graphics tablet/screen hybrid technology allows the user to operate the computer with a stylus or digital pen, or a fingertip, instead of a keyboard or mouse. The form factor offers a more mobile way to HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
interact with a computer. Tablet PCs are often used where normal notebooks are impractical or unwieldy, or do not provide the needed functionality. Recently, tablet PCs have been given operating systems normally used on phones, like Android or iOS. This gives them many of the same uses as a phone, but with more power and functionality.
Dell NSK-D8001 Keyboard
Samsung Q1 Ultra-Mobile PC.
The ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) is a specification for a small form factor of tablet PCs. It was Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
developed as a joint development exercise by Microsoft, Intel, and Samsung, among others. Current UMPCs typically feature the Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Linux operating system and low-voltage Intel Atom or VIA C7-M processors.
Main article: Pocket PC
IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
An O2 pocket PC
A pocket PC is a hardware specification for a handheld-sized computer (personal digital assistant) that runs the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. It may have the capability to run an alternative operating system like NetBSD or Linux. It has many of the capabilities of modern ThinkPad Edge E520s
desktop PCs.
Currently there are tens of thousands of applications for handhelds adhering to the Microsoft Pocket PC specification, many of which are freeware. Some of these devices also include mobile phone features and thus actually represent a smartphone. Microsoft compliant Pocket PCs can Sony VAIO VGN-N38E/W Keyboard
also be used with many other add-ons like GPS receivers, barcode readers, RFID readers, and cameras. In 2007, with the release of Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft dropped the name Pocket PC in favor of a new naming scheme. Devices without an integrated phone are called Windows Mobile Classic instead of Pocket PC. Devices with an in
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Computer mouse)
Jump to: navigation, search
Sony VAIO VGN-NW320F/T Keyboard
A computer mouse with the most common standard features: two buttons and a scroll wheel, which can also act as a third button.
In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the
Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
user's hands, with one or more buttons.
The mouse sometimes features other elements, such as "wheels", which allow the user to perform various system-dependent operations, or extra buttons or features that can add more control or dimensional input. The mouse's motion typically translates into the motion of a
Acer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
pointer on a display, which allows for fine control of a graphical user interface.
The earliest known publication of the term mouse as a computer pointing device is in Bill English's 1965 publication "Computer-Aided Display Control".[1]
The online Oxford Dictionaries entry for mouse states the plural for the small rodent is mice,
while the plural for the small computer connected device is either mice or mouses. However, in Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
the usage section of the entry it states that the more common plural is mice, and that the first recorded use of the term in the plural is mice as well (though it cites a 1984 use of mice when there were actually several earlier ones).[2] The term mice was seen in print in "The Computer as
a Communication Device", written by J. C. R. Licklider in 1968.
The fourth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language endorses both Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
computer mice and computer mouses as correct plural forms for computer mouse. Some authors of technical documents may prefer either mouse devices or the more generic pointing devices.
The plural mouses treats mouse as a "headless noun".[3]
Early mouse patents. From left to right: Opposing track wheels by Engelbart, Nov. 1970, U.S. Acer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
Patent 3,541,541. Ball and wheel by Rider, Sept. 1974, U.S. Patent 3,835,464. Ball and two rollers with spring by Opocensky, Oct. 1976, U.S. Patent 3,987,685
The trackball, a related pointing device, was invented by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor working on the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR project in 1952. It used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball. It was not patented, as it was a secret military project.[4]
Ideapad U550
Independently, Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International)
invented the first mouse prototype in 1963, with the assistance of his colleague Bill English.[5] They christened the device the mouse as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the
device looking like a tail and generally resembling the common mouse.[6] Engelbart never Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
received any royalties for it, as his patent ran out before it became widely used in personal
computers.[7] The invention of the mouse was just a small part of Engelbart's much larger project, aimed at augmenting human intellect via the Augmentation Research Center.[8]
The first computer mouse, held by inventor Douglas Engelbart, showing the wheels that make SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
contact with the working surface
Several other experimental pointing-devices developed for Engelbart's oN-Line System (NLS) exploited different body movements – for example, head-mounted devices attached to the chin or nose – but ultimately the mouse won out because of its simplicity and convenience. The first mouse, a bulky device (pictured) used two wheels perpendicular to each other: the rotation of
HP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
each wheel translated into motion along one axis.
Engelbart received patent US3,541,541 on November 17, 1970 for an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System".[9] At the time, Engelbart envisaged that users would hold the mouse continuously in one hand and type on a five-key chord keyset with the other.[10] The concept
was preceded in the 19th century by the telautograph, which also anticipated the fax machine.
Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
Just a few weeks before Engelbart released his demo in 1968, a mouse had already been developed and published by the German company Telefunken. Unlike Engelbart's mouse, the Telefunken model had a ball, as it can be seen in most later models until today. Since 1970, it was shipped as part and sold together with Telefunken Computers. Some models from the year 1972 are still well preserved.[11]
SamsungR19 Keyboard
The second marketed integrated mouse shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation came with the Xerox 8010 Star Information System in 1981. However, the mouse remained relatively obscure until the 1984 appearance of the Macintosh 128K, which included an updated version of the original Lisa Mouse. In 1982, Microsoft decided that because no one had come up with a good way to use Microsoft Word, they would create Packard Bell PEW91 keyboard
first PC-compatible mouse. Microsoft's mouse shipped in 1983, beginning Microsoft Hardware.[3] In 1984 PC columnist John C. Dvorak stated the mouse as a reason the Macintosh would fail.[12]
Operating an opto-mechanical mouse.
1.moving the mouse turns the ball.
2.X and Y rollers grip the ball and transfer movement
3.Optical encoding disks include light holes.
Compaq 6720 Keyboard
4.Infrared LEDs shine through the disks.
5.Sensors gather light pulses to convert to X and Y vectors.
German company Telefunken published on their early ball mouse, called "Rollkugel" (German for "rolling ball"), on October 2, 1968.[13] Telefunken's mouse was then sold commercially as optional equipment for their TR-440 computer, which was first marketed in 1968. Telefunken did not apply for a patent on their device. Bill English, builder of Engelbart's original mouse,[14] Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
created a ball mouse in 1972 while working for Xerox PARC.[15]
The ball mouse replaced the external wheels with a single ball that could rotate in any direction. It came as part of the hardware package of the Xerox Alto computer. Perpendicular chopper wheels housed inside the mouse's body chopped beams of light on the way to light sensors, thus Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
detecting in their turn the motion of the ball. This variant of the mouse resembled an inverted trackball and became the predominant form used with personal computers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Xerox PARC group also settled on the modern technique of using both hands to type on a full-size keyboard and grabbing the mouse when required.
Mechanical mouse, shown with the top cover removed. The scroll wheel is grey, to the right of HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
the ball.
The ball mouse has two freely rotating rollers. They are located 90 degrees apart. One roller detects the forward–backward motion of the mouse and other the left–right motion. Opposite the two rollers is a third one (white, in the photo, at 45 degrees) that is spring-loaded to push the ball against the other two rollers. Each roller is on the same shaft as an encoder wheel that has Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
slotted edges; the slots interrupt infrared light beams to generate electrical pulses that represent wheel movement. Each wheel's disc, however, has a pair of light beams, located so that a given beam becomes interrupted, or again starts to pass light freely, when the other beam of the pair is about halfway between changes.
Simple logic circuits interpret the relative timing to indicate which direction the wheel is rotating. Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
This incremental rotary encoder scheme is sometimes called quadrature encoding of the wheel rotation, as the two optical sensor produce signals that are in approximately quadrature phase. The mouse sends these signals to the computer system via the mouse cable, directly as logic signals in very old mice such as the Xerox mice, and via a data-formatting IC in modern mice. The driver software in the system converts the signals into motion of the mouse cursor along X and Y Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
axes on the computer screen.
Hawley Mark II Mice from the Mouse House
The ball is mostly steel, with a precision spherical rubber surface. The weight of the ball, given an appropriate working surface under the mouse, provides a reliable grip so the mouse's movement Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
is transmitted accurately. Ball mice and wheel mice were manufactured for Xerox by Jack Hawley, doing business as The Mouse House in Berkeley, California, starting in 1975.[16][17] Based on another invention by Jack Hawley, proprietor of the Mouse House, Honeywell produced another type of mechanical mouse.[18][19] Instead of a ball, it had two wheels rotating at off axes. Key Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
Tronic later produced a similar product.[20]
Modern computer mice took form at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) under the inspiration of Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and at the hands of engineer and watchmaker André Guignard.[21] This new design incorporated a single hard rubber mouseball and three Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
buttons, and remained a common design until the mainstream adoption of the scroll-wheel mouse during the 1990s.[22] In 1985, René Sommer added a microprocessor to Nicoud's and Guignard's design.[23] Through this innovation, Sommer is credited with inventing a significant component of the mouse, which made it more "intelligent;"[23] though optical mice from Mouse Systems had incorporated microprocessors by 1984.[24]
Acer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Another type of mechanical mouse, the "analog mouse" (now generally regarded as obsolete), uses potentiometers rather than encoder wheels, and is typically designed to be plug compatible with an analog joystick. The "Color Mouse", originally marketed by RadioShack for their Color Computer (but also usable on MS-DOS machines equipped with analog joystick ports, provided HP 608558-001 Keyboard
the software accepted joystick input) was the best-known example.
A wireless optical mouse on a mousepad
Main article: Optical mouse
Optical mice make use of one or more light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and an imaging array of Asus F80L Keyboard
photodiodes to detect movement relative to the underlying surface, rather than internal moving parts as does a mechanical mouse. A laser mouse is an optical mouse that uses coherent (laser) light.
The earliest optical mice detected movement on pre-printed mousepad surfaces, whereas the modern optical mouse works on most opaque surfaces; it is unable to detect movement on Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
specular surfaces like glass. Laser diodes are also used for better resolution and precision. Battery powered, wireless optical mice flash the LED intermittently to save power, and only glow steadily when movement is detected.
[edit] Inertial and gyroscopic mice
Often called "air mice" since they do not require a surface to operate, inertial mice use a tuning Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
fork or other accelerometer (US Patent 4787051) to detect rotary movement for every axis supported. The most common models (manufactured by Logitech and Gyration) work using 2 degrees of rotational freedom and are insensitive to spatial translation. The user requires only small wrist rotations to move the cursor, reducing user fatigue or "gorilla arm".
Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
Usually cordless, they often have a switch to deactivate the movement circuitry between use, allowing the user freedom of movement without affecting the cursor position. A patent for an inertial mouse claims that such mice consume less power than optically based mice, and offer increased sensitivity, reduced weight and increased ease-of-use.[25] In combination with a Asus A9Rp Keyboard
wireless keyboard an inertial mouse can offer alternative ergonomic arrangements which do not require a flat work surface, potentially alleviating some types of repetitive motion injuries related to workstation posture.
ultrasound and provide at least three degrees of freedom. Probably the best known example would be 3Dconnexion/Logitech's SpaceMouse from the early 1990s. In the late 1990s Kantek Toshiba Satellite 1870 Keyboard
introduced the 3D RingMouse. This wireless mouse was worn on a ring around a finger, which enabled the thumb to access three buttons. The mouse was tracked in three dimensions by a base station.[28] Despite a certain appeal, it was finally discontinued because it did not provide sufficient resolution.
ThinkPad Edge E125
A recent consumer 3D pointing device is the Wii Remote. While primarily a motion-sensing device (that is, it can determine its orientation and direction of movement), Wii Remote can also detect its spatial position by comparing the distance and position of the lights from the IR emitter using its integrated IR camera (since the nunchuk accessory lacks a camera, it can only tell its Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
current heading and orientation). The obvious drawback to this approach is that it can only produce spatial coordinates while its camera can see the sensor bar.
A mouse-related controller called the SpaceBall[29] has a ball placed above the work surface that can easily be gripped. With spring-loaded centering, it sends both translational as well as angular Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
displacements on all six axes, in both directions for each. In November 2010 a German Company called Axsotic introduced a new concept of 3D mouse called 3D Spheric Mouse. This new concept of a true six degree-of-freedom input device uses a ball to rotate in 3 axes without any
In 2000, Logitech introduced the "tactile mouse", which contained a small actuator that made Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
the mouse vibrate. Such a mouse can augment user-interfaces with haptic feedback, such as giving feedback when crossing a window boundary. To surf by touch requires the user to be able to feel depth or hardness; this ability was realized with the first electrorheological tactile mice[31] but never marketed.
Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
[edit] Ergonomic mouse
As the name suggests, this type of mouse is intended to provide optimum comfort and avoid injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and other repetitive strain injuries. It is designed to fit natural hand position and movements, to reduce discomfort.
Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
[edit] Connectivity and communication protocols
A Microsoft wireless Arc mouse
To transmit their input, typical cabled mice use a thin electrical cord terminating in a standard connector, such as RS-232C, PS/2, ADB or USB. Cordless mice instead transmit data via infrared Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth), although many such cordless interfaces are themselves connected through the aforementioned wired serial buses.
While the electrical interface and the format of the data transmitted by commonly available mice is currently standardized on USB, in the past it varied between different manufacturers. A bus HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
mouse used a dedicated interface card for connection to an IBM PC or compatible computer.
Mouse use in DOS applications became more common after the introduction of the Microsoft mouse, largely because Microsoft provided an open standard for communication between applications and mouse driver software. Thus, any application written to use the Microsoft Sony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
standard could use a mouse with a Microsoft compatible driver (even if the mouse hardware itself was incompatible with Microsoft's). An interesting footnote is that the Microsoft driver standard communicates mouse movements in standard units called "mickeys",[32] as does the Allegro library.[33]
ThinkPad Edge E520
[edit] Serial interface and protocol
Standard PC mice once used the RS-232C serial port via a D-subminiature connector, which provided power to run the mouse's circuits as well as data on mouse movements. The Mouse Systems Corporation version used a five-byte protocol and supported three buttons. The HP 519265-001 Keyboard
Microsoft version used a three-byte protocol and supported two buttons. Due to the incompatibility between the two protocols, some manufacturers sold serial mice with a mode switch: "PC" for MSC mode, "MS" for Microsoft mode.[34]
[edit] PS/2 interface and protocol
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For more details on this topic, see PS/2 connector.
With the arrival of the IBM PS/2 personal-computer series in 1987, IBM introduced the eponymous PS/2 interface for mice and keyboards, which other manufacturers rapidly adopted. The most visible change was the use of a round 6-pin mini-DIN, in lieu of the former 5-pin Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
connector. In default mode (called stream mode) a PS/2 mouse communicates motion, and the state of each button, by means of 3-byte packets.[35] For any motion, button press or button release event, a PS/2 mouse sends, over a bi-directional serial port, a sequence of three bytes, with the following format:
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Here, XS and YS represent the sign bits of the movement vectors, XV and YV indicate an overflow in the respective vector component, and LB, MB and RB indicate the status of the left, middle and right mouse buttons (1 = pressed). PS/2 mice also understand several commands for reset and self-test, switching between different operating modes, and changing the resolution of the HP 491274-031 Keyboard
reported motion vectors.
A Microsoft IntelliMouse relies on an extension of the PS/2 protocol: the ImPS/2 or IMPS/2 protocol (the abbreviation combines the concepts of "IntelliMouse" and "PS/2"). It initially operates in standard PS/2 format, for backwards compatibility. After the host sends a special HP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
command sequence, it switches to an extended format in which a fourth byte carries information about wheel movements. The IntelliMouse Explorer works analogously, with the difference that its 4-byte packets also allow for two additional buttons (for a total of five).[36]
Mouse vendors also use other extended formats, often without providing public documentation. HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
The Typhoon mouse uses 6-byte packets which can appear as a sequence of two standard 3-byte packets, such that an ordinary PS/2 driver can handle them.[37] For 3-D (or 6-degree-of-freedom) input, vendors have made many extensions both to the hardware and to software. In the late 1990s Logitech created ultrasound based tracking which gave 3D input to a few millimetres Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
accuracy, which worked well as an input device but failed as a profitable product. In 2008, Motion4U introduced its "OptiBurst" system using IR tracking for use as a Maya (graphics software) plugin.
Apple Macintosh Plus mice (left) Beige mouse (right) Platinum mouse 1986
HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
In 1986 Apple first implemented the Apple Desktop Bus allowing the daisy-chaining together of up to 16 devices, including arbitrarily many mice and other devices on the same bus with no configuration whatsoever. Featuring only a single data pin, the bus used a purely polled approach to computer/mouse communications and survived as the standard on mainstream models HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
(including a number of non-Apple workstations) until 1998 when iMac joined the industry-wide switch to using USB. Beginning with the "Bronze Keyboard" PowerBook G3 in May 1999, Apple dropped the external ADB port in favor of USB, but retained an internal ADB connection in the PowerBook G4 for communication with its built-in keyboard and trackpad until early 2005.
HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
The industry-standard USB (Universal Serial Bus) protocol and its connector have become widely used for mice; it's currently among the most popular types.[38]
A wireless mouse made for notebook computers
Cordless or wireless mice transmit data via infrared radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth). The receiver is connected to the computer through a serial or USB port, or can be HP Pavilion G6-1139TX Keyboard
built in (as is sometimes the case with Bluetooth). Modern non-Bluetooth wireless mice use USB receivers. Some of these can be stored inside the mouse for safe transport while not in use, while other, newer mice use newer "nano" receivers, designed to be small enough to remain plugged into a laptop during transport, while still being large enough to easily remove.[39]
[edit] Atari standard joystick connectivity
Sony V072078BS1 Keyboard
The Amiga and the Atari ST use an Atari standard DE-9 connector for mice, the same connector that is used for joysticks on the same computers and numerous 8-bit systems, such as the Commodore 64 and the Atari 2600. However, the signals used for mice are different from those used for joysticks. As a result, plugging a mouse into a joystick port causes the "joystick" to continuously move in some direction, even if the mouse stays still, whereas plugging a joystick Asus X53S Keyboard
into a mouse port causes the "mouse" to only be able to move a single pixel in each direction.
A mouse typically controls the motion of a pointer in two dimensions in a graphical user interface (GUI). Clicking or hovering (stopping movement while the cursor is within the bounds of an area) can select files, programs or actions from a list of names, or (in graphical interfaces) through small images called "icons" and other elements. For example, a text file might be represented by Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
a picture of a paper notebook, and clicking while the cursor hovers this icon might cause a text editing program to open the file in a window. (See also Point and click)
Users can also employ mice gesturally; meaning that a stylized motion of the mouse cursor itself, HP 496878-001 Keyboard
called a "gesture", can issue a command or map to a specific action. For example, in a drawing program, moving the mouse in a rapid "x" motion over a shape might delete the shape.
Gestural interfaces occur more rarely than plain pointing-and-clicking; and people often find them more difficult to use, because they require finer motor-control from the user. However, a Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
few gestural conventions have become widespread, including the drag and drop gesture, in which:
1.The user presses the mouse button while the mouse cursor hovers over an interface object
2.The user moves the cursor to a different location while holding the button down
3.The user releases the mouse button
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For example, a user might drag-and-drop a picture representing a file onto a picture of a trash can, thus instructing the system to delete the file.
Other uses of the mouse's input occur commonly in special application-domains. In interactive three-dimensional graphics, the mouse's motion often translates directly into changes in the Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
virtual camera's orientation. For example, in the first-person shooter genre of games (see below), players usually employ the mouse to control the direction in which the virtual player's "head" faces: moving the mouse up will cause the player to look up, revealing the view above the player's head. A related function makes an image of an object rotate, so that all sides can be HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
examined.
When mice have more than one button, software may assign different functions to each button. Often, the primary (leftmost in a right-handed configuration) button on the mouse will select items, and the secondary (rightmost in a right-handed) button will bring up a menu of alternative Acer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
actions applicable to that item. For example, on platforms with more than one button, the Mozilla web browser will follow a link in response to a primary button click, will bring up a contextual menu of alternative actions for that link in response to a secondary-button click, and will often open the link in a new tab or window in response to a click with the tertiary (middle) Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
mouse button.
Different ways of operating the mouse cause specific things to happen in the GUI:
Click: pressing and releasing a button. (left) Single-click: clicking the main button.
(left) Double-click: clicking the button two times in quick succession counts as a different HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
gesture than two separate single clicks.
(left) Triple-click: clicking the button three times in quick succession.
Right-click: clicking the secondary button.
Middle-click: clicking the ternary button.
HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
Drag: pressing and holding a button, then moving the mouse without releasing. (Use the command "drag with the right mouse button" instead of just "drag" when you instruct a user to drag an object while holding the right mouse button down instead of the more commonly used Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
left mouse button.)
Button chording (a.k.a. Rocker navigation). Combination of right-click then left-click.
Combination of left-click then right-click or keyboard letter.
Combination of left or right-click and the mouse wheel.
HP 633736-001 Keyboard
Clicking while holding down a modifier key.
Moving the pointer a long distance: When a practical limit of mouse movement is reached, one lifts up the mouse, brings it to the opposite edge of the working area while it's held above the surface, and then replaces it down onto the working surface. This is often not necessary, because Toshiba Satellite 1800-614 Keyboard
acceleration software detects fast movement, and moves the pointer significantly faster in proportion than for slow mouse motion.
Standard semantic gestures include:
Crossing-based goal
Toshiba Satellite P105-S6177 Keyboard
[edit] Multiple-mouse systems
Some systems allow two or more mice to be used at once as input devices. 16-bit era home computers such as the Amiga used this to allow computer games with two players interacting on the same computer. The same idea is sometimes used in collaborative software, e.g. to simulate HP Pavilion dv2-1008ax Keyboard
a whiteboard that multiple users can draw on without passing a single mouse around.
Because Windows only provides a single screen cursor, using more than one device at the same time requires cooperation of users or applications designed for multiple input devices.
Multiple mice are often used in multi-user gaming in addition to specially designed devices that Sony Vaio PCG-K37 Keyboard
provide several input interfaces.
Windows also has full support for multiple input/mouse configurations for multiuser environments.
Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft introduced a SDK for developing applications that allow Packard Bell Easynote TK81 keyboard
multiple input devices to be used at the same time with independent cursors and independent input points.[40]
The introduction of Vista and Microsoft Surface (now known as Microsoft PixelSense) introduced a new set of input APIs that were adopted into Windows 7, allowing for 50 points/cursors, all Toshiba PK13AT10600 Keyboard
controlled by independent users. The new input points provide traditional mouse input; however, are designed for more advanced input technology like touch and image. They inherently offer 3D coordinates along with pressure, size, tilt, angle, mask, and even an image bitmap to see and Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
recognize the input point/object on the screen.
As of 2009, Linux distributions and other operating systems that use X.Org, such as OpenSolaris and FreeBSD, support 255 cursors/input points through Multi-Pointer X. However, current no HP Pavilion dv6-3141se Keyboard
window managers support Multi-Pointer X leaving it relegated to custom software usage.
There have also been propositions of having a single operator use two mice simultaneously as a
Mouse buttons are microswitches which can be pressed to select or interact with an element of a graphical user interface, producing a distinctive clicking sound.
Compaq Presario CQ41-209AU Keyboard
The three-button scrollmouse has become the most commonly available design. As of 2007 (and roughly since the late 1990s), users most commonly employ the second button to invoke a contextual menu in the computer's software user interface, which contains options specifically tailored to the interface element over which the mouse cursor currently sits. By default, the primary mouse button sits located on the left-hand side of the mouse, for the benefit of Sony Vaio PCG-K86SP Keyboard
right-handed users; left-handed users can usually reverse this configuration via software.
The computer industry often measures mouse sensitivity in terms of counts per inch (CPI), commonly expressed as dots per inch (DPI) – the number of steps the mouse will report when it moves one inch. In early mice, this specification was called pulses per inch (ppi).[16] If the default Sony VAIO VGN-FZ240E/B Keyboard
mouse-tracking condition involves moving the cursor by one screen-pixel or dot on-screen per reported step, then the CPI does equate to DPI: dots of cursor motion per inch of mouse motion. The CPI or DPI as reported by manufacturers depends on how they make the mouse; the higher the CPI, the faster the cursor moves with mouse movement. However, software can adjust the HP Probook 4325s Keyboard
mouse sensitivity, making the cursor move faster or slower than its CPI. Current software can change the speed of the cursor dynamically, taking into account the mouse's absolute speed and the movement from the last stop-point. In most software[specify] this setting is named "speed", referring to "cursor precision". However, some software[specify] names this setting "Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Keyboard
acceleration", but this term is in fact incorrect. The mouse acceleration, in the majority of mouse software, refers to the setting allowing the user to modify the cursor acceleration: the change in speed of the cursor over time while the mouse movement is constant.
For simple software, when the mouse starts to move, the software will count the number of HP 317443-001 Keyboard
"counts" or "mickeys" received from the mouse and will move the cursor across the screen by that number of pixels (or multiplied by a rate factor, typically less than 1). The cursor will move slowly on the screen, having a good precision. When the movement of the mouse passes the value set for "threshold", the software will start to move the cursor more quickly, with a greater rate factor. Usually, the user can set the value of the second rate factor by changing the Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
"acceleration" setting.
Operating systems sometimes apply acceleration, referred to as "ballistics", to the motion reported by the mouse. For example, versions of Windows prior to Windows XP doubled Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
reported values above a configurable threshold, and then optionally doubled them again above a second configurable threshold. These doublings applied separately in the X and Y directions,
Main article: Mousepad
Engelbart's original mouse did not require a mousepad;[43] the mouse had two large wheels Thinkpad T420i
which could roll on virtually any surface. However, most subsequent mechanical mice starting with the steel roller ball mouse have required a mousepad for optimal performance.
The mousepad, the most common mouse accessory, appears most commonly in conjunction with mechanical mice, because to roll smoothly the ball requires more friction than common desk Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
surfaces usually provide. So-called "hard mousepads" for gamers or optical/laser mice also exist.
Most optical and laser mice do not require a pad. Whether to use a hard or soft mousepad with an optical mouse is largely a matter of personal preference. One exception occurs when the desk surface creates problems for the optical or laser tracking, for example, a transparent or reflective
Acer PK130AE3000 Keyboard
Computer mice built between 1986 and 2007
Around 1981 Xerox included mice with its Xerox Star, based on the mouse used in the 1970s on the Alto computer at Xerox PARC. Sun Microsystems, Symbolics, Lisp Machines Inc., and Tektronix also shipped workstations with mice, starting in about 1981. Later, inspired by the Star, Apple Computer released the Apple Lisa, which also used a mouse. However, none of these products HP Pavilion dv6-3149sl Keyboard
achieved large-scale success. Only with the release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984 did the mouse see widespread use.[44]
The Macintosh design,[45] commercially successful and technically influential, led many other vendors to begin producing mice or including them with their other computer products (by 1986, Atari ST, Amiga, Windows 1.0, GEOS for the Commodore 64, and the Apple IIGS).[46]
Sony VAIO VGN-NW11Z Keyboard
The widespread adoption of graphical user interfaces in the software of the 1980s and 1990s made mice all but indispensable for controlling computers. In November 2008, Logitech built their billionth mouse.[47]
Mice often function as an interface for PC-based computer games and sometimes for video game consoles.
FujitsuLifebook S6230 Keyboard
[edit] First-person shooters
This section does not cite any references or sources. (August 2012)
Due to the cursor-like nature of the crosshairs in first-person shooters (FPS), a combination of mouse and keyboard provides a popular way to play FPS games. Players use the X-axis of the IBM Thinkpad T61 Keyboard
mouse for looking (or turning) left and right, leaving the Y-axis for looking up and down. Many gamers prefer this primarily in FPS games over a gamepad or joypad because it provides a higher resolution for input, so they are able to make small, precise motions in the game more easily. The Sony VAIO VGN-NW50JB Keyboard
left button usually controls primary fire. If the game supports multiple fire modes, the right button often provides secondary fire from the selected weapon. Games with only a single fire mode will generally map secondary fire to ironsights. In older games, the right button may also Acer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
provide bonus options for a particular weapon, such as allowing access to the scope of a sniper rifle or allowing the mounting of a bayonet or silencer.
Gamers can use a scroll wheel for changing weapons (or for controlling scope-zoom magnification, in older games). On most FPS games, programming may also assign more functions to additional Sony VAIO VGN-SZ680N Keyboard
buttons on mice with more than three controls. A keyboard usually controls movement (for example, WASD, for moving forward, left, backward and right, respectively) and other functions such as changing posture. Since the mouse serves for aiming, a mouse that tracks movement accurately and with less lag (latency) will give a player an advantage over players with less accurate or slower mice.
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An early technique of players, circle strafing, saw a player continuously strafing while aiming and shooting at an opponent by walking in circle around the opponent with the opponent at the center of the circle. Players could achieve this by holding down a key for strafing while continuously aiming the mouse towards the opponent.
Sony VAIO VGN-SZ660N/C Keyboard
Games using mice for input are so popular that many manufacturers make mice specifically for gaming. Such mice may feature adjustable weights, high-resolution optical or laser components, additional buttons, ergonomic shape, and other features such as adjustable CPI.
Asus A6F Keyboard
Many games, such as first- or third-person shooters, have a setting named "invert mouse" or similar (not to be confused with "button inversion", sometimes performed by left-handed users) which allows the user to look downward by moving the mouse forward and upward by moving the mouse backward (the opposite of non-inverted movement). This control system resembles HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo Keyboard
that of aircraft control sticks, where pulling back causes pitch up and pushing forward causes pitch down; computer joysticks also typically emulate this control-configuration.
After id Software's Doom, the game that popularized FPS games but which did not support vertical aiming with a mouse (the y-axis served for forward/backward movement), competitor 3D Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
Realms' Duke Nukem 3D became one of the first games that supported using the mouse to aim up and down. This and other games using the Build engine had an option to invert the Y-axis. The "invert" feature actually made the mouse behave in a manner that users now regard as non-inverted (by default, moving mouse forward resulted in looking down). Soon after, id Acer Aspire One AOA150-1001 Keyboard
Software released Quake, which introduced the invert feature as users now know it. Other games using the Quake engine have come on the market following this standard, likely due to the overall popularity of Quake.
[edit] Home consoles
IAcer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
n 1988 the educational video game system, the VTech Socrates, featured a wireless mouse with an attached mouse pad as an optional controller used for some games. In the early 1990s the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game system featured a mouse in addition to its Packard Bell PEW71 keyboard
controllers. The Mario Paint game in particular used the mouse's capabilities, as did its successor on the Nintendo 64. Sega released official mice for their Genesis/Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast consoles. NEC sold official mice for its PC Engine and PC-FX consoles. Sony Computer Entertainment released an official mouse product for the PlayStation console, and included one along with the Linux for PlayStation 2 kit. However, users can attach virtually any USB mouse to Toshiba Satellite L775-S7243 Keyboard
the PlayStation 2 console. In addition the PlayStation 3 also fully supports USB mice. Recently the Wii also has this latest development added on in a recent software update.
History
This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2008)
Compaq Presario CQ50-130US Keyboard
Main article: History of personal computers
See also: Microcomputer revolution
The Programma 101, released in 1965, was the first commercial "desktop computer",[4] but today would usually be considered a printing programmable calculator.
Acer AEZR1R00110 Keyboard
In what was later to be called The Mother of All Demos, SRI researcher Douglas Engelbart in 1968 gave a preview of what would become the staples of daily working life in the 21st century - e-mail, hypertext, word processing, video conferencing, and the mouse. The demonstration required technical support staff and a mainframe time-sharing computer that were far too costly for Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
individual business use at the time.
By the early 1970s, people in academic or research institutions had the opportunity for single-person use of a computer system in interactive mode for extended durations, although IBM Thinkpad R60 Keyboard
these systems would still have been too expensive to be owned by a single person.
In the 1970s Hewlett Packard introduced fully BASIC programmable computers that fit entirely on top of a desk, including a keyboard, a small one-line display and printer. The Xerox Alto, developed in 1973 at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), had a graphical user interface (GUI) that later served as inspiration for Apple Computer's Macintosh, and Microsoft's Windows Sony VAIO VPCF12AFM/H Keyboard
operating system. The Wang 2200 of 1973 had a full-size cathode ray tube (CRT) and cassette tape storage. The IBM 5100 in 1975 had a small CRT display and could be programmed in BASIC and APL. These were generally expensive specialized computers sold for business or scientific Sony VGN-FE865E/H Keyboard
uses. The introduction of the microprocessor, a single chip with all the circuitry that formerly occupied large cabinets, led to the proliferation of personal computers after 1975.
Early personal computers — generally called microcomputers — were sold often in kit form and in limited volumes, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians. Minimal Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
programming was done with toggle switches to enter instructions, and output was provided by front panel lamps. Practical use required adding peripherals such as keyboards, computer displays, disk drives, and printers. Micral N was the earliest commercial, non-kit microcomputer based on a microprocessor, the Intel 8008. It was built starting in 1972 and about 90,000 units Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/S Keyboard
were sold. In 1976 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold the Apple I computer circuit board, which was fully prepared and contained about 30 chips. The first successfully mass marketed personal computer was the Commodore PET introduced in January 1977. It was soon followed by the Apple II (usually referred to as the "Apple") in June 1977, and the TRS-80 from Radio Shack in Compaq Presario CQ71 Series Keyboard
November 1977. Mass-market ready-assembled computers allowed a wider range of people to use computers, focusing more on software applications and less on development of the processor hardware.
Into the beginning of the 1980s, home computers were further developed for household use, Dell Inspiron N4020 Keyboard
with software for personal productivity, programming and games. They typically could be used with a television already in the home as the computer display, with low-detail blocky graphics and a limited color range, and text about 40 characters wide by 25 characters tall. One such HP 505999-001 Keyboard
machine, the Commodore 64, totaled 17 million units sold, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time.[5] Another such computer, the NEC PC-98, sold more than 18 million units.[6]
Somewhat larger and more expensive systems (for example, running CP/M), or sometimes a Acer Extensa 5635G 5635Z Keyboard
home computer with additional interfaces and devices, although still low-cost compared with minicomputers and mainframes, were aimed at office and small business use, typically using "high resolution" monitors capable of at least 80 column text display, and often no graphical or color drawing capability.
Acer PK1301K0100 Keyboard
Workstations were characterized by high-performance processors and graphics displays, with large local disk storage, networking capability, and running under a multitasking operating system.
IBM 5150 as of 1981
HP COMPAQ NC6140 keyboard
Eventually, due to the influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market, personal computers and home computers lost any technical distinction. Business computers acquired color graphics capability and sound, and home computers and game systems users used the same processors and operating systems as office workers. Mass-market computers had graphics Sony Vaio PCG-K215Z Keyboard
capabilities and memory comparable to dedicated workstations of a few years before. Even local area networking, originally a way to allow business computers to share expensive mass storage and peripherals, became a standard feature of personal computers used at home.
Dell Latitude D400 Keyboard
In 1982 "The Computer" was named Machine of the Year by Time Magazine.
[edit] Market and sales
See also: Market share of leading PC vendors
HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
Personal computers worldwide in million distinguished by developed and developing world
In 2001, 125 million personal computers were shipped in comparison to 48 thousand in 1977. More than 500 million personal computers were in use in 2002 and one billion personal HP Mini 210-2090nr Keyboard
computers had been sold worldwide from the mid-1970s up to this time. Of the latter figure, 75 percent were professional or work related, while the rest were sold for personal or home use. About 81.5 percent of personal computers shipped had been desktop computers, 16.4 percent Toshiba Satellite pro 4280xdvd Keyboard
laptops and 2.1 percent servers. The United States had received 38.8 percent (394 million) of the computers shipped, Europe 25 percent and 11.7 percent had gone to the Asia-Pacific region, the fastest-growing market as of 2002. The second billion was expected to be sold by 2008.[7] Almost half of all the households in Western Europe had a personal computer and a computer could be HP Pavilion dm1-1028tu Keyboard
found in 40 percent of homes in United Kingdom, compared with only 13 percent in 1985.[8]
The global personal computer shipments were 350.9 million units in 2010,[9] 308.3 million units in 2009[10] and 302.2 million units in 2008.[11][12] The shipments were 264 million units in the year 2007, according to iSuppli,[13] up 11.2 percent from 239 million in 2006.[14] In 2004, the Compaq Presario CQ60-310eq Keyboard
global shipments were 183 million units, an 11.6 percent increase over 2003.[15] In 2003, 152.6 million computers were shipped, at an estimated value of $175 billion.[16] In 2002, 136.7 million PCs were shipped, at an estimated value of $175 billion.[16] In 2000, 140.2 million personal FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
computers were shipped, at an estimated value of $226 billion.[16] Worldwide shipments of personal computers surpassed the 100-million mark in 1999, growing to 113.5 million units from 93.3 million units in 1998.[17] In 1999, Asia had 14.1 million units shipped.[18]
For 2011, global PC shipments are expected to reach 364 million units, a 3.8% growth comparing Sony VAIO VGN-N250E/B Keyboard
to 2010.[19]
As of June 2008, the number of personal computers in use worldwide hit one billion, while another billion is expected to be reached by 2014. Mature markets like the United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. The emerging markets were expected to double their installed PCs by 2012 and to take 70 percent of Asus F3Jr Keyboard
the second billion PCs. About 180 million computers (16 percent of the existing installed base) were expected to be replaced and 35 million to be dumped into landfill in 2008. The whole installed base grew 12 percent annually.[20][21]
Based on IDC data for Q2 2011, for the first time China surpassed US in PC shipments by 18.5 HP 640208-001 Keyboard
million and 17.7 million respectively. It is reflects the rising of emerging markets as well as the relative stagnation of mature regions.[22]
In the developed world, there has been a vendor tradition to keep adding functions to maintain Toshiba Satellite L755D-SP5165RM Keyboard
high prices of personal computers. However, since the introduction of the One Laptop per Child foundation and its low-cost XO-1 laptop, the computing industry started to pursue the price too. Although introduced only one year earlier, there were 14 million netbooks sold in 2008.[23] Dell 0NK831 Keyboard
Besides the regular computer manufacturers, companies making especially rugged versions of computers have sprung up, offering alternatives for people operating their machines in extreme weather or environments.[24]
Deloitte consulting firm predicted that in 2011, smartphones and tablet computers as computing devices would surpass the PCs sales.[25]
SamsungR470 Keyboard
[edit] Average selling price
Selling prices of personal computers, unlike other consumer commodities, steadily declined due to lower costs of production and manufacture. Capabilities of the computers also increased. In 1975, an Altair kit sold for only around US $400, but required customers to solder components Packard Bell NEW90 keyboard
into circuit boards; peripherals required to interact with the system in alphanumeric form instead of blinking lights would add another $2000, and the resultant system was only of use to hobbyists.[26]
At their introduction in 1981, the US $1,795 price of the Osborne 1 and its competitor Kaypro Toshiba Satellite M105-SP3027 Keyboard
was considered an attractive price point; these systems had text-only displays and only floppy disks for storage. By 1982, Michael Dell observed that a personal computer system selling at retail for about $3,000 US was made of components that cost the dealer about $600; typical gross margin on a computer unit was around $1,000.[27] The total value of personal computer Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
purchases in the US in 1983 was about $4 billion, comparable to total sales of pet food. By late 1998, the average selling price of personal computer systems in the United States had dropped below $1000.[28]
For Microsoft Windows systems, the average selling price (ASP) showed a decline in 2008/2009, Sony VAIO VGN-CR320D Keyboard
possibly due to low-cost netbooks, drawing $569 for desktop computers and $689 for laptops at U.S. retail in August 2008. In 2009, ASP had further fallen to $533 for desktops and to $602 for notebooks by January and to $540 and $560 in February.[29] According to research firm NPD, the average selling price of all Windows portable PCs has fallen from $659 in October 2008 to $519 in Sony 147996611 Keyboard
October 2009.[30]
Sun SPARCstation 1+, 25 MHz RISC processor from early 1990s
Main article: Workstation
A workstation is a high-end personal computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Dell PVDG3 Keyboard
Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. Workstations are used for tasks such as computer-aided design, drafting and modeling, computation-intensive scientific and engineering calculations, image processing, architectural modeling, and computer graphics for animation and Acer Aspire One D250-1326 Keyboard
motion picture visual effects.[31]
Dell OptiPlex desktop computer
Prior to the wide spread usage of PCs, a computer that could fit on a desk was remarkably small. Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
Today the phrase usually indicates a particular style of computer case. Desktop computers come in a variety of styles ranging from large vertical tower cases to small form factor models that can be tucked behind an LCD monitor. In this sense, the term 'desktop' refers specifically to a horizontally oriented case, usually intended to have the display screen placed on top to save Packard Bell NEW95 keyboard
space on the desk top. Most modern desktop computers have separate screens and keyboards.
[edit] Gaming Computer
Main article: Gaming computer
HP Envy 15-1050es Keyboard
A gaming computer is a standard desktop computer that typically has high-performance hardware, such as a more powerful video card, processor, and memory, in order to handle the requirements of demanding video games. A number of companies, such as Alienware, HP G72-110EL Keyboard
manufacture prebuilt gaming computers, and companies such as Razer and Logitech market mice, keyboards, and headsets geared towards gamers.
[edit] Single unit
Further information: All-in-one computer
Sony VAIO VGN-N21Z Keyboard
Single unit PCs (also known as all-in-one PCs) are a subtype of desktop computers, which combine the monitor and case of the computer within a single unit. The monitor often utilizes a touchscreen as an optional method of user input, however detached keyboards and mice are normally still included. The inner components of the PC are often located directly behind the HP G42-351TX Keyboard
monitor, and many are built similarly to laptops.
A subtype of desktops, called nettops, was introduced by Intel in February 2008 to describe low-cost, lean-function, desktop computers. A similar subtype of laptops (or notebooks) are the Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
netbooks (see below). The product line features the new Intel Atom processor which specially enables them to consume less power and to be built into small enclosures.
Antec Fusion V2 home theater PC with keyboard on top.
A home theater PC (HTPC) is a convergence device that combines the functions of a personal Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
computer and a digital video recorder. It is connected to a television or a television-sized computer display and is often used as a digital photo, music, video player, TV receiver and digital video recorder. Home theater PCs are also referred to as media center systems or media servers. Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
The general goal in a HTPC is usually to combine many or all components of a home theater setup into one box. They can be purchased pre-configured with the required hardware and software needed to add television programming to the PC, or can be cobbled together out of Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
discrete components as is commonly done with MythTV, Windows Media Center, GB-PVR, SageTV, Famulent or LinuxMCE. More recently, home theatre PCs have been given the ability to connect to services that play movies and TV shows on demand.
A modern laptop computer
Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
A laptop computer or simply laptop, also called a notebook computer, is a small personal computer designed for portability. Usually all of the interface hardware needed to operate the laptop, such as USB ports (previously parallel and serial ports), graphics card, sound channel, etc., are built in to a single unit. Laptops contain high capacity batteries that can power the device for HP Pavilion dv6-3149sl Keyboard
extensive periods of time, enhancing portability. Once the battery charge is depleted, it will have to be recharged through a power outlet. In the interest of saving power, weight and space, they usually share RAM with the video channel, slowing their performance compared to an equivalent desktop machine. For this reason, Desktop or Gaming computers are generally preferred to Toshiba Satellite U305-S7477 Keyboard
laptop PCs for gaming purposes.
One main drawback of the laptop is sometimes, due to the size and configuration of components, relatively little can be done to upgrade the overall computer from its original design. Internal upgrades are either not manufacturer recommended, can damage the laptop if done with poor HP Pavilion dv6-3046eo Keyboard
care or knowledge, or in some cases impossible, making the desktop PC more modular. Some internal upgrades, such as memory and hard disks upgrades are often easy, a display or keyboard upgrade is usually impossible. The laptop has the same access as the desktop to the wide variety of devices, such as external displays, mice, cameras, storage devices and keyboards, which may Toshiba Satellite L775-S7243 Keyboard
be attached externally through USB ports and other less common ports such as external video.
A subtype of notebooks, called subnotebooks, are computers with most of the features of a standard laptop computer but smaller. They are larger than hand-held computers, and usually run full versions of desktop/laptop operating systems. Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPC) are usually Toshiba Satellite L750-ST5NX2 Keyboard
considered subnotebooks, or more specifically, subnotebook Tablet PCs (see below). Netbooks are sometimes considered in this category, though they are sometimes separated in a category of their own (see below).
HP Pavilion dv6-3052nr Keyboard
An Acer 18'4 inch screen Desktop Replacement Laptop
A desktop replacement computer (DTR) is a personal computer that provides the full capabilities of a desktop computer while remaining mobile. They are often larger, bulkier laptops. Because of HP Mini 210-2090nr Keyboard
their increased size, this class of computer usually includes more powerful components and a larger display than generally used in smaller portable computers and can have a relatively limited battery capacity (or none at all). Some use a limited range of desktop components to provide HP G72-110EL Keyboard
better performance at the expense of battery life. These are sometimes called desknotes, a portmanteau of the words "desktop" and "notebook," though the term is also applied to desktop replacement computers in general.[32]
An HP netbook
Toshiba Mini NB 255 Series Keyboard
Netbooks (also called mini notebooks or subnotebooks) are a rapidly evolving[33] category of small, light and inexpensive laptop computers suited for general computing and accessing web-based applications; they are often marketed as "companion devices," that is, to augment a Toshiba NB100 Keyboard
user's other computer access.[33] Walt Mossberg called them a "relatively new category of small, light, minimalist and cheap laptops."[34] By August 2009, CNET called netbooks "nothing more than smaller, cheaper notebooks.".[33]
Toshiba Satellite A200 Keyboard
Initially, their primary defining characteristic was the lack of an optical disc drive, requiring it to be a separate and external device. This has become less important as flash memory devices have gradually increased in capacity, replacing the writable optical disc (e.g. CD-RW, DVD-RW) as a transportable storage medium.
Toshiba Satellite A205 Keyboard
At their inception in late 2007 — as smaller notebooks optimized for low weight and low cost[35] — netbooks omitted key features (e.g., the optical drive), featured smaller screens and keyboards, and offered reduced specification and computing power. Over the course of their evolution, netbooks have ranged in size from below 5 in[36] to over 13 in,[37] and from ~1 kg (2-3 pounds). IBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
Often significantly less expensive than other laptops,[38] by mid-2009, netbooks had been offered to users "free of charge", with an extended service contract purchase of a cellular data plan.[39]
IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
In the short period since their appearance, netbooks have grown in size and features, now converging with new smaller, lighter notebooks. By mid 2009, CNET noted "the specs are so similar that the average shopper would likely be confused as to why one is better than the other," HP Pavilion G6-1212TX Keyboard
noting "the only conclusion is that there really is no distinction between the devices."[33]
HP Compaq tablet PC with rotating/removable keyboard.
A tablet PC is a notebook or slate-shaped mobile computer. Its touchscreen or graphics tablet/screen hybrid technology allows the user to operate the computer with a stylus or digital pen, or a fingertip, instead of a keyboard or mouse. The form factor offers a more mobile way to HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
interact with a computer. Tablet PCs are often used where normal notebooks are impractical or unwieldy, or do not provide the needed functionality. Recently, tablet PCs have been given operating systems normally used on phones, like Android or iOS. This gives them many of the same uses as a phone, but with more power and functionality.
Dell NSK-D8001 Keyboard
Samsung Q1 Ultra-Mobile PC.
The ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) is a specification for a small form factor of tablet PCs. It was Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
developed as a joint development exercise by Microsoft, Intel, and Samsung, among others. Current UMPCs typically feature the Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Linux operating system and low-voltage Intel Atom or VIA C7-M processors.
Main article: Pocket PC
IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
An O2 pocket PC
A pocket PC is a hardware specification for a handheld-sized computer (personal digital assistant) that runs the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. It may have the capability to run an alternative operating system like NetBSD or Linux. It has many of the capabilities of modern ThinkPad Edge E520s
desktop PCs.
Currently there are tens of thousands of applications for handhelds adhering to the Microsoft Pocket PC specification, many of which are freeware. Some of these devices also include mobile phone features and thus actually represent a smartphone. Microsoft compliant Pocket PCs can Sony VAIO VGN-N38E/W Keyboard
also be used with many other add-ons like GPS receivers, barcode readers, RFID readers, and cameras. In 2007, with the release of Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft dropped the name Pocket PC in favor of a new naming scheme. Devices without an integrated phone are called Windows Mobile Classic instead of Pocket PC. Devices with an in
Synthesizer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Keyboard synthesizer)
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, Sony Vaio PCG-K33F Keyboard
see Synthesizer (disambiguation).
"Synth" redirects here. For other uses, see Synth (disambiguation).
See also: Electronic musical instrument and Software synthesizer
A sound synthesizer (often abbreviated as "synthesizer" or "synth") is an electronic instrument capable of producing a wide range of sounds. Sony VAIO VGN-FS415S Keyboard
Synthesizers may either imitate other instruments ("imitative synthesis") or generate new timbres. They can be played (controlled) via a variety of different input devices (including keyboards, music sequencers and instrument controllers). Synthesizers generate electric signals (waveforms), and can finally be converted to sound through the loudspeakers or headphones.
Early Minimoog 04W0872
by R.A. Moog Inc. (ca. 1970)
Synthesizers use a number of different technologies or programmed algorithms to generate signal, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Among the most popular waveform synthesis techniques are subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis, wavetable synthesis, frequency modulation synthesis, phase distortion synthes Gateway MG2 Keyboard
is, physical modeling synthesis and sample-based synthesis. Also other sound synthesis methods including subharmonic synthesis used on mixture trautonium, granular synthesis resulting Soundscape or Cloud, are rarely used. (See #Types of synthesis)
Synthesizers are often controlled with a piano-style keyboard, leading such instruments to be referred to simply as "keyboards". Toshiba Satellite U305-S5097 Keyboard
Several other forms of controller have been devised to resemble fingerboards, guitars (guitar synthesizer), violins, wind instruments (wind controller), drums and percussions (electronic drum), etc. (See #Control interfaces)
Synthesizers without controllers are often called "sound modules", and they can be controlled using MIDI or CV/Gate methods.[edit] History
Further information: HP Pavilion ze5375us Keyboard
Electronic music instruments
This article or section may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.(October 2011)
The beginnings of the synthesizer are difficult to trace because of the varying definitions of the term "synthesizer". There is often confusion between sound synthesizers and arbitrary electric/electronic musical instruments.[1][2]/ However, HP 634139-001 Keyboard
the former is distinguished from the latter by its ability to imitate sounds.
Early electric instruments
For example, one of the earliest electric musical instruments was invented in 1876 by American electrical engineer Elisha Gray, who accidentally discovered that he could control sound from a self-vibrating electromagnetic circuit; in doing so, Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
invented a basic single note oscillator. This musical telegraph used steel reeds, whose oscillations were created and transmitted over a telegraphy line by electromagnets. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, consisting of a vibrating diaphragm in a magnetic field, to make the oscillator audible.[3][4]
Frankly, this instrument Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
was a remote electromechanical musical instrument using telegraphy and electric buzzers, without any other sound synthesis function. However, some people tend to call it "the first synthesizer",[1][unreliable source?][2][unreliable source?] without clear definition of the term "synthesizer".
Hammond organ (1934)
Teleharmonium console (1897) Early additive synthesizer – Tonewheel organs
In 1897, Thaddeus Cahill invented Teleharmonium Sony Vaio PCG-K215S Keyboard
(or Dynamophone) utilizing dynamo (early electric generator),[5] and it had the capable of additive synthesis also seen on Hammond organ later invented in 1934. However, Cahill's business was not successful due to various reasons (ex. too huge scale of system, rapid evolutions of electronics, crosstalk issues on the telephone line, etc), and similar but more compact instruments were developed one after another.
Emergence of electronics – Theremin (1920), Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
Ondes Martenot (1928), and Trautonium (1929)
In 1906, a huge revolution of electronics had begun.
Audion tube (1906)
American engineer, Lee De Forest invented the world first amplifying vacuum tube known as Audion tube, and it led the broad developments of new technologies including radio and sound film for entertainments. These new technologies have also influenced on the music industry, Thinkpad X220
and resulted in the various early electronic musical instruments, including:
Trautonium
(Telefunken Volkstrautonium
Ondes Martenot
(7G model in 1978)
Theremin (RCA AR-1264 in 1930) HP Mini 1126NR Keyboard
Audion piano by Lee De Forest in 1915[6]
Theremin by Léon Theremin in 1920[7]
Ondes Martenot by Maurice Martenot in 1928
Trautonium by Friedrich Trautwein in 1929
etc. The most of these early instruments utilized "heterodyne circuit" to produce audio frequency, and these sound synthesis capabilities were initially limited, however, along with the development over a decade, Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110L Keyboard
these instruments finally won the enough expression ability.
ANS synthesizer (1937–1957)
Graphic sonic Graphical sound
Also in 1920s, Arseny Avraamov developed various systems of graphic sonic art,[8] and similar graphical sound systems were also developed around the world, one after another.[9] In 1938, USSR engineer Yevgeny Murzin invented a design for a music-composition tool called ANS, Gateway MT6460 Keyboard
one of the earliest conceptions of a real-time additive synthesizer using optoelectronics. Although his idea of reconstructing a sound from its visible image was apparently simple, it was only realized 20 years later, in 1958, because his professional field was not related to music.[10]
Hammond Novachord (1939)
Welte Lichtton orgel (1935) Subtractive synthesis & polyphonic synthesizer
In the 1930s and 1940s, Toshiba Satellite C655-S5132 Keyboard
the basic elements required for the modern analog subtractive synthesizers — audio oscillators, audio filters, envelope controllers, and various effects units — had already appeared and were utilized on several electronic instruments. And even the earliest polyphonic synthesizers went into commercial production in the Germany and the United States. The Warbo Formant Organ developed by Harald Bode in Germany in 1937, Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
was a four-voice key-assignment keyboard with two formant filters and a dynamic envelope controller,[11][12] it eventually went into commercial production by a factory in Dachau.[13] The Hammond Novachord released in 1939, was an electronic keyboard that used a frequency-divider for sound generation, with vibratos, filter, resonator-network and a dynamic envelope controller. During the three years in which this model was manufactured 1,069 units were shipped; Asus X53S Keyboard
however, production was discontinued due to World War II.[14][15] Both instruments were the forerunners of the following electronic organs and the later polyphonic synthesizers.
Electronic Sackbut by Hugh Le Caine (1948)
Hohner Multimonica by Harald Bode (1940) Monophonic electronic keyboards – Hammond Solovox (1940), Ondiolin (1941), Clavioline (1947), Clavivox (1952)
Georges Jenny built his first ondioline in France in 1941.
Other innovations 04W0872
In the late 1940s, Canadian inventor and composer, Hugh Le Caine invented Electronic Sackbut which provided the earliest realtime control of three aspects of sound (volume, pitch and timbre), corresponding to today's touch-sensitive keyboard, pitch & modulation controllers, etc. The controllers were initially implemented as the multidimensional pressure keyboard in 1945, then changed to a group of dedicated controllers operated by left hand in 1948.[16]
Also in Japan, as early as in 1935, Sony VGN-FE21S Keyboard
Yamaha developed Magna organ, their first synthesizer based on Keyboard theremin.[17][18] However, in the slightly strange thing, in 1949, Japanese composer Minao Shibata discussed the concept of "a musical instrument with very high performance" that can "synthesize any kind of sound waves" and is "operated very easily," predicting that with such an instrument, "the music scene will be changed drastically". Acer Aspire One D150-1322 Keyboard
[neutrality is disputed][19][20]
Studio di Fonologia Musicale RAI di Milano
Electronic music studios as "sound synthesizer"
After World War II, electronic music including electroacoustic music and musique concrète was created by contemporary composers, and numerous electronic music studios were established around the world, especially in Bonn, Cologne, Acer Aspire 5741Z Keyboard
Paris and Milan. These studios were typically filled with electronic equipment including oscillators, filters, tape recorders, audio consoles, etc., and the whole studio functioned as the "sound synthesizer", rather than a specific piece of equipment.
Siemens Studio (1959)
RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer Acer Aspire 5741Z Keyboard
(1957) Origin of the term "sound synthesizer"
In 1951–1952, RCA produced a machine called the Electronic Music Synthesizer, however, it would be better classified as a "composition machine", because the sounds were not produced in real time.[21] Then, RCA developed the first programmable sound synthesizer, RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, Sony KFRSBA019A Keyboard
and installed it to Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1957.[22] Prominent composers including Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Milton Babbitt, Halim El-Dabh, Bülent Arel, Charles Wuorinen, and Mario Davidovsky used the RCA Synthesizer extensively in various compositions.[23]
[edit] Modular synthesizer
Main articles: Modular synthesizer, Harald Bode, Robert Moog, and Moog synthesizer
In 1959–1960, Dell 3C048 Keyboard
Harald Bode developed a modular synthesizer and sound processor,[24][25] and in 1961, he wrote a paper exploring the concept of self-contained portable modular synthesizer using newly emerging transistor technology;[26] also he served as AES session chairman on music and electronic for the fall conventions in 1962 and 1964;[27] after then, his ideas were adopted by Donald Buchla, Robert Moog, and others Sony VAIO VGN-AR730E Keyboard.
The Moog modular synthesizer of 1960s-1970s.
Robert Moog released the first commercially available modern synthesizer in 1965.[citation needed] In the late 1960s to 1970s, the development of miniaturized solid-state components allowed synthesizers to become self-contained, portable instruments, as proposed by Harald Bode in 1961. By the early 1980s companies were selling compact, modestly priced synthesizers to the public. Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
This, along with the development of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), made it easier to integrate and synchronize synthesizers and other electronic instruments for use in musical composition. In the 1990s, synthesizer emulations began to appear in computer software, known as software synthesizers. Later, VST and other plugins were able to emulate classic hardware synthesizers to a moderate degree.
Wendy Carlos - Switched-On Bach (1968) Sony 147977821 Keyboard
First Movement (Allegro) of Brandenburg Concerto Number 3 played on synthesizer.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
The synthesizer had a considerable effect on 20th century music.[28] Micky Dolenz of The Monkees bought one of the first Moog synthesizers. The band was the first to release an album featuring a Moog with Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. in 1967.[29] It reached #1 in the charts. A few months later, both the Rolling Stones' "2000 Light Years from Home" and the title track of the Doors' 1967 album Strange Days would also feature a Moog, Toshiba Satellite P105-S6104 Keyboard
played by Brian Jones and Paul Beaver respectively. Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach (1968), recorded using Moog synthesizers, also influenced numerous musicians of that era and is one of the most popular recordings of classical music ever made,[30] alongside the records of Isao Tomita (particularly Snowflakes are Dancing in 1974), who in the early 1970s utilized synthesizers to create new artificial sounds (rather than simply mimicking real instruments) HP Pavilion dv6-2117eo Keyboard
[31] and made significant advances in analog synthesizer programming.[32]
The sound of the Moog also reached the mass market with Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends in 1968 and The Beatles' Abbey Road the following year; hundreds of other popular recordings subsequently used synthesizers. Electronic music albums by Beaver and Krause, Tonto's Expanding Head Band, The United States of America, 45N2141
and White Noise reached a sizable cult audience and progressive rock musicians such as Richard Wright of Pink Floyd and Rick Wakeman of Yes were soon using the new portable synthesizers extensively. Other early users included Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Keith Emerson, Pete Townshend, and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's Vincent Crane. The Perrey and Kingsley album The In Sound From Way Out! using the Moog and tape loops plus other was released in 1966. Acer eMachines E732 Keyboard
The first UK no 1 single to feature a Moog prominently was Chicory Tip's 1972 hit Son of My Father.[33]
The Prophet-5 synthesizer of the late 1970s-early 1980s.
Main article: Synthpop
Since the early or mid 1970s, Jean Michel Jarre, Larry Fast, and Vangelis released successful electronic instrumental albums. The emergence of Synthpop, a sub-genre of New Wave, in the late 1970s can be largely credited to synthesizer technology. The ground-breaking work of all-electronic German bands such as Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, HP Pavilion DV6-1120er Keyboard
David Bowie during his Berlin period (1976–1977),[34] as well as the pioneering work of the Japanese Yellow Magic Orchestra and British Gary Numan,[35] were crucial in the development of the genre.[34][35]
English musician Gary Numan's 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars" used synthesizers heavily.[36][37] OMD's "Enola Gay" (1980) used a Dell Latitude D631 Keyboard
distinctive electronic percussion and synthesized melody. Soft Cell used a synthesized melody on their 1981 hit "Tainted Love".[34] Nick Rhodes, keyboardist of Duran Duran, used various synthesizers including slightly minor Roland Jupiter-4 and Jupiter-8.[38][dead link]
Other chart hits include Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" (1981),[34] The Human League's "Don't You Want Me". Gateway MT6705 Keyboard
[39] and Giorgio Moroder's "Flashdance... What a Feeling" (1983) for Irene Cara. Other notable synthpop groups included New Order, Visage, Japan, Ultravox,[34] Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Thompson Twins, A Flock of Seagulls, Erasure, Blancmange, Kajagoogoo, Devo, and the early work of Tears for Fears. Other notable users include Giorgio Moroder, Howard Jones, Kitaro, Stevie Wonder, Thinkpad X220
Peter Gabriel, Thomas Dolby, Kate Bush,and Frank Zappa.
The synthesizer then became one of the most important instruments in the music industry.[34]
[edit] Types of synthesis
Additive synthesis was utilized as early as on Teleharmonium in 1900s and Hammond organ in 1930s.
Additive synthesis builds sounds by adding IBM 08K4729 Keyboard
together waveforms (which are usually harmonically related). An early analog example of an additive synthesizer is the Teleharmonium and Hammond organ. To implement real-time additive synthesis, Wavetable synthesis is useful for reducing required hardware/processing power,[40] and is commonly used in low-end MIDI instruments (such as educational keyboards) and low-end sound cards. IBM 08K4757 Keyboard
Subtractive synthesis is still utilized on various synths, including virtual analog synth.
Subtractive synthesis is based on filtering harmonically rich waveforms. Due to its simplicity, it is the basis of early synthesizers such as the Moog synthesizer. Subtractive synthesizers use a simple acoustic model that assumes an instrument can be approximated by a simple signal generator (producing sawtooth waves, square waves, etc.) IBM 39T0550 Keyboard
followed by a filter. The combination of simple modulation routings (such as pulse width modulation and oscillator sync), along with the physically unrealistic lowpass filters, is responsible for the "classic synthesizer" sound commonly associated with "analog synthesis" and often mistakenly used when referring to software synthesizers IBM 39T0581 Keyboard
using subtractive synthesis.
FM synthesis was hugely successful in earliest digital synthesizers.
FM synthesis (frequency modulation synthesis) is a process that usually involves the use of at least two signal generators (sine-wave oscillators, commonly referred to as "operators" in FM-only synthesizers) to create and modify a voice. Often, IBM 39T0928 Keyboard
this is done through the analog or digital generation of a signal that modulates the tonal and amplitude characteristics of a base carrier signal. FM synthesis was pioneered by John Chowning, who patented the idea and sold it to Yamaha. Unlike the exponential relationship between voltage-in-to-frequency-out and multiple waveforms IBM 39T0958 Keyboard
in classical 1-volt-per-octave synthesizer oscillators, Chowning-style FM synthesis uses a linear voltage-in-to-frequency-out relationship and sine-wave oscillators. The resulting complex waveform may have many component frequencies, and there is no requirement that they all bear a harmonic relationship. Sophisticated FM synths such as the Yamaha DX-7 series can have 6 operators per voice; IBM 39T0982 Keyboard
some synths with FM can also often use filters and variable amplifier types to alter the signal's characteristics into a sonic voice that either roughly imitates acoustic instruments or creates sounds that are unique. FM synthesis is especially valuable for metallic or clangorous noises such as bells, cymbals, or other percussion.
Phase distortion synthesis is a method implemented on Casio CZ synthesizers. IBM 39T7142 Keyboard
It is quite similar to FM synthesis but avoids infringing on the Chowning FM patent. Also it should be categorized to modulation synthesis along with FM synthesis, and also to distortion synthesis along with waveshaping synthesis, and discrete summation formulas.
Granular synthesis is a type of synthesis based on manipulating very small sample slices.
Physical modelling synthesis is often implemented as software synthesizers. IBM 39T7265 Keyboard
Physical modelling synthesis is the synthesis of sound by using a set of equations and algorithms to simulate a real instrument, or some other physical source of sound. This involves taking up models of components of musical objects and creating systems which define action, filters, envelopes and other parameters over time. The definition of such instruments is virtually limitless, IBM 42T3133 Keyboard
as one can combine any given models available with any amount of sources of modulation in terms of pitch, frequency and contour. For example, the model of a violin with characteristics of a pedal steel guitar and perhaps the action of piano hammer. When an initial set of parameters is run through the physical simulation, the simulated sound is generated. Although physical modeling was not a new concept in acoustics and synthesis, IBM 42T3167 Keyboard
it wasn't until the development of the Karplus-Strong algorithm and the increase in DSP power in the late 1980s that commercial implementations became feasible. Physical modeling on computers gets better and faster with higher processing.
Analysis/resynthesis is typically known as vocoder.
Sample-based synthesis is one of the most popular family of synthesis on today.
IBM 42T3265 Keyboard
Sample-based synthesis One of the easiest synthesis systems is to record a real instrument as a digitized waveform, and then play back its recordings at different speeds to produce different tones. This is the technique used in "sampling". Most samplers designate a part of the sample for each component of the ADSR envelope, and then repeat that section while changing the volume for that segment of the envelope. IBM 42T3297 Keyboard
This lets the sampler have a persuasively different envelope using the same note. See also Wavetable synthesis, Vector synthesis, etc.
Analysis/resynthesis is a form of synthesis that uses a series of bandpass filters or Fourier transforms to analyze the harmonic content of a sound. The resulting analysis data is then used in a second stage to resynthesize the sound using a band of oscillators. The vocoder, linear predictive coding, IBM 42T3567 Keyboard
and some forms of speech synthesis are based on analysis/resynthesis.
[edit] Imitative synthesis
Sound synthesis can be used to mimic acoustic sound sources. Generally, a sound that does not change over time will include a fundamental partial or harmonic, and any number of partials. Synthesis may attempt to mimic the amplitude and pitch of the partials in an acoustic sound source.
IBM 42T3600 Keyboard
When natural sounds are analyzed in the frequency domain (as on a spectrum analyzer), the spectra of their sounds will exhibit amplitude spikes at each of the fundamental tone's harmonics corresponding to resonant properties of the instruments (spectral peaks that are also referred to as formants). Some harmonics may have higher amplitudes than others. The specific set of harmonic-vs-amplitude pairs is known as a sound's harmonic content. IBM 42T3638 Keyboard
A synthesized sound requires accurate reproduction of the original sound in both the frequency domain and the time domain. A sound does not necessarily have the same harmonic content throughout the duration of the sound. Typically, high-frequency harmonics will die out more quickly than the lower harmonics.
In most conventional synthesizers, IBM 42T3671 Keyboard
for purposes of re-synthesis, recordings of real instruments are composed of several components representing the acoustic responses of different parts of the instrument, the sounds produced by the instrument during different parts of a performance, or the behavior of the instrument under different playing conditions (pitch, intensity of playing, fingering, etc.)
[edit] Components IBM 42T3704 Keyboard
Basic components of an analogue subtractive synthesizer
Synthesizers generate sound through various analogue and digital techniques. Early synthesizers were analog hardware based but many modern synthesizers use a combination of DSP software and hardware or else are purely software-based (see softsynth). Digital synthesizers often emulate classic analog designs. IBM 42T3737 Keyboard
Sound is controllable by the operator by means of circuits or virtual stages which may include:
Electronic oscillators – create raw sounds with a timbre that depends upon the waveform generated. Voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) and digital oscillators may be used. Harmonic Additive synthesis models sounds directly from pure sine waves, somewhat in the manner of an organ, IBM 42T3961 Keyboard
while Frequency modulation and Phase distortion synthesis use one oscillator to modulate another. Subtractive synthesis depends upon filtering a harmonically rich oscillator waveform. Sample-based and Granular synthesis use one or more digitally recorded sounds in place of an oscillator.
Voltage-controlled filter (VCF) – "shape" the sound generated by the oscillators in the frequency domain, IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
often under the control of an envelope or LFO. These are essential to subtractive synthesis.
Voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA) – After the signal generated by one (or a mix of more Voltage-controlled oscillators), modified by filters and LFOs, and the signal's waveform is shaped (contoured) by an ADSR Envelope Generator, it then passes on to one or more voltage-controlled amplifiers (VCA) where. IBM 42T4090 Keyboard
The VCA is a preamp that boosts (amplifies) the electronic signal before passing on to an external or built-in power amplifier, as well as a means to control its volume using an attenuator that affects a control voltage (coming from the keyboard or other trigger source), which affects the gain of the VCA.[41]
ADSR envelopes - provide envelope modulation to "shape" IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 Keyboard
the volume or harmonic content of the produced note in the time domain with the principle parameters being attack, decay, sustain and release. These are used in most forms of synthesis. ADSR control is provided by Envelope Generators.
Low frequency oscillator (LFO) – an oscillator of adjustable frequency that can be used to modulate the sound rhythmically, for example to create tremolo or IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1831 Keyboard
vibrato or to control a filter's operating frequency. LFOs are used in most forms of synthesis.
Other sound processing effects such as ring modulators may be encountered.
Various filter modes.
Main article: Voltage controlled filter
Electronic filters are particularly important in subtractive synthesis, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1832 Keyboard
being designed to pass some frequency regions through unattenuated while significantly attenuating ("subtracting") others. The low-pass filter is most frequently used, but band-pass filters, band-reject filters and high-pass filters are also sometimes available.
The filter may be controlled with a second ADSR envelope. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1833 Keyboard
An "envelope modulation" ("env mod") parameter on many synthesizers with filter envelopes determines how much the envelope affects the filter. If turned all the way down, the filter will produce a flat sound with no envelope. When turned up the envelope becomes more noticeable, expanding the minimum and maximum range of the filter. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1836 Keyboard
Inverted ADSR envelope
When an acoustic musical instrument produces sound, the loudness and spectral content of the sound change over time in ways that vary from instrument to instrument. The "attack" and "decay" of a sound have a great effect on the instrument's sonic character.[42] Sound synthesis techniques often employ an envelope generator that controls a sound's parameters at any point in its duration. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1840 Keyboard
Most often this is an "ADSR" (Attack Decay Sustain Release) envelope, which may be applied to overall amplitude control, filter frequency, etc. The envelope may be a discrete circuit or module, or implemented in software. The contour of an ADSR envelope is specified using four parameters:
Attack time is the time taken for initial run-up of level from nil to peak, beginning when the key is first pressed. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1841 Keyboard
Decay time is the time taken for the subsequent run down from the attack level to the designated sustain level.
Sustain level is the level during the main sequence of the sound's duration, until the key is released.
Release time is the time taken for the level to decay from the sustain level to zero after the key is released. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2883 Keyboard
An early implementation of ADSR can be found on the Hammond Novachord in 1938 (which predates the first Moog synthesizer by over 25 years). A seven-position rotary knob set preset ADS parameter for all 72 notes; a footpedal controlled release time.[14] The notion of ADSR was specified by Vladimir Ussachevsky (then head of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50-1830 Keyboard
in 1965 while suggesting improvements for Bob Moog's pioneering work on synthesizers, although the earlier notations of parameter were (T1, T2, Esus, T3), then these were simplified to current form (Attack time, Decay time, Sustain level, Release time) by ARP.[43]
Some electronic musical instruments allow the ADSR envelope to be inverted, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E Keyboard
which results in opposite behavior compared to the normal ADSR envelope. During the attack phase, the modulated sound parameter fades from the maximum amplitude to zero then, during the decay phase, rises to the value specified by the sustain parameter. After the key has been released the sound parameter rises from sustain amplitude back to maximum amplitude.
8-step envelope on Casio CZ series IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e 2670 Keyboard
A common variation of the ADSR on some synthesizers, such as the Korg MS-20, was ADSHR (attack, decay, sustain, hold, release). By adding a "hold" parameter, the system allowed notes to be held at the sustain level for a fixed length of time before decaying. The General Instruments AY-3-8912 sound chip included a hold time parameter only; the sustain level was not programmable. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E-1834 Keyboard
Another common variation in the same vein is the AHDSR (attack, hold, decay, sustain, release) envelope, in which the "hold" parameter controls how long the envelope stays at full volume before entering the decay phase. Multiple attack, decay and release settings may be found on more sophisticated models.
Certain synthesizers also allow for a "delay" parameter, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E-1842 Keyboard
which would come before the "attack". Modern synthesizers like the Dave Smith Instruments Prophet '08 have DADSR (delay, attack, decay, sustain, release) envelopes. The delay setting determines how long there is silence after a note is hit, before the attack is heard. Some software synthesizers such as Image-Line's 3xOSC (included for free with their DAW FL Studio) have DAHDSR (delay, attack, hold, decay, sustain, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1844 Keyboard
release) envelopes.
LFO section of Access Virus C
[edit] LFO
Main article: Low-frequency oscillation
A low-frequency oscillator (LFO) generates an electronic signal, usually below 20 Hz. LFO signals create a rhythmic pulse or sweep, often used to in vibrato, tremolo and other effects. In certain genres of electronic music, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1845 Keyboard
the LFO signal can control the cutoff frequency of a VCF to make a rhythmic wah-wah sound, or the signature dubstep wobble bass.
One of the earliest patch memory (bottom left) on Oberheim Four-voice (1975/1976)
A synthesizer patch (some manufacturers chose the term program) is a sound setting. Modular synthesizers used cables ("patch cords") to connect the different sound modules together IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1846 Keyboard
Since these machines had no memory to save settings, musicians wrote down the locations of the patch cables and knob positions on a "patch sheet" (which usually showed a diagram of the synthesizer). Ever since, an overall sound setting for any type of synthesizer has been known as a patch.
In mid–late 1970s, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1847 Keyboard
patch memory (allowing storage and loading of 'patches' or 'programs') began to appear in synths like the Oberheim Four-voice (1975/1976)[44] and Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 (1977/1978). After MIDI was introduced in 1983, more and more synthesizers could import or export patches via MIDI SYSEX commands. When a synthesizer patch is uploaded to a personal computer which has patch editing software installed, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1848 Keyboard
the user can alter the parameters of the patch and download it back to the synthesizer. Because there is no standard patch language it is rare that a patch generated on one synthesizer can be used on a different model. However sometimes manufacturers will design a family of synthesizers to be compatible.
Guitar-style interface (SynthAxe) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1849 Keyboard
Modern synthesizers often look like small pianos, though with many additional knob and button controls. These are integrated controllers, where the sound synthesis electronics are integrated into the same package as the controller. However many early synthesizers were modular and keyboardless, while most modern synthesizers may be controlled via MIDI, allowing other means of playing such as; IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1850 Keyboard
Fingerboards (ribbon controllers) and touchpads
Wind controllers
Guitar-style interfaces
Drum pads
Music sequencers
Non-contact interfaces akin to theremins
Tangible interfaces like a Reactable, AudioCubes IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1858 Keyboard
Various auxiliary input device including: wheels for pitch bend and modulation, footpedals for expression and sustain, breath controllers, beam controllers, etc.
[edit] Fingerboard controller
left: Ondes Martenot (6G in 1960)
right: Mixture Trautonium (replica of 1952)
Fingerboard
on Korg monotron IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1859 Keyboard
Ribbon controller
on Moog 3P (1972)
A ribbon controller or other violin-like user interface may be used to control synthesizer parameters. The concept dates to Léon Theremin's 1922 first conceive[45] and his 1932 Fingerboard Theremin and Keyboard Theremin,[46][18] Maurice Martenot's 1928 Ondes Martenot (sliding a metal ring),[47] Friedrich Trautwein's 1929 Trautonium (finger pressure), and also later utilized by Robert Moog.[48][49][50] The ribbon controller has no moving parts. Instead, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1860 Keyboard
a finger pressed down and moved along it creates an electrical contact at some point along a pair of thin, flexible longitudinal strips whose electric potential varies from one end to the other. Older fingerboards used a long wire pressed to a resistive plate. A ribbon controller is similar to a touchpad, but a ribbon controller only registers linear motion. Although it may be used to operate any parameter that is affected by control voltages, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1862 Keyboard
a ribbon controller is most commonly associated with pitch bending.
Fingerboard-controlled instruments include the Trautonium (1929), Hellertion (1929) and Heliophon (1936),[51][52][53] Electro-Theremin (Tannerin, late 1950s), Perspehone (2004), and the Swarmatron (2004). A ribbon controller is used as an additional controller in the Yamaha CS-80 and CS-60, the Korg Prophecy and Korg Trinity series, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1863 Keyboard
the Kurzweil synthesizers, Moog synthesizers, and others.
Rock musician Keith Emerson used it with the Moog modular synthesizer from 1970 onward. In the late 1980s, keyboards in the synth lab at Berklee College of Music were equipped with membrane thin ribbon style controllers that output MIDI. They functioned as MIDI managers, with their programming language printed on their surface, and as expression/performance tools. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1870 Keyboard
Designed by Jeff Tripp of Perfect Fretworks Co., they were known as Tripp Strips. Such ribbon controllers can serve as a main MIDI controller instead of a keyboard, as with the Continuum instrument.
[edit] Wind controllers
Accordion synthesizer
Main article: Wind controller IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50P Keyboard
Wind controllers (and wind synthesizers) are convenient for woodwind and brass players, being designed after the lines of those instruments. These are usually either analog or MIDI controllers, and sometimes include their own built-in sound modules (synthesizers). In addition to the follow of key arrangements and fingering, the controllers have breath-operated pressure transducers, and may have gate extractors, velocity sensors, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1829 Keyboard
and bite sensors. Saxophone style controllers have included the Lyricon, and products by Yamaha, Akai, and Casio. The mouthpieces range from alto clarinet to alto saxophone sizes. Also bassoon style controller was released from Eigenlabs (2009). Melodica or recorder style controllers have included the Martinetta (1975)[54] and Variophon (1980),[55] Tubophon,[citation needed] and Joseph Zawinul's custom Korg Pepe.[56] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1830 Keyboard
A Harmonica style interface was the Millionizer 2000 (c.1983).[57]
Trumpet style controllers have included products by Steiner/Crumar/Akai, Yamaha, and Morrison. Also breath controllers may be used as an adjunct to a conventional synthesizer: the Crumar Steiner Masters Touch,[58] Yamaha Breath Controller and its compatible products are the examples.[59] Several controllers also provide breath-like articulation capabilities.[clarification needed] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1831 Keyboard
Accordion controllers use pressure transducers on bellows for articulation.
The other controllers include: Theremin, lightbeam controllers, touch buttons (touche d’intensité) on the Ondes Martenot, and various type of footpedals, etc. Envelope following systems, the most sophiscated being the vocoder, follow the power or amplitude of input audio signal, instead of breath pressure on the wind controllers. More direct articulation, the vocal tract without breath, is utilized on the Talk box, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1832 Keyboard
although it is rarely categorized as a synthesizer.
[edit] MIDI control
Main article: Musical Instrument Digital Interface
Synthesizers became easier to integrate and synchronize with other electronic instruments and controllers with the introduction of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) in 1983.[60] First proposed in 1981 by engineer Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits, the MIDI standard was developed by a consortium now known as the MIDI Manufacturers Association.[61] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1833 Keyboard
MIDI is an opto-isolated serial interface and communication protocol.[61] It provides for the transmission from one device or instrument to another of real-time performance data. This data includes note events, commands for the selection of instrument presets (i.e. sounds, or programs or patches, previously stored in the instrument's memory), IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1840 Keyboard
the control of performance-related parameters such as volume, effects levels and the like, as well as synchronization, transport control and other types of data. MIDI interfaces are now almost ubiquitous on music equipment and are commonly available on personal computers (PCs).[61]
The General MIDI (GM) software standard was devised in 1991 to serve as a consistent way of describing a set of over 200 tones (including percussion) available to a PC for playback of musical scores.[62] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1841 Keyboard
For the first time, a given MIDI preset would consistently produce an instrumental sound on any GM-conforming device. The Standard MIDI File (SMF) format (extension .mid) combined MIDI events with delta times - a form of time-stamping - and became a popular standard for exchange of music scores between computers. In the case of SMF playback using integrated synthesizers (as in computers and cell phones), IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2883 Keyboard
the hardware component of the MIDI interface design is often unneeded.
Open Sound Control (OSC) is another music data specification designed for online networking. In contrast with MIDI, OSC allows thousands of synthesizers or computers to share music performance data over the Internet in realtime.
[edit] Synth lead IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2887 Keyboard
In popular music, a synth lead is generally used for playing the main melody of a song, but it is also often used for creating rhythmic or bass effects. Although most commonly heard in electronic dance music, synth leads have been used extensively in hip-hop since the 1980s and rock songs since the 1970s. Most modern music relies heavily on the synth lead to provide a musical hook to sustain the listener's interest throughout an entire song. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2888 Keyboard
Heavy use of synth lead is used by artists such as Lil Jon in Snap Yo Fingas and Usher in "Yeah!" as representative of the Crunk music genre.
[edit] Synth pad
A synth pad is a sustained chord or tone generated by a synthesizer, often employed for background harmony and atmosphere in much the same fashion that a string section is often used in acoustic music. Typically, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2889 Keyboard
a synth pad plays many whole or half notes, sometimes holding the same note while a lead voice sings or plays an entire musical phrase. Often, the sounds used for synth pads have a vaguely organ, string, or vocal timbre. Much popular music in the 1980s employed synth pads, this being the time of polyphonic synthesizers, as did the then-new styles of smooth jazz and New Age music. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2894 Keyboard
One of many well-known songs from the era to incorporate a synth pad is "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys, who were noted users of the technique.
The main feature of a synth pad is very long attack and decay time with extended sustains. In some instances pulse-width modulation (PWM) using a square wave oscillator can be added to create a "vibrating" sound.
[edit] Synth bass
Synth bass
Moog Taurus pedal bass synth
Synth filter sweeps.ogg IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2895 Keyboard
An example of a classic analog bass synthesizer sound. Four sawtooth bass filter sweeps with gradually increasing resonance.
A 1970s-era minimoog
MacLeod, Kevin - Funkorama.ogg
An example of funk-styled grooving synth bass by Kevin MacLeod.[63] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p1836 Keyboard
See also: Keyboard bass
The bass synthesizer (or "bass synth") is used to create sounds in the bass range, from simulations of the electric bass or double bass to distorted, buzz-saw-like artificial bass sounds, by generating and combining signals of different frequencies. Bass synth patches may incorporate a range of sounds and tones, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 Keyboard
including wavetable-style, analog, and FM-style bass sounds, delay effects, distortion effects, envelope filters. A modern digital synthesizer uses a frequency synthesizer microprocessor component to generate signals of different frequencies. While most bass synths are controlled by electronic keyboards or pedalboards, some performers use an electric bass with MIDI pickups to trigger a bass synthesizer. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1829 Keyboard
In the 1970s miniaturized solid-state components allowed self-contained, portable instruments such as the Moog Taurus, a 13-note pedal keyboard which was played by the feet. The Moog Taurus was used in live performances by a range of pop, rock, and blues-rock bands. An early use of bass synthesizer was in 1972, on a solo album by John Entwistle (the bassist for The Who), entitled Whistle Rymes. Genesis bass player Mike Rutherford used a Dewtron IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1832 Keyboard
"Mister Bassman" for the recording of their album Nursery Cryme in August 1971. Stevie Wonder introduced synth bass to a pop audience in the early 1970s, notably on Superstition (1972) and Boogie On Reggae Woman (1974). In 1977 Parliament's funk single Flashlight used the bass synthesizer. Lou Reed, widely considered a pioneer of electric guitar textures, played bass synthesizer on "Families", from his 1979 album The Bells.
Roland TB-303 acid bass machine in 1980s IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1833 Keyboard
Discobotter.ogg
An example of acid bass track, using SH-101 for bass, MC-202 for filter hookline, and TR-808 for drums.
When the programmable music sequencer became widely available in the 1980s (e.g., the Synclavier), bass synths were used to create highly syncopated rhythms and complex, rapid basslines. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1840 Keyboard
Bass synth patches incorporate a range of sounds and tones, including wavetable-style, analog, and FM-style bass sounds, delay effects, distortion effects, envelope filters. A particularly influential bass synthesizer was the Roland TB-303 following Firstman SQ-01, featuring a built-in sequencer and released in late 1981, and which would later become synonymous with acid house music. One of the first to utilize it was Charanjit Singh in 1982, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1841 Keyboard
though it wouldn't be popularized until Phuture's "Acid Tracks" in 1987.[64]
In the 2000s (decade), several companies such as Boss and Akai produced bass synthesizer effect pedals for electric bass players, which simulate the sound of an analog or digital bass synth. With these devices, a bass guitar is used to generate synth bass sounds. The BOSS SYB-3 was one of the early bass synthesizer pedals. The SYB-3 reproduces sounds of analog synthesizers with Digital Signal Processing saw, square, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 2894 Keyboard
and pulse synth waves and user-adjustable filter cutoff. The Akai bass synth pedal contains a four-oscillator synthesizer with user selectable parameters (attack, decay, envelope depth, dynamics, cutoff, resonance). Bass synthesizer software allows performers to use MIDI to integrate the bass sounds with other synthesizers or drum machines. Bass synthesizers often provide samples from vintage 1970s and 1980s bass synths. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 2895 Keyboard
Some bass synths are built into an organ style pedalboard or button board.
[edit] Arpeggiator
See also: Home organ and Music sequencer
An arpeggiator is a feature available on several synthesizers that automatically steps through a sequence of notes based on an input chord, thus creating an arpeggio. The notes can often be transmitted to a MIDI sequencer for recording and further editing. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1830 Keyboard
An arpeggiator may have controls speed, range, and order in which the notes play; upwards, downwards, or in a random order. More advanced arpeggiators allow the user to step through a pre-programmed complex sequence of notes, or play several arpeggios at once. Some allow a pattern sustained after releasing keys: in this way, sequence of arpeggio patterns may be built up over time by pressing several keys one after the other. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1831 Keyboard
Arpeggiators are also commonly found in software sequencers. Some arpeggiators/sequencers expand features into a full phrase sequencer, which allows the user to trigger complex, multi-track blocks of sequenced data from a keyboard or input device, typically synchronized with the tempo of the master clock.
Sound sample of arpeggiator IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1836 Keyboard
A sample of Eurodance synthesizer riff with use of rapid 1/16 notes arpeggiator
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
[verification needed]
Arpeggiators seem to have grown from the accompaniment system of Electronic organs in mid 1960s-mid 1970s,[65] and possibly hardware sequencers[citation IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2883 Keyboard
needed] of the mid 1960s, such as the 8/16 step analog sequencer on modular synthesizers (Buchla Series 100 (1964/1966)). And it were commonly fitted to keyboard instruments through the late 1970s and early 1980s. Notable examples are the RMI Harmonic Synthesizer (1974),[66] Roland Jupiter 8, Oberheim OB-Xa, Roland SH-101, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2887 Keyboard
Sequential Circuits Six-Trak and Korg Polysix. A famous example can be heard on Duran Duran's song "Rio", in which the arpeggiator on a Roland Jupiter-4 is heard playing a C minor chord in random mode. They fell out of favor by the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s and were absent from the most popular synthesizers of the period but a resurgence of interest in analog synthesizers during the 1990s, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2888 Keyboard
and the use of rapid-fire arpeggios in several popular dance hits, brought with it a resurgence
Emergence of electronic sound technology
Diagram of the clavecin électrique
In the 18th-century, musicians and composers adapted a number of acoustic instruments to exploit the novelty of electricity. Thus, in the broadest sense, the first electrified musical instrument was the Denis d'or, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2889 Keyboard
dating from 1753, followed shortly by the Clavecin électrique by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste de Laborde in 1761. The former instrument consisted of a keyboard instrument of over 700 strings, electrified temporarily to enhance sonic qualities. The latter was a keyboard instrument with plectra (picks) activated electrically. However, neither instrument used electricity as a sound-source. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e 1843 Keyboard
The first electric synthesizer was invented in 1876 by Elisha Gray.[1][2] The "Musical Telegraph" was a chance by-product of his telephone technology when Gray accidentally discovered that he could control sound from a self-vibrating electromagnetic circuit and so invented a basic oscillator. The Musical Telegraph used steel reeds oscillated by electromagnets and transmitted over a telephone line. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e 1844 Keyboard
Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, which consisted of a diaphragm vibrating in a magnetic field.
A significant invention, which later had a profound effect on electronic music, was Lee DeForest's triode audition. This was the first thermionic valve, or vacuum tube, invented in 1906, which led to the generation and amplification of electrical signals, radio broadcasting, and electronic computation, amongst other things. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1834 Keyboard
Other early synthesizers included Thaddeus Cahill's Dynamophone or Telharmononium (before 1907), Jorg Mager's Spherophone (1924) and Partiturophone, the Theremin (1927), which was marketed by RCA, Taubmann's similar Electronde (1933), the Ondes Martenot (1928), Trautwein's Trautonium (1930). The Mellertion (1933) used a non-standard scale, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1842 Keyboard
Bertrand's Dynaphone could produce octaves and perfect fifths, while the Emicon was an American, keyboard-controlled instrument constructed in 1930 and the German Hellertion combined four instruments to produce chords. Three Russian instruments also appeared, Oubouhof's Croix Sonore (1934), Ivor Darreg's microtonal 'Electronic Keyboard Oboe' (1937) and the ANS synthesizer, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1845 Keyboard
constructed by the Russian scientist Evgeny Murzin from 1937 to 1958. Only two models of this latter were built and the only surviving example is currently stored at the Lomonosov University in Moscow. It has been used in many Russian movies - like Solaris - to produce unusual, "cosmic" sounds.[3][4]
Hugh Le Caine, John Hanert, Raymond Scott, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1846 Keyboard
composer Percy Grainger (with Burnett Cross), and others built a variety of automated electronic-music controllers during the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1959 Daphne Oram produced a novel method of synthesis, her "Oramics" technique, driven by drawings on a 35 mm film strip; it was used for a number of years at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.[5] This workshop was also responsible for the theme to the TV series Doctor Who, a piece, largely created by Delia Derbyshire, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1847 Keyboard
that more than any other ensured the popularity of electronic music in the UK.
[edit] Telharmonium
Telharmonium console
by Thaddeus Cahill 1897
Main article: Telharmonium
In 1897 Thaddeus Cahill patented an instrument called the Telharmonium (or Teleharmonium, also known as the Dynamaphone). Using tonewheels to generate musical sounds as electrical signals by additive synthesis, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1848 Keyboard
it was capable of producing any combination of notes and overtones, at any dynamic level. This technology was later used to design the Hammond organ. Between 1901 and 1910 Cahill had three progressively larger and more complex versions made, the first weighing seven tons, the last in excess of 200 tons. Portability was managed only by rail and with the use of thirty boxcars. By 1912, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1849 Keyboard
public interest had waned, and Cahill's enterprise was bankrupt.[6]Fingerboard Theremin
Main article: Theremin
Another development, which aroused the interest of many composers, occurred in 1919-1920. In Leningrad, Leon Theremin (actually Lev Termen) built and demonstrated his Etherophone, which was later renamed the Theremin. This led to the first compositions for electronic instruments, as opposed to noisemakers and re-purposed machines. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1850 Keyboard
Composers who ultimately utilized the Theremin included Varèse—in his piece Ecuatorial (1934)—while conductor Leopold Stokowski experimented with its use in arrangements from the classical repertory.[citation needed] In 1929, Joseph Schillinger composed First Airphonic Suite for Theremin and Orchestra, premièred with the Cleveland Orchestra with Leon Theremin as soloist. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1858 Keyboard
The next year Henry Cowell commissioned Theremin to create the first electronic rhythm machine, called the Rhythmicon. Cowell wrote some compositions for it, and he and Schillinger
7th generation model)
Main article: Ondes Martenot
The 1920s have been called the apex of the Mechanical Age and the dawning of the Electrical Age. In 1922, in Paris, Darius Milhaud began experiments with "vocal transformation by phonograph speed change."[7] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1859 Keyboard
These continued until 1927.
This decade brought a wealth of early electronic instruments—along with the Theremin, there is the presentation of the Ondes Martenot, which was designed to reproduce the microtonal sounds found in Hindu music, and the Trautonium. Maurice Martenot invented the Ondes Martenot in 1928, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1860 Keyboard
and soon demonstrated it in Paris. Composers using the instrument ultimately include Boulez, Honegger, Jolivet, Koechlin, Messiaen, Milhaud, Tremblay, and Varèse. Radiohead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood also uses it in his compositions and a plethora of Radiohead songs. In 1937, Messiaen wrote Fête des belles eaux for 6 ondes Martenot, and wrote solo IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1861 Keyboard
parts for it in Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine (1943–44) and the Turangalîla-Symphonie (1946–48/90).
[edit] Trautonium
Volks Trautonium (1933, Telefunken Ela T 42)
Main article: Trautonium
The Trautonium was invented in 1928. It was based on the subharmonic scale, and the resulting sounds were often used to emulate bell or gong sounds, as in the 1950s Bayreuth productions of Parsifal. In 1942, Richard Strauss used it for the bell- and gong-part in the Dresden première of his Japanese Festival Music. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1862 Keyboard
This new class of instruments, microtonal by nature, was only adopted slowly by composers at first, but by the early 1930s there was a burst of new works incorporating these and other electronic instruments.
[edit] Hammond organ and Novachord
Hammond Novachord (1939)
Main articles: Hammond organ and Novachord
In 1929 Laurens Hammond established his company for the manufacture of electronic instruments. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1863 Keyboard
He went on to produce the Hammond organ, which was based on the principles of the Telharmonium, along with other developments including early reverberation units.[8]
The first commercially-manufactured synthesizer was the Novachord, built by the Hammond Organ Company from 1938 to 1942, which offered 72-note polyphony using 12 oscillators driving monostable-based divide-down circuits, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1870 Keyboard
basic envelope control and resonant low-pass filters. The instrument featured 163 vacuum tubes and weighed 500 pounds. The instrument's use of envelope control is significant, since this is perhaps the most significant distinction between the modern synthesizer and other electronic instruments.
[edit] Analogue synthesis 1950-80
Siemens Synthesizer at Siemens Studio For Electronic Music (ca.1959)
The RCA Mark II (ca.1957) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 Keyboard
Main articles: Analog synthesizer and Synthesizer
The most commonly used electronic instruments are synthesizers, so-called because they artificially generate sound using a variety of techniques. All early circuit-based synthesis involved the use of analogue circuitry, particularly voltage controlled amplifiers, oscillators and filters. An important technological development was the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1843 Keyboard
invention of the Clavivox synthesizer in 1956 by Raymond Scott with subassembly by Robert Moog.
[edit] Modular synthesizers
Main article: Modular synthesizer
RCA produced experimental devices to synthesize voice and music in the 1950s. The Mark II Music Synthesizer, housed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1844 Keyboard
with contributions from Vladimir Ussachevsky and Peter Mauzey, it was installed at Columbia University in 1957. Consisting of a room-sized array of interconnected sound synthesis components, it was only capable of producing music by programming,[2] using a paper tape sequencer punched with holes to control pitch sources and filters, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1845 Keyboard
similar to a mechanical player piano but capable of generating a wide variety of sounds. The vacuum tube system had to be patched to create timbres.
Robert Moog
In the 1960s synthesizers were still usually confined to studios due to their size. They were usually modular in design, their stand-alone signal sources and processors connected with patch cords or by other means and controlled by a common controlling device. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1850 Keyboard
Harald Bode, Don Buchla, Hugh Le Caine, Raymond Scott and Paul Ketoff were among the first to build such instruments, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Buchla later produced a commercial modular synthesizer, the Buchla Music Easel.[9] Robert Moog, who had been a student of Peter Mauzey and one of the RCA Mark II engineers, created a synthesizer that could reasonably be used by musicians, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1854 Keyboard
designing the circuits while he was at Columbia-Princeton. The Moog synthesizer was first displayed at the Audio Engineering Society convention in 1964.[10] It required experience to set up sounds but was smaller and more intuitive than what had come before, less like a machine and more like a musical instrument. Moog established standards for control interfacing, using a logarithmic IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1862 Keyboard
1-volt-per-octave for pitch control and a separate triggering signal. This standardization allowed synthesizers from different manufacturers to operate simultaneously. Pitch control was usually performed either with an organ-style keyboard or a music sequencer producing a timed series of control voltages. During the late 1960s hundreds of popular recordings used Moog synthesizers. Other early commercial synthesizer manufacturers included ARP, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1863 Keyboard
who also started with modular synthesizers before producing all-in-one instruments, and British firm EMS.
Minimoog (1970, R.A.Moog)
[edit] Integrated synthesizers
In 1970, Moog designed the Minimoog, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1870 Keyboard
a non-modular synthesizer with a built-in keyboard. The analogue circuits were interconnected with switches in a simplified arrangement called "normalization." Though less flexible than a modular design, normalization made the instrument more portable and easier to use. The Minimoog sold 12,000 units.[11] further standardized the design of subsequent synthesizers with its integrated keyboard, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1846 Keyboard
pitch and modulation wheels and VCO->VCF->VCA signal flow. It has become celebrated for its "fat" sound—and its tuning problems. Miniaturized solid-state components allowed synthesizers to become self-contained, portable instruments that soon appeared in live performance and quickly became widely used in popular music and electronic art music.[12] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1847 Keyboard
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, DIY (Do it yourself) designs were published in hobby electronics magazines (notably the Formant modular synth, a DIY clone of the Moog system, published by Elektor) and kits were supplied by companies such as Paia in the US, and Maplin Electronics in the UK.
Yamaha GX-1 (ca.1973)
E-mu Modular System (ca.1973)
Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 (1977) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1848 Keyboard
[edit] Polyphony
Main article: Polyphony (instrument)#Synthesizer
Many early analog synthesizers were monophonic, producing only one tone at a time. Popular monophonic synthesizers include the Moog Minimoog, and Roland SH-101. A few, such as the Moog Sonic Six, ARP Odyssey and EML 101, could produce two different pitches at a time when two keys were pressed. Polyphony (multiple simultaneous tones, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1849 Keyboard
which enables chords) was only obtainable with electronic organ designs at first. Popular electronic keyboards combining organ circuits with synthesizer processing included the ARP Omni and Moog's Polymoog and Opus 3.
By 1976 affordable polyphonic synthesizers began to appear, notably the Yamaha CS-50, CS-60 and CS-80, the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and the Oberheim Four-Voice. These remained complex, heavy and relatively costly. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1858 Keyboard
The recording of settings in digital memory allowed storage and recall of sounds. The first practical polyphonic synth, and the first to use a microprocessor as a controller, was the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 introduced in late 1977.[13] For the first time, musicians had a practical polyphonic synthesizer that could save all knob settings in computer memory and recall them at the touch of a button. The Prophet-5's design paradigm became a new standard, slowly pushing out more complex and recondite modular designs IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1859 Keyboard.
[edit] Tape recording
Phonogene (1953)
Mellotron MkVI[14][15][16]
In 1935, another significant development was made in Germany. Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft (AEG) demonstrated the first commercially produced magnetic tape recorder, called the Magnetophon. Audio tape, which had the advantage of being fairly light as well as having good audio fidelity, ultimately replaced the bulkier wire recorders. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1860 Keyboard
The term "electronic music" (which first came into use during the 1930s) came to include the tape recorder as an essential element: "electronically produced sounds recorded on tape and arranged by the composer to form a musical composition")[17] It was also indispensable to Musique concrète.
Tape also gave rise to the first, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1861 Keyboard
analogue, sample-playback keyboards, the Chamberlin and its more famous successor the Mellotron, an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s.
[edit] Sound sequencer
One of the earliest digital sequencer, EMS Synthi Sequencer 256 (1971)
Main article: Music sequencer
In 1951 former jazz composer IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
Raymond Scott invented the first sequencer, which consisted of hundreds of switches controlling stepping relays, timing solenoids, tone circuits and 16 individual oscillators.
[edit] Hardware hacking
Main article: circuit bending
It was within this period (1966–67) that Reed Ghazala discovered and began to teach "circuit bending"—the application of the creative short circuit, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200s Keyboard
a process of chance short-circuiting, creating experimental electronic instruments, exploring sonic elements mainly of timbre and with less regard to pitch or rhythm, and influenced by John Cage’s aleatoric music concept.[18]
Much of this manipulation of circuits directly, especially to the point of destruction, was pioneered by Louis and Bebe Barron in the early 1950s, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200T Keyboard
such as their work with John Cage on the Williams Mix and especially in the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet.
Yamaha DX7 (1983) and Yamaha VL-1 (1994)
Main article: Digital synthesizer
The first digital synthesizers were academic experiments in sound synthesis using digital computers. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201 Keyboard
FM synthesis was developed for this purpose, as a way of generating complex sounds digitally with the smallest number of computational operations per sound sample. In 1983 Yamaha introduced the first stand-alone digital synthesizer, the DX-7. It used frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis), IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
first developed by John Chowning at Stanford University during the late sixties.[19] Chowning exclusively licensed his FM synthesis patent to Yamaha in 1975.[20] Yamaha subsequently released their first FM synthesizers, the GS-1 and GS-2, which were costly and heavy. There followed a pair of smaller, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201s Keyboard
preset versions, the CE20 and CE25 Combo Ensembles, targeted primarily at the home organ market and featuring four-octave keyboards.[21] Yamaha's third generation of digital synthesizers was a commercial success; it consisted of the DX7 and DX9 (1983). Both models were compact, reasonably priced, and dependent on custom digital integrated circuits to produce FM tonalities. The DX7 was the first mass market all-digital synthesizer.[22] It became indispensable to many music artists of the 1980s, and demand soon exceeded supply.[23] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Keyboard
The DX7 sold over 200,000 units within three years.[24]
The DX series was not easy to program but offered a detailed, percussive sound that led to the demise of the electro-mechanical Rhodes piano. Following the success of FM synthesis Yamaha signed a contract with Stanford University in 1989 to develop digital waveguide synthesis, leading to the first commercial physical modeling synthesizer, Yamaha's VL-1, in 1994.[25]
[edit] Sampling IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 2748 Keyboard
A Fairlight CMI keyboard (1979)
Main articles: Sampler (musical instrument) and Sampling (music)
The Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument), the first polyphonic digital sampler, was the harbinger of sample-based synthesizers.[26] Designed in 1978 by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie and based on a dual microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 2749 Keyboard
Australia, the Fairlight CMI gave musicians the ability to modify volume, attack, decay, and use special effects like vibrato. Sample waveforms could be displayed on-screen and modified using a light pen.[27] The Synclavier from New England Digital was a similar system.[28] Jon Appleton (with Jones and Alonso) invented the Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer, later to become the New England Digital Corp's Synclavier. The Kurzweil K250, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 6476 Keyboard
first produced in 1983, was also a successful polyphonic digital music synthesizer,[29] noted for its ability to reproduce several instruments synchronously and having a velocity-sensitive keyboard.[30]
[edit] Computer music
Max Mathews (1970s) playing realtime software instrument. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 6477 Keyboard
ISPW, a successor of 4X, was a DSP platform based on i860 and NeXT, by IRCAM.
Main articles: computer music and Software synthesizer
An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, as opposed to manipulating or creating sounds. Iannis Xenakis began what is called musique stochastique, or stochastic music, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 6478 Keyboard
which is a method of composing that employs mathematical probability systems. Different probability algorithms were used to create a piece under a set of parameters. Xenakis used graph paper and a ruler to aid in calculating the velocity trajectories of glissandi for his orchestral composition Metastasis (1953–54), but later turned to the use of computers to compose pieces like ST/4 for string quartet and ST/48 for orchestra (both 1962 IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X301 Keyboard).
The impact of computers continued in 1956. Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson composed Iliac Suite for string quartet, the first complete work of computer-assisted composition using algorithmic composition.[31]
In 1957, Max Mathews at Bell Lab wrote MUSIC-N series, a first computer program family for generating digital audio waveforms through direct synthesis. Then Barry Vercoe wrote MUSIC 11 based on MUSIC IV-BF, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2774 Keyboard
a next-generation music synthesis program (later evolving into csound, which is still widely used).
In mid 80s, Miller Puckette at IRCAM developed graphic signal-processing software for 4X called Max (after Max Mathews), and later ported it to Macintosh (with Dave Zicarelli extending it for Opcode [32]) for real-time MIDI control, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2776 Keyboard
bringing algorithmic composition availability to most composers with modest computer programming background.
MIDI, a LAN for music, enables connections between digital musical instruments
Main article: Musical Instrument Digital Interface
In 1980, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2777 Keyboard
a group of musicians and music merchants met to standardize an interface by which new instruments could communicate control instructions with other instruments and the prevalent microcomputer. This standard was dubbed MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). A paper was authored by Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits and proposed to the Audio Engineering Society in 1981. Then, in August 1983, the MIDI Specification 1.0 was finalized. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2778 Keyboard
The advent of MIDI technology allows a single keystroke, control wheel motion, pedal movement, or command from a microcomputer to activate every device in the studio remotely and in synchrony, with each device responding according to conditions predetermined by the composer.
MIDI instruments and software made powerful control of sophisticated instruments easily affordable by many studios and individuals. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2779 Keyboard
Acoustic sounds became reintegrated into studios via sampling and sampled-ROM-based instruments.
[edit] Modern electronic musical instruments
The increasing power and decreasing cost of sound-generating electronics (and especially of the personal computer), combined with the standardization of the MIDI and Open Sound Control musical performance description languages, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 4057 Keyboard
has facilitated the separation of musical instruments into music controllers and music synthesizers.
By far the most common musical controller is the musical keyboard. Other controllers include the radiodrum, Akai's EWI, the guitar-like SynthAxe, the BodySynth, the Buchla Thunder, the Continuum Fingerboard, the Roland Octapad, various isomorphic keyboards including the Thummer, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X41 Tablet Keyboard
and Kaossilator Pro, and kits like I-CubeX.
The reactable is a round translucent table, used in a darkened room, and appears as a backlit display. By placing blocks called tangibles on the table, and interfacing with the visual display via the tangibles or fingertips, a virtual modular synthesizer is operated, creating music or sound
Audiocubes
Main article: audiocubes IBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
AudioCubes are autonomous wireless cubes powered by an internal computer system and rechargeable battery. They have internal RGB lighting, and are capable of detecting each other's location, orientation and distance. The cubes can also detect distances to the user's hands and fingers. Through interaction with the cubes, IBM Thinkpad R40E Keyboard
a variety of music and sound software can be operated. AudioCubes have applications in sound design, music production, DJing and live
The Kaossilator and Kaossilator Pro are compact instruments where the position of a finger on the touch pad controls two note-characteristics; usually the pitch is changed with a left-right motion and the tonal property, IBM Thinkpad R60 Keyboard
filter or other parameter changes with an up-down motion. The touch pad can be set to different musical scales and keys. The instrument can record a repeating loop of adjustable length, set to any tempo, and new loops of sound can be layered on top of existing ones. This lends itself to electronic dance-music but is more limited for controlled sequences of notes, as the pad on a regular Kaossilator is featureless. IBM Thinkpad R60e Keyboard
The Eigenharp is a large instrument resembling a bassoon, which can be interacted with through touch-sensitive buttons, a drum sequencer and a mouthpiece. The sound processing is done on a separate computer.
Main article: AlphaSphere (instrument)
The AlphaSphere is a spherical instrument that consists of 48 tactile pads that respond to pressure as well as touch. Custom software allows the pads to be indefinitely programmed individually or by groups in terms of function, IBM Thinkpad R60i Keyboard
note, and pressure parameter among many other settings. The primary concept of the instrument is to move electronic musicians away from their computer screens and back to an instrument.
IBM Thinkpad R61 Keyboard
IBM Thinkpad R61 Keyboard
IBM ThinkPad T40 2375 Keyboard
IBM ThinkPad T40 2376 Keyboard
IBM ThinkPad T40 2378 Keyboard
(Redirected from Keyboard synthesizer)
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For other uses, Sony Vaio PCG-K33F Keyboard
see Synthesizer (disambiguation).
"Synth" redirects here. For other uses, see Synth (disambiguation).
See also: Electronic musical instrument and Software synthesizer
A sound synthesizer (often abbreviated as "synthesizer" or "synth") is an electronic instrument capable of producing a wide range of sounds. Sony VAIO VGN-FS415S Keyboard
Synthesizers may either imitate other instruments ("imitative synthesis") or generate new timbres. They can be played (controlled) via a variety of different input devices (including keyboards, music sequencers and instrument controllers). Synthesizers generate electric signals (waveforms), and can finally be converted to sound through the loudspeakers or headphones.
Early Minimoog 04W0872
by R.A. Moog Inc. (ca. 1970)
Synthesizers use a number of different technologies or programmed algorithms to generate signal, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Among the most popular waveform synthesis techniques are subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis, wavetable synthesis, frequency modulation synthesis, phase distortion synthes Gateway MG2 Keyboard
is, physical modeling synthesis and sample-based synthesis. Also other sound synthesis methods including subharmonic synthesis used on mixture trautonium, granular synthesis resulting Soundscape or Cloud, are rarely used. (See #Types of synthesis)
Synthesizers are often controlled with a piano-style keyboard, leading such instruments to be referred to simply as "keyboards". Toshiba Satellite U305-S5097 Keyboard
Several other forms of controller have been devised to resemble fingerboards, guitars (guitar synthesizer), violins, wind instruments (wind controller), drums and percussions (electronic drum), etc. (See #Control interfaces)
Synthesizers without controllers are often called "sound modules", and they can be controlled using MIDI or CV/Gate methods.[edit] History
Further information: HP Pavilion ze5375us Keyboard
Electronic music instruments
This article or section may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.(October 2011)
The beginnings of the synthesizer are difficult to trace because of the varying definitions of the term "synthesizer". There is often confusion between sound synthesizers and arbitrary electric/electronic musical instruments.[1][2]/ However, HP 634139-001 Keyboard
the former is distinguished from the latter by its ability to imitate sounds.
Early electric instruments
For example, one of the earliest electric musical instruments was invented in 1876 by American electrical engineer Elisha Gray, who accidentally discovered that he could control sound from a self-vibrating electromagnetic circuit; in doing so, Toshiba Satellite L755-S5103 Keyboard
invented a basic single note oscillator. This musical telegraph used steel reeds, whose oscillations were created and transmitted over a telegraphy line by electromagnets. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, consisting of a vibrating diaphragm in a magnetic field, to make the oscillator audible.[3][4]
Frankly, this instrument Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
was a remote electromechanical musical instrument using telegraphy and electric buzzers, without any other sound synthesis function. However, some people tend to call it "the first synthesizer",[1][unreliable source?][2][unreliable source?] without clear definition of the term "synthesizer".
Hammond organ (1934)
Teleharmonium console (1897) Early additive synthesizer – Tonewheel organs
In 1897, Thaddeus Cahill invented Teleharmonium Sony Vaio PCG-K215S Keyboard
(or Dynamophone) utilizing dynamo (early electric generator),[5] and it had the capable of additive synthesis also seen on Hammond organ later invented in 1934. However, Cahill's business was not successful due to various reasons (ex. too huge scale of system, rapid evolutions of electronics, crosstalk issues on the telephone line, etc), and similar but more compact instruments were developed one after another.
Emergence of electronics – Theremin (1920), Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
Ondes Martenot (1928), and Trautonium (1929)
In 1906, a huge revolution of electronics had begun.
Audion tube (1906)
American engineer, Lee De Forest invented the world first amplifying vacuum tube known as Audion tube, and it led the broad developments of new technologies including radio and sound film for entertainments. These new technologies have also influenced on the music industry, Thinkpad X220
and resulted in the various early electronic musical instruments, including:
Trautonium
(Telefunken Volkstrautonium
Ondes Martenot
(7G model in 1978)
Theremin (RCA AR-1264 in 1930) HP Mini 1126NR Keyboard
Audion piano by Lee De Forest in 1915[6]
Theremin by Léon Theremin in 1920[7]
Ondes Martenot by Maurice Martenot in 1928
Trautonium by Friedrich Trautwein in 1929
etc. The most of these early instruments utilized "heterodyne circuit" to produce audio frequency, and these sound synthesis capabilities were initially limited, however, along with the development over a decade, Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110L Keyboard
these instruments finally won the enough expression ability.
ANS synthesizer (1937–1957)
Graphic sonic Graphical sound
Also in 1920s, Arseny Avraamov developed various systems of graphic sonic art,[8] and similar graphical sound systems were also developed around the world, one after another.[9] In 1938, USSR engineer Yevgeny Murzin invented a design for a music-composition tool called ANS, Gateway MT6460 Keyboard
one of the earliest conceptions of a real-time additive synthesizer using optoelectronics. Although his idea of reconstructing a sound from its visible image was apparently simple, it was only realized 20 years later, in 1958, because his professional field was not related to music.[10]
Hammond Novachord (1939)
Welte Lichtton orgel (1935) Subtractive synthesis & polyphonic synthesizer
In the 1930s and 1940s, Toshiba Satellite C655-S5132 Keyboard
the basic elements required for the modern analog subtractive synthesizers — audio oscillators, audio filters, envelope controllers, and various effects units — had already appeared and were utilized on several electronic instruments. And even the earliest polyphonic synthesizers went into commercial production in the Germany and the United States. The Warbo Formant Organ developed by Harald Bode in Germany in 1937, Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
was a four-voice key-assignment keyboard with two formant filters and a dynamic envelope controller,[11][12] it eventually went into commercial production by a factory in Dachau.[13] The Hammond Novachord released in 1939, was an electronic keyboard that used a frequency-divider for sound generation, with vibratos, filter, resonator-network and a dynamic envelope controller. During the three years in which this model was manufactured 1,069 units were shipped; Asus X53S Keyboard
however, production was discontinued due to World War II.[14][15] Both instruments were the forerunners of the following electronic organs and the later polyphonic synthesizers.
Electronic Sackbut by Hugh Le Caine (1948)
Hohner Multimonica by Harald Bode (1940) Monophonic electronic keyboards – Hammond Solovox (1940), Ondiolin (1941), Clavioline (1947), Clavivox (1952)
Georges Jenny built his first ondioline in France in 1941.
Other innovations 04W0872
In the late 1940s, Canadian inventor and composer, Hugh Le Caine invented Electronic Sackbut which provided the earliest realtime control of three aspects of sound (volume, pitch and timbre), corresponding to today's touch-sensitive keyboard, pitch & modulation controllers, etc. The controllers were initially implemented as the multidimensional pressure keyboard in 1945, then changed to a group of dedicated controllers operated by left hand in 1948.[16]
Also in Japan, as early as in 1935, Sony VGN-FE21S Keyboard
Yamaha developed Magna organ, their first synthesizer based on Keyboard theremin.[17][18] However, in the slightly strange thing, in 1949, Japanese composer Minao Shibata discussed the concept of "a musical instrument with very high performance" that can "synthesize any kind of sound waves" and is "operated very easily," predicting that with such an instrument, "the music scene will be changed drastically". Acer Aspire One D150-1322 Keyboard
[neutrality is disputed][19][20]
Studio di Fonologia Musicale RAI di Milano
Electronic music studios as "sound synthesizer"
After World War II, electronic music including electroacoustic music and musique concrète was created by contemporary composers, and numerous electronic music studios were established around the world, especially in Bonn, Cologne, Acer Aspire 5741Z Keyboard
Paris and Milan. These studios were typically filled with electronic equipment including oscillators, filters, tape recorders, audio consoles, etc., and the whole studio functioned as the "sound synthesizer", rather than a specific piece of equipment.
Siemens Studio (1959)
RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer Acer Aspire 5741Z Keyboard
(1957) Origin of the term "sound synthesizer"
In 1951–1952, RCA produced a machine called the Electronic Music Synthesizer, however, it would be better classified as a "composition machine", because the sounds were not produced in real time.[21] Then, RCA developed the first programmable sound synthesizer, RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, Sony KFRSBA019A Keyboard
and installed it to Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1957.[22] Prominent composers including Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Milton Babbitt, Halim El-Dabh, Bülent Arel, Charles Wuorinen, and Mario Davidovsky used the RCA Synthesizer extensively in various compositions.[23]
[edit] Modular synthesizer
Main articles: Modular synthesizer, Harald Bode, Robert Moog, and Moog synthesizer
In 1959–1960, Dell 3C048 Keyboard
Harald Bode developed a modular synthesizer and sound processor,[24][25] and in 1961, he wrote a paper exploring the concept of self-contained portable modular synthesizer using newly emerging transistor technology;[26] also he served as AES session chairman on music and electronic for the fall conventions in 1962 and 1964;[27] after then, his ideas were adopted by Donald Buchla, Robert Moog, and others Sony VAIO VGN-AR730E Keyboard.
The Moog modular synthesizer of 1960s-1970s.
Robert Moog released the first commercially available modern synthesizer in 1965.[citation needed] In the late 1960s to 1970s, the development of miniaturized solid-state components allowed synthesizers to become self-contained, portable instruments, as proposed by Harald Bode in 1961. By the early 1980s companies were selling compact, modestly priced synthesizers to the public. Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
This, along with the development of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), made it easier to integrate and synchronize synthesizers and other electronic instruments for use in musical composition. In the 1990s, synthesizer emulations began to appear in computer software, known as software synthesizers. Later, VST and other plugins were able to emulate classic hardware synthesizers to a moderate degree.
Wendy Carlos - Switched-On Bach (1968) Sony 147977821 Keyboard
First Movement (Allegro) of Brandenburg Concerto Number 3 played on synthesizer.
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The synthesizer had a considerable effect on 20th century music.[28] Micky Dolenz of The Monkees bought one of the first Moog synthesizers. The band was the first to release an album featuring a Moog with Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. in 1967.[29] It reached #1 in the charts. A few months later, both the Rolling Stones' "2000 Light Years from Home" and the title track of the Doors' 1967 album Strange Days would also feature a Moog, Toshiba Satellite P105-S6104 Keyboard
played by Brian Jones and Paul Beaver respectively. Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach (1968), recorded using Moog synthesizers, also influenced numerous musicians of that era and is one of the most popular recordings of classical music ever made,[30] alongside the records of Isao Tomita (particularly Snowflakes are Dancing in 1974), who in the early 1970s utilized synthesizers to create new artificial sounds (rather than simply mimicking real instruments) HP Pavilion dv6-2117eo Keyboard
[31] and made significant advances in analog synthesizer programming.[32]
The sound of the Moog also reached the mass market with Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends in 1968 and The Beatles' Abbey Road the following year; hundreds of other popular recordings subsequently used synthesizers. Electronic music albums by Beaver and Krause, Tonto's Expanding Head Band, The United States of America, 45N2141
and White Noise reached a sizable cult audience and progressive rock musicians such as Richard Wright of Pink Floyd and Rick Wakeman of Yes were soon using the new portable synthesizers extensively. Other early users included Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Keith Emerson, Pete Townshend, and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's Vincent Crane. The Perrey and Kingsley album The In Sound From Way Out! using the Moog and tape loops plus other was released in 1966. Acer eMachines E732 Keyboard
The first UK no 1 single to feature a Moog prominently was Chicory Tip's 1972 hit Son of My Father.[33]
The Prophet-5 synthesizer of the late 1970s-early 1980s.
Main article: Synthpop
Since the early or mid 1970s, Jean Michel Jarre, Larry Fast, and Vangelis released successful electronic instrumental albums. The emergence of Synthpop, a sub-genre of New Wave, in the late 1970s can be largely credited to synthesizer technology. The ground-breaking work of all-electronic German bands such as Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, HP Pavilion DV6-1120er Keyboard
David Bowie during his Berlin period (1976–1977),[34] as well as the pioneering work of the Japanese Yellow Magic Orchestra and British Gary Numan,[35] were crucial in the development of the genre.[34][35]
English musician Gary Numan's 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars" used synthesizers heavily.[36][37] OMD's "Enola Gay" (1980) used a Dell Latitude D631 Keyboard
distinctive electronic percussion and synthesized melody. Soft Cell used a synthesized melody on their 1981 hit "Tainted Love".[34] Nick Rhodes, keyboardist of Duran Duran, used various synthesizers including slightly minor Roland Jupiter-4 and Jupiter-8.[38][dead link]
Other chart hits include Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" (1981),[34] The Human League's "Don't You Want Me". Gateway MT6705 Keyboard
[39] and Giorgio Moroder's "Flashdance... What a Feeling" (1983) for Irene Cara. Other notable synthpop groups included New Order, Visage, Japan, Ultravox,[34] Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Thompson Twins, A Flock of Seagulls, Erasure, Blancmange, Kajagoogoo, Devo, and the early work of Tears for Fears. Other notable users include Giorgio Moroder, Howard Jones, Kitaro, Stevie Wonder, Thinkpad X220
Peter Gabriel, Thomas Dolby, Kate Bush,and Frank Zappa.
The synthesizer then became one of the most important instruments in the music industry.[34]
[edit] Types of synthesis
Additive synthesis was utilized as early as on Teleharmonium in 1900s and Hammond organ in 1930s.
Additive synthesis builds sounds by adding IBM 08K4729 Keyboard
together waveforms (which are usually harmonically related). An early analog example of an additive synthesizer is the Teleharmonium and Hammond organ. To implement real-time additive synthesis, Wavetable synthesis is useful for reducing required hardware/processing power,[40] and is commonly used in low-end MIDI instruments (such as educational keyboards) and low-end sound cards. IBM 08K4757 Keyboard
Subtractive synthesis is still utilized on various synths, including virtual analog synth.
Subtractive synthesis is based on filtering harmonically rich waveforms. Due to its simplicity, it is the basis of early synthesizers such as the Moog synthesizer. Subtractive synthesizers use a simple acoustic model that assumes an instrument can be approximated by a simple signal generator (producing sawtooth waves, square waves, etc.) IBM 39T0550 Keyboard
followed by a filter. The combination of simple modulation routings (such as pulse width modulation and oscillator sync), along with the physically unrealistic lowpass filters, is responsible for the "classic synthesizer" sound commonly associated with "analog synthesis" and often mistakenly used when referring to software synthesizers IBM 39T0581 Keyboard
using subtractive synthesis.
FM synthesis was hugely successful in earliest digital synthesizers.
FM synthesis (frequency modulation synthesis) is a process that usually involves the use of at least two signal generators (sine-wave oscillators, commonly referred to as "operators" in FM-only synthesizers) to create and modify a voice. Often, IBM 39T0928 Keyboard
this is done through the analog or digital generation of a signal that modulates the tonal and amplitude characteristics of a base carrier signal. FM synthesis was pioneered by John Chowning, who patented the idea and sold it to Yamaha. Unlike the exponential relationship between voltage-in-to-frequency-out and multiple waveforms IBM 39T0958 Keyboard
in classical 1-volt-per-octave synthesizer oscillators, Chowning-style FM synthesis uses a linear voltage-in-to-frequency-out relationship and sine-wave oscillators. The resulting complex waveform may have many component frequencies, and there is no requirement that they all bear a harmonic relationship. Sophisticated FM synths such as the Yamaha DX-7 series can have 6 operators per voice; IBM 39T0982 Keyboard
some synths with FM can also often use filters and variable amplifier types to alter the signal's characteristics into a sonic voice that either roughly imitates acoustic instruments or creates sounds that are unique. FM synthesis is especially valuable for metallic or clangorous noises such as bells, cymbals, or other percussion.
Phase distortion synthesis is a method implemented on Casio CZ synthesizers. IBM 39T7142 Keyboard
It is quite similar to FM synthesis but avoids infringing on the Chowning FM patent. Also it should be categorized to modulation synthesis along with FM synthesis, and also to distortion synthesis along with waveshaping synthesis, and discrete summation formulas.
Granular synthesis is a type of synthesis based on manipulating very small sample slices.
Physical modelling synthesis is often implemented as software synthesizers. IBM 39T7265 Keyboard
Physical modelling synthesis is the synthesis of sound by using a set of equations and algorithms to simulate a real instrument, or some other physical source of sound. This involves taking up models of components of musical objects and creating systems which define action, filters, envelopes and other parameters over time. The definition of such instruments is virtually limitless, IBM 42T3133 Keyboard
as one can combine any given models available with any amount of sources of modulation in terms of pitch, frequency and contour. For example, the model of a violin with characteristics of a pedal steel guitar and perhaps the action of piano hammer. When an initial set of parameters is run through the physical simulation, the simulated sound is generated. Although physical modeling was not a new concept in acoustics and synthesis, IBM 42T3167 Keyboard
it wasn't until the development of the Karplus-Strong algorithm and the increase in DSP power in the late 1980s that commercial implementations became feasible. Physical modeling on computers gets better and faster with higher processing.
Analysis/resynthesis is typically known as vocoder.
Sample-based synthesis is one of the most popular family of synthesis on today.
IBM 42T3265 Keyboard
Sample-based synthesis One of the easiest synthesis systems is to record a real instrument as a digitized waveform, and then play back its recordings at different speeds to produce different tones. This is the technique used in "sampling". Most samplers designate a part of the sample for each component of the ADSR envelope, and then repeat that section while changing the volume for that segment of the envelope. IBM 42T3297 Keyboard
This lets the sampler have a persuasively different envelope using the same note. See also Wavetable synthesis, Vector synthesis, etc.
Analysis/resynthesis is a form of synthesis that uses a series of bandpass filters or Fourier transforms to analyze the harmonic content of a sound. The resulting analysis data is then used in a second stage to resynthesize the sound using a band of oscillators. The vocoder, linear predictive coding, IBM 42T3567 Keyboard
and some forms of speech synthesis are based on analysis/resynthesis.
[edit] Imitative synthesis
Sound synthesis can be used to mimic acoustic sound sources. Generally, a sound that does not change over time will include a fundamental partial or harmonic, and any number of partials. Synthesis may attempt to mimic the amplitude and pitch of the partials in an acoustic sound source.
IBM 42T3600 Keyboard
When natural sounds are analyzed in the frequency domain (as on a spectrum analyzer), the spectra of their sounds will exhibit amplitude spikes at each of the fundamental tone's harmonics corresponding to resonant properties of the instruments (spectral peaks that are also referred to as formants). Some harmonics may have higher amplitudes than others. The specific set of harmonic-vs-amplitude pairs is known as a sound's harmonic content. IBM 42T3638 Keyboard
A synthesized sound requires accurate reproduction of the original sound in both the frequency domain and the time domain. A sound does not necessarily have the same harmonic content throughout the duration of the sound. Typically, high-frequency harmonics will die out more quickly than the lower harmonics.
In most conventional synthesizers, IBM 42T3671 Keyboard
for purposes of re-synthesis, recordings of real instruments are composed of several components representing the acoustic responses of different parts of the instrument, the sounds produced by the instrument during different parts of a performance, or the behavior of the instrument under different playing conditions (pitch, intensity of playing, fingering, etc.)
[edit] Components IBM 42T3704 Keyboard
Basic components of an analogue subtractive synthesizer
Synthesizers generate sound through various analogue and digital techniques. Early synthesizers were analog hardware based but many modern synthesizers use a combination of DSP software and hardware or else are purely software-based (see softsynth). Digital synthesizers often emulate classic analog designs. IBM 42T3737 Keyboard
Sound is controllable by the operator by means of circuits or virtual stages which may include:
Electronic oscillators – create raw sounds with a timbre that depends upon the waveform generated. Voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) and digital oscillators may be used. Harmonic Additive synthesis models sounds directly from pure sine waves, somewhat in the manner of an organ, IBM 42T3961 Keyboard
while Frequency modulation and Phase distortion synthesis use one oscillator to modulate another. Subtractive synthesis depends upon filtering a harmonically rich oscillator waveform. Sample-based and Granular synthesis use one or more digitally recorded sounds in place of an oscillator.
Voltage-controlled filter (VCF) – "shape" the sound generated by the oscillators in the frequency domain, IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
often under the control of an envelope or LFO. These are essential to subtractive synthesis.
Voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA) – After the signal generated by one (or a mix of more Voltage-controlled oscillators), modified by filters and LFOs, and the signal's waveform is shaped (contoured) by an ADSR Envelope Generator, it then passes on to one or more voltage-controlled amplifiers (VCA) where. IBM 42T4090 Keyboard
The VCA is a preamp that boosts (amplifies) the electronic signal before passing on to an external or built-in power amplifier, as well as a means to control its volume using an attenuator that affects a control voltage (coming from the keyboard or other trigger source), which affects the gain of the VCA.[41]
ADSR envelopes - provide envelope modulation to "shape" IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 Keyboard
the volume or harmonic content of the produced note in the time domain with the principle parameters being attack, decay, sustain and release. These are used in most forms of synthesis. ADSR control is provided by Envelope Generators.
Low frequency oscillator (LFO) – an oscillator of adjustable frequency that can be used to modulate the sound rhythmically, for example to create tremolo or IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1831 Keyboard
vibrato or to control a filter's operating frequency. LFOs are used in most forms of synthesis.
Other sound processing effects such as ring modulators may be encountered.
Various filter modes.
Main article: Voltage controlled filter
Electronic filters are particularly important in subtractive synthesis, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1832 Keyboard
being designed to pass some frequency regions through unattenuated while significantly attenuating ("subtracting") others. The low-pass filter is most frequently used, but band-pass filters, band-reject filters and high-pass filters are also sometimes available.
The filter may be controlled with a second ADSR envelope. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1833 Keyboard
An "envelope modulation" ("env mod") parameter on many synthesizers with filter envelopes determines how much the envelope affects the filter. If turned all the way down, the filter will produce a flat sound with no envelope. When turned up the envelope becomes more noticeable, expanding the minimum and maximum range of the filter. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1836 Keyboard
Inverted ADSR envelope
When an acoustic musical instrument produces sound, the loudness and spectral content of the sound change over time in ways that vary from instrument to instrument. The "attack" and "decay" of a sound have a great effect on the instrument's sonic character.[42] Sound synthesis techniques often employ an envelope generator that controls a sound's parameters at any point in its duration. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1840 Keyboard
Most often this is an "ADSR" (Attack Decay Sustain Release) envelope, which may be applied to overall amplitude control, filter frequency, etc. The envelope may be a discrete circuit or module, or implemented in software. The contour of an ADSR envelope is specified using four parameters:
Attack time is the time taken for initial run-up of level from nil to peak, beginning when the key is first pressed. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1841 Keyboard
Decay time is the time taken for the subsequent run down from the attack level to the designated sustain level.
Sustain level is the level during the main sequence of the sound's duration, until the key is released.
Release time is the time taken for the level to decay from the sustain level to zero after the key is released. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2883 Keyboard
An early implementation of ADSR can be found on the Hammond Novachord in 1938 (which predates the first Moog synthesizer by over 25 years). A seven-position rotary knob set preset ADS parameter for all 72 notes; a footpedal controlled release time.[14] The notion of ADSR was specified by Vladimir Ussachevsky (then head of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50-1830 Keyboard
in 1965 while suggesting improvements for Bob Moog's pioneering work on synthesizers, although the earlier notations of parameter were (T1, T2, Esus, T3), then these were simplified to current form (Attack time, Decay time, Sustain level, Release time) by ARP.[43]
Some electronic musical instruments allow the ADSR envelope to be inverted, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E Keyboard
which results in opposite behavior compared to the normal ADSR envelope. During the attack phase, the modulated sound parameter fades from the maximum amplitude to zero then, during the decay phase, rises to the value specified by the sustain parameter. After the key has been released the sound parameter rises from sustain amplitude back to maximum amplitude.
8-step envelope on Casio CZ series IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e 2670 Keyboard
A common variation of the ADSR on some synthesizers, such as the Korg MS-20, was ADSHR (attack, decay, sustain, hold, release). By adding a "hold" parameter, the system allowed notes to be held at the sustain level for a fixed length of time before decaying. The General Instruments AY-3-8912 sound chip included a hold time parameter only; the sustain level was not programmable. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E-1834 Keyboard
Another common variation in the same vein is the AHDSR (attack, hold, decay, sustain, release) envelope, in which the "hold" parameter controls how long the envelope stays at full volume before entering the decay phase. Multiple attack, decay and release settings may be found on more sophisticated models.
Certain synthesizers also allow for a "delay" parameter, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E-1842 Keyboard
which would come before the "attack". Modern synthesizers like the Dave Smith Instruments Prophet '08 have DADSR (delay, attack, decay, sustain, release) envelopes. The delay setting determines how long there is silence after a note is hit, before the attack is heard. Some software synthesizers such as Image-Line's 3xOSC (included for free with their DAW FL Studio) have DAHDSR (delay, attack, hold, decay, sustain, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1844 Keyboard
release) envelopes.
LFO section of Access Virus C
[edit] LFO
Main article: Low-frequency oscillation
A low-frequency oscillator (LFO) generates an electronic signal, usually below 20 Hz. LFO signals create a rhythmic pulse or sweep, often used to in vibrato, tremolo and other effects. In certain genres of electronic music, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1845 Keyboard
the LFO signal can control the cutoff frequency of a VCF to make a rhythmic wah-wah sound, or the signature dubstep wobble bass.
One of the earliest patch memory (bottom left) on Oberheim Four-voice (1975/1976)
A synthesizer patch (some manufacturers chose the term program) is a sound setting. Modular synthesizers used cables ("patch cords") to connect the different sound modules together IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1846 Keyboard
Since these machines had no memory to save settings, musicians wrote down the locations of the patch cables and knob positions on a "patch sheet" (which usually showed a diagram of the synthesizer). Ever since, an overall sound setting for any type of synthesizer has been known as a patch.
In mid–late 1970s, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1847 Keyboard
patch memory (allowing storage and loading of 'patches' or 'programs') began to appear in synths like the Oberheim Four-voice (1975/1976)[44] and Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 (1977/1978). After MIDI was introduced in 1983, more and more synthesizers could import or export patches via MIDI SYSEX commands. When a synthesizer patch is uploaded to a personal computer which has patch editing software installed, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1848 Keyboard
the user can alter the parameters of the patch and download it back to the synthesizer. Because there is no standard patch language it is rare that a patch generated on one synthesizer can be used on a different model. However sometimes manufacturers will design a family of synthesizers to be compatible.
Guitar-style interface (SynthAxe) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1849 Keyboard
Modern synthesizers often look like small pianos, though with many additional knob and button controls. These are integrated controllers, where the sound synthesis electronics are integrated into the same package as the controller. However many early synthesizers were modular and keyboardless, while most modern synthesizers may be controlled via MIDI, allowing other means of playing such as; IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1850 Keyboard
Fingerboards (ribbon controllers) and touchpads
Wind controllers
Guitar-style interfaces
Drum pads
Music sequencers
Non-contact interfaces akin to theremins
Tangible interfaces like a Reactable, AudioCubes IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1858 Keyboard
Various auxiliary input device including: wheels for pitch bend and modulation, footpedals for expression and sustain, breath controllers, beam controllers, etc.
[edit] Fingerboard controller
left: Ondes Martenot (6G in 1960)
right: Mixture Trautonium (replica of 1952)
Fingerboard
on Korg monotron IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1859 Keyboard
Ribbon controller
on Moog 3P (1972)
A ribbon controller or other violin-like user interface may be used to control synthesizer parameters. The concept dates to Léon Theremin's 1922 first conceive[45] and his 1932 Fingerboard Theremin and Keyboard Theremin,[46][18] Maurice Martenot's 1928 Ondes Martenot (sliding a metal ring),[47] Friedrich Trautwein's 1929 Trautonium (finger pressure), and also later utilized by Robert Moog.[48][49][50] The ribbon controller has no moving parts. Instead, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1860 Keyboard
a finger pressed down and moved along it creates an electrical contact at some point along a pair of thin, flexible longitudinal strips whose electric potential varies from one end to the other. Older fingerboards used a long wire pressed to a resistive plate. A ribbon controller is similar to a touchpad, but a ribbon controller only registers linear motion. Although it may be used to operate any parameter that is affected by control voltages, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1862 Keyboard
a ribbon controller is most commonly associated with pitch bending.
Fingerboard-controlled instruments include the Trautonium (1929), Hellertion (1929) and Heliophon (1936),[51][52][53] Electro-Theremin (Tannerin, late 1950s), Perspehone (2004), and the Swarmatron (2004). A ribbon controller is used as an additional controller in the Yamaha CS-80 and CS-60, the Korg Prophecy and Korg Trinity series, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1863 Keyboard
the Kurzweil synthesizers, Moog synthesizers, and others.
Rock musician Keith Emerson used it with the Moog modular synthesizer from 1970 onward. In the late 1980s, keyboards in the synth lab at Berklee College of Music were equipped with membrane thin ribbon style controllers that output MIDI. They functioned as MIDI managers, with their programming language printed on their surface, and as expression/performance tools. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1870 Keyboard
Designed by Jeff Tripp of Perfect Fretworks Co., they were known as Tripp Strips. Such ribbon controllers can serve as a main MIDI controller instead of a keyboard, as with the Continuum instrument.
[edit] Wind controllers
Accordion synthesizer
Main article: Wind controller IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50P Keyboard
Wind controllers (and wind synthesizers) are convenient for woodwind and brass players, being designed after the lines of those instruments. These are usually either analog or MIDI controllers, and sometimes include their own built-in sound modules (synthesizers). In addition to the follow of key arrangements and fingering, the controllers have breath-operated pressure transducers, and may have gate extractors, velocity sensors, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1829 Keyboard
and bite sensors. Saxophone style controllers have included the Lyricon, and products by Yamaha, Akai, and Casio. The mouthpieces range from alto clarinet to alto saxophone sizes. Also bassoon style controller was released from Eigenlabs (2009). Melodica or recorder style controllers have included the Martinetta (1975)[54] and Variophon (1980),[55] Tubophon,[citation needed] and Joseph Zawinul's custom Korg Pepe.[56] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1830 Keyboard
A Harmonica style interface was the Millionizer 2000 (c.1983).[57]
Trumpet style controllers have included products by Steiner/Crumar/Akai, Yamaha, and Morrison. Also breath controllers may be used as an adjunct to a conventional synthesizer: the Crumar Steiner Masters Touch,[58] Yamaha Breath Controller and its compatible products are the examples.[59] Several controllers also provide breath-like articulation capabilities.[clarification needed] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1831 Keyboard
Accordion controllers use pressure transducers on bellows for articulation.
The other controllers include: Theremin, lightbeam controllers, touch buttons (touche d’intensité) on the Ondes Martenot, and various type of footpedals, etc. Envelope following systems, the most sophiscated being the vocoder, follow the power or amplitude of input audio signal, instead of breath pressure on the wind controllers. More direct articulation, the vocal tract without breath, is utilized on the Talk box, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1832 Keyboard
although it is rarely categorized as a synthesizer.
[edit] MIDI control
Main article: Musical Instrument Digital Interface
Synthesizers became easier to integrate and synchronize with other electronic instruments and controllers with the introduction of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) in 1983.[60] First proposed in 1981 by engineer Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits, the MIDI standard was developed by a consortium now known as the MIDI Manufacturers Association.[61] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1833 Keyboard
MIDI is an opto-isolated serial interface and communication protocol.[61] It provides for the transmission from one device or instrument to another of real-time performance data. This data includes note events, commands for the selection of instrument presets (i.e. sounds, or programs or patches, previously stored in the instrument's memory), IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1840 Keyboard
the control of performance-related parameters such as volume, effects levels and the like, as well as synchronization, transport control and other types of data. MIDI interfaces are now almost ubiquitous on music equipment and are commonly available on personal computers (PCs).[61]
The General MIDI (GM) software standard was devised in 1991 to serve as a consistent way of describing a set of over 200 tones (including percussion) available to a PC for playback of musical scores.[62] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1841 Keyboard
For the first time, a given MIDI preset would consistently produce an instrumental sound on any GM-conforming device. The Standard MIDI File (SMF) format (extension .mid) combined MIDI events with delta times - a form of time-stamping - and became a popular standard for exchange of music scores between computers. In the case of SMF playback using integrated synthesizers (as in computers and cell phones), IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2883 Keyboard
the hardware component of the MIDI interface design is often unneeded.
Open Sound Control (OSC) is another music data specification designed for online networking. In contrast with MIDI, OSC allows thousands of synthesizers or computers to share music performance data over the Internet in realtime.
[edit] Synth lead IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2887 Keyboard
In popular music, a synth lead is generally used for playing the main melody of a song, but it is also often used for creating rhythmic or bass effects. Although most commonly heard in electronic dance music, synth leads have been used extensively in hip-hop since the 1980s and rock songs since the 1970s. Most modern music relies heavily on the synth lead to provide a musical hook to sustain the listener's interest throughout an entire song. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2888 Keyboard
Heavy use of synth lead is used by artists such as Lil Jon in Snap Yo Fingas and Usher in "Yeah!" as representative of the Crunk music genre.
[edit] Synth pad
A synth pad is a sustained chord or tone generated by a synthesizer, often employed for background harmony and atmosphere in much the same fashion that a string section is often used in acoustic music. Typically, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2889 Keyboard
a synth pad plays many whole or half notes, sometimes holding the same note while a lead voice sings or plays an entire musical phrase. Often, the sounds used for synth pads have a vaguely organ, string, or vocal timbre. Much popular music in the 1980s employed synth pads, this being the time of polyphonic synthesizers, as did the then-new styles of smooth jazz and New Age music. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2894 Keyboard
One of many well-known songs from the era to incorporate a synth pad is "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys, who were noted users of the technique.
The main feature of a synth pad is very long attack and decay time with extended sustains. In some instances pulse-width modulation (PWM) using a square wave oscillator can be added to create a "vibrating" sound.
[edit] Synth bass
Synth bass
Moog Taurus pedal bass synth
Synth filter sweeps.ogg IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2895 Keyboard
An example of a classic analog bass synthesizer sound. Four sawtooth bass filter sweeps with gradually increasing resonance.
A 1970s-era minimoog
MacLeod, Kevin - Funkorama.ogg
An example of funk-styled grooving synth bass by Kevin MacLeod.[63] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p1836 Keyboard
See also: Keyboard bass
The bass synthesizer (or "bass synth") is used to create sounds in the bass range, from simulations of the electric bass or double bass to distorted, buzz-saw-like artificial bass sounds, by generating and combining signals of different frequencies. Bass synth patches may incorporate a range of sounds and tones, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 Keyboard
including wavetable-style, analog, and FM-style bass sounds, delay effects, distortion effects, envelope filters. A modern digital synthesizer uses a frequency synthesizer microprocessor component to generate signals of different frequencies. While most bass synths are controlled by electronic keyboards or pedalboards, some performers use an electric bass with MIDI pickups to trigger a bass synthesizer. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1829 Keyboard
In the 1970s miniaturized solid-state components allowed self-contained, portable instruments such as the Moog Taurus, a 13-note pedal keyboard which was played by the feet. The Moog Taurus was used in live performances by a range of pop, rock, and blues-rock bands. An early use of bass synthesizer was in 1972, on a solo album by John Entwistle (the bassist for The Who), entitled Whistle Rymes. Genesis bass player Mike Rutherford used a Dewtron IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1832 Keyboard
"Mister Bassman" for the recording of their album Nursery Cryme in August 1971. Stevie Wonder introduced synth bass to a pop audience in the early 1970s, notably on Superstition (1972) and Boogie On Reggae Woman (1974). In 1977 Parliament's funk single Flashlight used the bass synthesizer. Lou Reed, widely considered a pioneer of electric guitar textures, played bass synthesizer on "Families", from his 1979 album The Bells.
Roland TB-303 acid bass machine in 1980s IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1833 Keyboard
Discobotter.ogg
An example of acid bass track, using SH-101 for bass, MC-202 for filter hookline, and TR-808 for drums.
When the programmable music sequencer became widely available in the 1980s (e.g., the Synclavier), bass synths were used to create highly syncopated rhythms and complex, rapid basslines. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1840 Keyboard
Bass synth patches incorporate a range of sounds and tones, including wavetable-style, analog, and FM-style bass sounds, delay effects, distortion effects, envelope filters. A particularly influential bass synthesizer was the Roland TB-303 following Firstman SQ-01, featuring a built-in sequencer and released in late 1981, and which would later become synonymous with acid house music. One of the first to utilize it was Charanjit Singh in 1982, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1841 Keyboard
though it wouldn't be popularized until Phuture's "Acid Tracks" in 1987.[64]
In the 2000s (decade), several companies such as Boss and Akai produced bass synthesizer effect pedals for electric bass players, which simulate the sound of an analog or digital bass synth. With these devices, a bass guitar is used to generate synth bass sounds. The BOSS SYB-3 was one of the early bass synthesizer pedals. The SYB-3 reproduces sounds of analog synthesizers with Digital Signal Processing saw, square, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 2894 Keyboard
and pulse synth waves and user-adjustable filter cutoff. The Akai bass synth pedal contains a four-oscillator synthesizer with user selectable parameters (attack, decay, envelope depth, dynamics, cutoff, resonance). Bass synthesizer software allows performers to use MIDI to integrate the bass sounds with other synthesizers or drum machines. Bass synthesizers often provide samples from vintage 1970s and 1980s bass synths. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 2895 Keyboard
Some bass synths are built into an organ style pedalboard or button board.
[edit] Arpeggiator
See also: Home organ and Music sequencer
An arpeggiator is a feature available on several synthesizers that automatically steps through a sequence of notes based on an input chord, thus creating an arpeggio. The notes can often be transmitted to a MIDI sequencer for recording and further editing. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1830 Keyboard
An arpeggiator may have controls speed, range, and order in which the notes play; upwards, downwards, or in a random order. More advanced arpeggiators allow the user to step through a pre-programmed complex sequence of notes, or play several arpeggios at once. Some allow a pattern sustained after releasing keys: in this way, sequence of arpeggio patterns may be built up over time by pressing several keys one after the other. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1831 Keyboard
Arpeggiators are also commonly found in software sequencers. Some arpeggiators/sequencers expand features into a full phrase sequencer, which allows the user to trigger complex, multi-track blocks of sequenced data from a keyboard or input device, typically synchronized with the tempo of the master clock.
Sound sample of arpeggiator IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1836 Keyboard
A sample of Eurodance synthesizer riff with use of rapid 1/16 notes arpeggiator
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
[verification needed]
Arpeggiators seem to have grown from the accompaniment system of Electronic organs in mid 1960s-mid 1970s,[65] and possibly hardware sequencers[citation IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2883 Keyboard
needed] of the mid 1960s, such as the 8/16 step analog sequencer on modular synthesizers (Buchla Series 100 (1964/1966)). And it were commonly fitted to keyboard instruments through the late 1970s and early 1980s. Notable examples are the RMI Harmonic Synthesizer (1974),[66] Roland Jupiter 8, Oberheim OB-Xa, Roland SH-101, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2887 Keyboard
Sequential Circuits Six-Trak and Korg Polysix. A famous example can be heard on Duran Duran's song "Rio", in which the arpeggiator on a Roland Jupiter-4 is heard playing a C minor chord in random mode. They fell out of favor by the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s and were absent from the most popular synthesizers of the period but a resurgence of interest in analog synthesizers during the 1990s, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2888 Keyboard
and the use of rapid-fire arpeggios in several popular dance hits, brought with it a resurgence
Emergence of electronic sound technology
Diagram of the clavecin électrique
In the 18th-century, musicians and composers adapted a number of acoustic instruments to exploit the novelty of electricity. Thus, in the broadest sense, the first electrified musical instrument was the Denis d'or, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2889 Keyboard
dating from 1753, followed shortly by the Clavecin électrique by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste de Laborde in 1761. The former instrument consisted of a keyboard instrument of over 700 strings, electrified temporarily to enhance sonic qualities. The latter was a keyboard instrument with plectra (picks) activated electrically. However, neither instrument used electricity as a sound-source. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e 1843 Keyboard
The first electric synthesizer was invented in 1876 by Elisha Gray.[1][2] The "Musical Telegraph" was a chance by-product of his telephone technology when Gray accidentally discovered that he could control sound from a self-vibrating electromagnetic circuit and so invented a basic oscillator. The Musical Telegraph used steel reeds oscillated by electromagnets and transmitted over a telephone line. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e 1844 Keyboard
Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, which consisted of a diaphragm vibrating in a magnetic field.
A significant invention, which later had a profound effect on electronic music, was Lee DeForest's triode audition. This was the first thermionic valve, or vacuum tube, invented in 1906, which led to the generation and amplification of electrical signals, radio broadcasting, and electronic computation, amongst other things. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1834 Keyboard
Other early synthesizers included Thaddeus Cahill's Dynamophone or Telharmononium (before 1907), Jorg Mager's Spherophone (1924) and Partiturophone, the Theremin (1927), which was marketed by RCA, Taubmann's similar Electronde (1933), the Ondes Martenot (1928), Trautwein's Trautonium (1930). The Mellertion (1933) used a non-standard scale, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1842 Keyboard
Bertrand's Dynaphone could produce octaves and perfect fifths, while the Emicon was an American, keyboard-controlled instrument constructed in 1930 and the German Hellertion combined four instruments to produce chords. Three Russian instruments also appeared, Oubouhof's Croix Sonore (1934), Ivor Darreg's microtonal 'Electronic Keyboard Oboe' (1937) and the ANS synthesizer, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1845 Keyboard
constructed by the Russian scientist Evgeny Murzin from 1937 to 1958. Only two models of this latter were built and the only surviving example is currently stored at the Lomonosov University in Moscow. It has been used in many Russian movies - like Solaris - to produce unusual, "cosmic" sounds.[3][4]
Hugh Le Caine, John Hanert, Raymond Scott, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1846 Keyboard
composer Percy Grainger (with Burnett Cross), and others built a variety of automated electronic-music controllers during the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1959 Daphne Oram produced a novel method of synthesis, her "Oramics" technique, driven by drawings on a 35 mm film strip; it was used for a number of years at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.[5] This workshop was also responsible for the theme to the TV series Doctor Who, a piece, largely created by Delia Derbyshire, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1847 Keyboard
that more than any other ensured the popularity of electronic music in the UK.
[edit] Telharmonium
Telharmonium console
by Thaddeus Cahill 1897
Main article: Telharmonium
In 1897 Thaddeus Cahill patented an instrument called the Telharmonium (or Teleharmonium, also known as the Dynamaphone). Using tonewheels to generate musical sounds as electrical signals by additive synthesis, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1848 Keyboard
it was capable of producing any combination of notes and overtones, at any dynamic level. This technology was later used to design the Hammond organ. Between 1901 and 1910 Cahill had three progressively larger and more complex versions made, the first weighing seven tons, the last in excess of 200 tons. Portability was managed only by rail and with the use of thirty boxcars. By 1912, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1849 Keyboard
public interest had waned, and Cahill's enterprise was bankrupt.[6]Fingerboard Theremin
Main article: Theremin
Another development, which aroused the interest of many composers, occurred in 1919-1920. In Leningrad, Leon Theremin (actually Lev Termen) built and demonstrated his Etherophone, which was later renamed the Theremin. This led to the first compositions for electronic instruments, as opposed to noisemakers and re-purposed machines. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1850 Keyboard
Composers who ultimately utilized the Theremin included Varèse—in his piece Ecuatorial (1934)—while conductor Leopold Stokowski experimented with its use in arrangements from the classical repertory.[citation needed] In 1929, Joseph Schillinger composed First Airphonic Suite for Theremin and Orchestra, premièred with the Cleveland Orchestra with Leon Theremin as soloist. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1858 Keyboard
The next year Henry Cowell commissioned Theremin to create the first electronic rhythm machine, called the Rhythmicon. Cowell wrote some compositions for it, and he and Schillinger
7th generation model)
Main article: Ondes Martenot
The 1920s have been called the apex of the Mechanical Age and the dawning of the Electrical Age. In 1922, in Paris, Darius Milhaud began experiments with "vocal transformation by phonograph speed change."[7] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1859 Keyboard
These continued until 1927.
This decade brought a wealth of early electronic instruments—along with the Theremin, there is the presentation of the Ondes Martenot, which was designed to reproduce the microtonal sounds found in Hindu music, and the Trautonium. Maurice Martenot invented the Ondes Martenot in 1928, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1860 Keyboard
and soon demonstrated it in Paris. Composers using the instrument ultimately include Boulez, Honegger, Jolivet, Koechlin, Messiaen, Milhaud, Tremblay, and Varèse. Radiohead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood also uses it in his compositions and a plethora of Radiohead songs. In 1937, Messiaen wrote Fête des belles eaux for 6 ondes Martenot, and wrote solo IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1861 Keyboard
parts for it in Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine (1943–44) and the Turangalîla-Symphonie (1946–48/90).
[edit] Trautonium
Volks Trautonium (1933, Telefunken Ela T 42)
Main article: Trautonium
The Trautonium was invented in 1928. It was based on the subharmonic scale, and the resulting sounds were often used to emulate bell or gong sounds, as in the 1950s Bayreuth productions of Parsifal. In 1942, Richard Strauss used it for the bell- and gong-part in the Dresden première of his Japanese Festival Music. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1862 Keyboard
This new class of instruments, microtonal by nature, was only adopted slowly by composers at first, but by the early 1930s there was a burst of new works incorporating these and other electronic instruments.
[edit] Hammond organ and Novachord
Hammond Novachord (1939)
Main articles: Hammond organ and Novachord
In 1929 Laurens Hammond established his company for the manufacture of electronic instruments. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1863 Keyboard
He went on to produce the Hammond organ, which was based on the principles of the Telharmonium, along with other developments including early reverberation units.[8]
The first commercially-manufactured synthesizer was the Novachord, built by the Hammond Organ Company from 1938 to 1942, which offered 72-note polyphony using 12 oscillators driving monostable-based divide-down circuits, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1870 Keyboard
basic envelope control and resonant low-pass filters. The instrument featured 163 vacuum tubes and weighed 500 pounds. The instrument's use of envelope control is significant, since this is perhaps the most significant distinction between the modern synthesizer and other electronic instruments.
[edit] Analogue synthesis 1950-80
Siemens Synthesizer at Siemens Studio For Electronic Music (ca.1959)
The RCA Mark II (ca.1957) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 Keyboard
Main articles: Analog synthesizer and Synthesizer
The most commonly used electronic instruments are synthesizers, so-called because they artificially generate sound using a variety of techniques. All early circuit-based synthesis involved the use of analogue circuitry, particularly voltage controlled amplifiers, oscillators and filters. An important technological development was the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1843 Keyboard
invention of the Clavivox synthesizer in 1956 by Raymond Scott with subassembly by Robert Moog.
[edit] Modular synthesizers
Main article: Modular synthesizer
RCA produced experimental devices to synthesize voice and music in the 1950s. The Mark II Music Synthesizer, housed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1844 Keyboard
with contributions from Vladimir Ussachevsky and Peter Mauzey, it was installed at Columbia University in 1957. Consisting of a room-sized array of interconnected sound synthesis components, it was only capable of producing music by programming,[2] using a paper tape sequencer punched with holes to control pitch sources and filters, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1845 Keyboard
similar to a mechanical player piano but capable of generating a wide variety of sounds. The vacuum tube system had to be patched to create timbres.
Robert Moog
In the 1960s synthesizers were still usually confined to studios due to their size. They were usually modular in design, their stand-alone signal sources and processors connected with patch cords or by other means and controlled by a common controlling device. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1850 Keyboard
Harald Bode, Don Buchla, Hugh Le Caine, Raymond Scott and Paul Ketoff were among the first to build such instruments, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Buchla later produced a commercial modular synthesizer, the Buchla Music Easel.[9] Robert Moog, who had been a student of Peter Mauzey and one of the RCA Mark II engineers, created a synthesizer that could reasonably be used by musicians, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1854 Keyboard
designing the circuits while he was at Columbia-Princeton. The Moog synthesizer was first displayed at the Audio Engineering Society convention in 1964.[10] It required experience to set up sounds but was smaller and more intuitive than what had come before, less like a machine and more like a musical instrument. Moog established standards for control interfacing, using a logarithmic IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1862 Keyboard
1-volt-per-octave for pitch control and a separate triggering signal. This standardization allowed synthesizers from different manufacturers to operate simultaneously. Pitch control was usually performed either with an organ-style keyboard or a music sequencer producing a timed series of control voltages. During the late 1960s hundreds of popular recordings used Moog synthesizers. Other early commercial synthesizer manufacturers included ARP, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1863 Keyboard
who also started with modular synthesizers before producing all-in-one instruments, and British firm EMS.
Minimoog (1970, R.A.Moog)
[edit] Integrated synthesizers
In 1970, Moog designed the Minimoog, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1870 Keyboard
a non-modular synthesizer with a built-in keyboard. The analogue circuits were interconnected with switches in a simplified arrangement called "normalization." Though less flexible than a modular design, normalization made the instrument more portable and easier to use. The Minimoog sold 12,000 units.[11] further standardized the design of subsequent synthesizers with its integrated keyboard, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1846 Keyboard
pitch and modulation wheels and VCO->VCF->VCA signal flow. It has become celebrated for its "fat" sound—and its tuning problems. Miniaturized solid-state components allowed synthesizers to become self-contained, portable instruments that soon appeared in live performance and quickly became widely used in popular music and electronic art music.[12] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1847 Keyboard
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, DIY (Do it yourself) designs were published in hobby electronics magazines (notably the Formant modular synth, a DIY clone of the Moog system, published by Elektor) and kits were supplied by companies such as Paia in the US, and Maplin Electronics in the UK.
Yamaha GX-1 (ca.1973)
E-mu Modular System (ca.1973)
Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 (1977) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1848 Keyboard
[edit] Polyphony
Main article: Polyphony (instrument)#Synthesizer
Many early analog synthesizers were monophonic, producing only one tone at a time. Popular monophonic synthesizers include the Moog Minimoog, and Roland SH-101. A few, such as the Moog Sonic Six, ARP Odyssey and EML 101, could produce two different pitches at a time when two keys were pressed. Polyphony (multiple simultaneous tones, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1849 Keyboard
which enables chords) was only obtainable with electronic organ designs at first. Popular electronic keyboards combining organ circuits with synthesizer processing included the ARP Omni and Moog's Polymoog and Opus 3.
By 1976 affordable polyphonic synthesizers began to appear, notably the Yamaha CS-50, CS-60 and CS-80, the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and the Oberheim Four-Voice. These remained complex, heavy and relatively costly. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1858 Keyboard
The recording of settings in digital memory allowed storage and recall of sounds. The first practical polyphonic synth, and the first to use a microprocessor as a controller, was the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 introduced in late 1977.[13] For the first time, musicians had a practical polyphonic synthesizer that could save all knob settings in computer memory and recall them at the touch of a button. The Prophet-5's design paradigm became a new standard, slowly pushing out more complex and recondite modular designs IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1859 Keyboard.
[edit] Tape recording
Phonogene (1953)
Mellotron MkVI[14][15][16]
In 1935, another significant development was made in Germany. Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft (AEG) demonstrated the first commercially produced magnetic tape recorder, called the Magnetophon. Audio tape, which had the advantage of being fairly light as well as having good audio fidelity, ultimately replaced the bulkier wire recorders. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1860 Keyboard
The term "electronic music" (which first came into use during the 1930s) came to include the tape recorder as an essential element: "electronically produced sounds recorded on tape and arranged by the composer to form a musical composition")[17] It was also indispensable to Musique concrète.
Tape also gave rise to the first, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52-1861 Keyboard
analogue, sample-playback keyboards, the Chamberlin and its more famous successor the Mellotron, an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s.
[edit] Sound sequencer
One of the earliest digital sequencer, EMS Synthi Sequencer 256 (1971)
Main article: Music sequencer
In 1951 former jazz composer IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Keyboard
Raymond Scott invented the first sequencer, which consisted of hundreds of switches controlling stepping relays, timing solenoids, tone circuits and 16 individual oscillators.
[edit] Hardware hacking
Main article: circuit bending
It was within this period (1966–67) that Reed Ghazala discovered and began to teach "circuit bending"—the application of the creative short circuit, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200s Keyboard
a process of chance short-circuiting, creating experimental electronic instruments, exploring sonic elements mainly of timbre and with less regard to pitch or rhythm, and influenced by John Cage’s aleatoric music concept.[18]
Much of this manipulation of circuits directly, especially to the point of destruction, was pioneered by Louis and Bebe Barron in the early 1950s, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X200T Keyboard
such as their work with John Cage on the Williams Mix and especially in the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet.
Yamaha DX7 (1983) and Yamaha VL-1 (1994)
Main article: Digital synthesizer
The first digital synthesizers were academic experiments in sound synthesis using digital computers. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201 Keyboard
FM synthesis was developed for this purpose, as a way of generating complex sounds digitally with the smallest number of computational operations per sound sample. In 1983 Yamaha introduced the first stand-alone digital synthesizer, the DX-7. It used frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis), IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
first developed by John Chowning at Stanford University during the late sixties.[19] Chowning exclusively licensed his FM synthesis patent to Yamaha in 1975.[20] Yamaha subsequently released their first FM synthesizers, the GS-1 and GS-2, which were costly and heavy. There followed a pair of smaller, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201s Keyboard
preset versions, the CE20 and CE25 Combo Ensembles, targeted primarily at the home organ market and featuring four-octave keyboards.[21] Yamaha's third generation of digital synthesizers was a commercial success; it consisted of the DX7 and DX9 (1983). Both models were compact, reasonably priced, and dependent on custom digital integrated circuits to produce FM tonalities. The DX7 was the first mass market all-digital synthesizer.[22] It became indispensable to many music artists of the 1980s, and demand soon exceeded supply.[23] IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Keyboard
The DX7 sold over 200,000 units within three years.[24]
The DX series was not easy to program but offered a detailed, percussive sound that led to the demise of the electro-mechanical Rhodes piano. Following the success of FM synthesis Yamaha signed a contract with Stanford University in 1989 to develop digital waveguide synthesis, leading to the first commercial physical modeling synthesizer, Yamaha's VL-1, in 1994.[25]
[edit] Sampling IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 2748 Keyboard
A Fairlight CMI keyboard (1979)
Main articles: Sampler (musical instrument) and Sampling (music)
The Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument), the first polyphonic digital sampler, was the harbinger of sample-based synthesizers.[26] Designed in 1978 by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie and based on a dual microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 2749 Keyboard
Australia, the Fairlight CMI gave musicians the ability to modify volume, attack, decay, and use special effects like vibrato. Sample waveforms could be displayed on-screen and modified using a light pen.[27] The Synclavier from New England Digital was a similar system.[28] Jon Appleton (with Jones and Alonso) invented the Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer, later to become the New England Digital Corp's Synclavier. The Kurzweil K250, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 6476 Keyboard
first produced in 1983, was also a successful polyphonic digital music synthesizer,[29] noted for its ability to reproduce several instruments synchronously and having a velocity-sensitive keyboard.[30]
[edit] Computer music
Max Mathews (1970s) playing realtime software instrument. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 6477 Keyboard
ISPW, a successor of 4X, was a DSP platform based on i860 and NeXT, by IRCAM.
Main articles: computer music and Software synthesizer
An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, as opposed to manipulating or creating sounds. Iannis Xenakis began what is called musique stochastique, or stochastic music, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X300 6478 Keyboard
which is a method of composing that employs mathematical probability systems. Different probability algorithms were used to create a piece under a set of parameters. Xenakis used graph paper and a ruler to aid in calculating the velocity trajectories of glissandi for his orchestral composition Metastasis (1953–54), but later turned to the use of computers to compose pieces like ST/4 for string quartet and ST/48 for orchestra (both 1962 IBM Lenovo ThinkPad X301 Keyboard).
The impact of computers continued in 1956. Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson composed Iliac Suite for string quartet, the first complete work of computer-assisted composition using algorithmic composition.[31]
In 1957, Max Mathews at Bell Lab wrote MUSIC-N series, a first computer program family for generating digital audio waveforms through direct synthesis. Then Barry Vercoe wrote MUSIC 11 based on MUSIC IV-BF, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2774 Keyboard
a next-generation music synthesis program (later evolving into csound, which is still widely used).
In mid 80s, Miller Puckette at IRCAM developed graphic signal-processing software for 4X called Max (after Max Mathews), and later ported it to Macintosh (with Dave Zicarelli extending it for Opcode [32]) for real-time MIDI control, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2776 Keyboard
bringing algorithmic composition availability to most composers with modest computer programming background.
MIDI, a LAN for music, enables connections between digital musical instruments
Main article: Musical Instrument Digital Interface
In 1980, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2777 Keyboard
a group of musicians and music merchants met to standardize an interface by which new instruments could communicate control instructions with other instruments and the prevalent microcomputer. This standard was dubbed MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). A paper was authored by Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits and proposed to the Audio Engineering Society in 1981. Then, in August 1983, the MIDI Specification 1.0 was finalized. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2778 Keyboard
The advent of MIDI technology allows a single keystroke, control wheel motion, pedal movement, or command from a microcomputer to activate every device in the studio remotely and in synchrony, with each device responding according to conditions predetermined by the composer.
MIDI instruments and software made powerful control of sophisticated instruments easily affordable by many studios and individuals. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 2779 Keyboard
Acoustic sounds became reintegrated into studios via sampling and sampled-ROM-based instruments.
[edit] Modern electronic musical instruments
The increasing power and decreasing cost of sound-generating electronics (and especially of the personal computer), combined with the standardization of the MIDI and Open Sound Control musical performance description languages, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X301 4057 Keyboard
has facilitated the separation of musical instruments into music controllers and music synthesizers.
By far the most common musical controller is the musical keyboard. Other controllers include the radiodrum, Akai's EWI, the guitar-like SynthAxe, the BodySynth, the Buchla Thunder, the Continuum Fingerboard, the Roland Octapad, various isomorphic keyboards including the Thummer, IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X41 Tablet Keyboard
and Kaossilator Pro, and kits like I-CubeX.
The reactable is a round translucent table, used in a darkened room, and appears as a backlit display. By placing blocks called tangibles on the table, and interfacing with the visual display via the tangibles or fingertips, a virtual modular synthesizer is operated, creating music or sound
Audiocubes
Main article: audiocubes IBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
AudioCubes are autonomous wireless cubes powered by an internal computer system and rechargeable battery. They have internal RGB lighting, and are capable of detecting each other's location, orientation and distance. The cubes can also detect distances to the user's hands and fingers. Through interaction with the cubes, IBM Thinkpad R40E Keyboard
a variety of music and sound software can be operated. AudioCubes have applications in sound design, music production, DJing and live
The Kaossilator and Kaossilator Pro are compact instruments where the position of a finger on the touch pad controls two note-characteristics; usually the pitch is changed with a left-right motion and the tonal property, IBM Thinkpad R60 Keyboard
filter or other parameter changes with an up-down motion. The touch pad can be set to different musical scales and keys. The instrument can record a repeating loop of adjustable length, set to any tempo, and new loops of sound can be layered on top of existing ones. This lends itself to electronic dance-music but is more limited for controlled sequences of notes, as the pad on a regular Kaossilator is featureless. IBM Thinkpad R60e Keyboard
The Eigenharp is a large instrument resembling a bassoon, which can be interacted with through touch-sensitive buttons, a drum sequencer and a mouthpiece. The sound processing is done on a separate computer.
Main article: AlphaSphere (instrument)
The AlphaSphere is a spherical instrument that consists of 48 tactile pads that respond to pressure as well as touch. Custom software allows the pads to be indefinitely programmed individually or by groups in terms of function, IBM Thinkpad R60i Keyboard
note, and pressure parameter among many other settings. The primary concept of the instrument is to move electronic musicians away from their computer screens and back to an instrument.
IBM Thinkpad R61 Keyboard
IBM Thinkpad R61 Keyboard
IBM ThinkPad T40 2375 Keyboard
IBM ThinkPad T40 2376 Keyboard
IBM ThinkPad T40 2378 Keyboard
United States keyboard layout
United States keyboard layout
The arrangement of the character input keys and the Shift keys contained in this layout is specified in the U.S. HP Mini 1126NR Keyboard
American national standard ANSI-INCITS 154-1988 (R1999) (formerly ANSI X3.154-1988 (R1999)),[25] where this layout is called "ASCII keyboard". The complete US keyboard layout, as it is usually found, also contains the usual function keys in accordance with the international standard ISO/IEC 9995-2, although this is not explicitly required by the US American national standard. Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110L Keyboard
US keyboards are used not only in the United States, but also in many other English-speaking places, including India, Australia, English Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines. However, the United Kingdom and Ireland, use a slightly different layout.
The US keyboard layout has a second Alt key instead of the AltGr key and does not use any dead keys; this makes it inefficient for Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110L Keyboard
all but a handful of languages. On the other hand, the US keyboard layout (or the similar UK layout) is occasionally used by programmers in countries where the keys for []{} are located in less convenient positions on the locally customary layout.[26]
On some keyboards the enter key is bigger than traditionally and takes up also a part of the line above, more or less the area of the traditional location of the backslash key (\). In these cases the backslash is located in alternative places.[27] Gateway MT6460 Keyboard
It can be situated one line above the default location, on the right of the equals sign key (=).[28][29] Sometimes it's placed one line below its traditional situation, on the right of the apostrophe key (') (in these cases the enter key is narrower than usual on the line of its default location).[30] It may also be two lines below its default situation, below the enter key, on the right of a narrower than traditionally right shift key.[31]
[edit]US-InternationalToshiba Satellite C655-S5132 Keyboard
US-International keyboard layout
There is an alternative layout that uses the physical US keyboard to type diacritics in some operating systems (including Windows). This is the US-International layout, which uses the right Alt key as an AltGr key which supports many additional characters directly as an additional shift key, and uses keys ', `, ", ^ and ~ as dead keys used to generate characters with diacritics by pressing the appropriate key, then the letter on the keyboard. The international keyboard is a software setting installed from the Windows control panel[32] or similar; Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
the additional functions (shown in blue) may or may not be engraved on the keyboard, but are always functional. It can be used to type most major Western European languages: Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Faroese, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, and Swedish. (Maltese and Welsh are a couple of minor unsupported exceptions.)
A diacritic key is activated by pressing and releasing it, then pressing the letter that requires a diacritic. After the two strokes, Asus X53S Keyboard
the single character with diacritics is generated. Note that only certain letters (such as vowels and n) can have diacritics in this way. To generate the symbols ', `, ", ^ and ~, when the following character is capable of having a diacritic, press the Spacebar after the key.
Characters with diacritics can be typed with the following combinations:
' + vowel → vowel with acute accent, e.g., '+e → é
` + vowel → vowel with grave accent, e.g., `+e → è
" + vowel → vowel with diaeresis (or umlaut), e.g., "+e → ë
^ + vowel → vowel with circumflex accent, e.g., ^+e → ê
~ + a, n or o → letter with tilde, e.g. ~+n → ñ, ~+o → õ
' + c → ç04W0872
The US-International layout is not entirely transparent to users familiar with the US layout; when using a machine with the international layout the commonly used single- and double-quote keys and the less commonly used grave accent, tilde, and caret keys will behave unexpectedly. This could be disconcerting on a machine for shared or public use
There are also alternative US-International formats, whereby modifier keys such as shift and alt are used, and the keys Sony VGN-FE21S Keyboard
for the characters with diacritics are in different places from their unmodified counterparts.
[edit]US-International in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands the US-International keyboard layout is nearly always used. The Dutch layout is historical, and keyboards with this layout are rarely used. Many US keyboards sold do not have the extra US-International characters or AltGr engraved on the keyboard, although € (AltGr+5) always is; nevertheless, Acer Aspire One D150-1322 Keyboard
the keys work as expected even if not marked. Many computer-experienced Dutch people have retained the habit of using Alt + number codes to type accented characters, though use of a spelling checker to replace words typed without diacritics by the correct form is common.
Windows has an error by which the (obsolete) Dutch layout is set as default if the Windows location is set to the Netherlands, and will even install this every time the system boots, replacing the US-International layout. Acer Aspire 5741Z Keyboard
This causes many issues, but has not been patched.
[edit]Apple International English Keyboard
International English version of Apple keyboard
There are three kinds of Apple Keyboards for English: the United States, the United Kingdom and International English. The International English version is almost identical to the United States version, but some features are identical to the United Kingdom version:
The `~ key is located on the left of the Z key, and the \| key is located on the right of the '" key.
The §± key is added on the left of the 1! Sony KFRSBA019A Keyboard
key.
The left ⇧ Shift key is shortened and the Return key has the shape of inverted L.
[edit]Vietnamese
Vietnamese keyboard layout
The Vietnamese keyboard layout is an extended Latin QWERTY layout. The letters Ă, Â, Ê, and Ô are found on what would be the number keys 1–4 on the American English keyboard, with 5–9 producing the tonal marks (grave accent, hook, tilde, acute accent, and dot below, in that order), 0 producing Đ, = producing the đồng sign Dell 3C048 Keyboard
(₫) when not shifted, and brackets ([]) producing Ư and Ơ.[33]
[edit]QWERTZ
Main article: QWERTZ
The QWERTZ layout is fairly widely used in Germany and much of Central Europe. The main difference between it and QWERTY is that Y and Z are swapped, and most special characters such as brackets are replaced by diacritical characters.
[edit]Austria and Germany
German keyboard layout “T2” according to DIN 2137:2012-06.
The characters shown in black are present in the traditional ”T1” layout also.
Main article: German keyboard layoutSony VAIO VGN-AR730E Keyboard
The PC keyboard layout commonly used in Germany and Austria is based on one defined in a former edition (October 1988) of the German standard DIN 2137-2. The current edition DIN 2137:2012-06 standardizes it as the first (basic) one of three layouts, calling it “T1” (“Tastaturbelegung 1” = “keyboard layout 1”).
It employs dead keys to type accented characters like “é”, and the AltGr key to access characters in the third level (e.g. “[”, “]”, “@”, the Euro sign “€”, or the Capital ẞ). The “T2” layout as specified in the 2012 edition of the German standard also uses the group selection to access special characters like the long s, Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
or foreign characters like “Æ” or “Ə”.
[edit]Czech (QWERTZ)
Czech QWERTY/Z keyboard layout
The QWERTZ keyboard layout is commonly used in the Czech Republic, but the QWERTY variant is an option. (The layout in the picture is a combination of the US and CZ keyboard layout.)
[edit]Hungary
Hungarian keyboard layout
Note that on some keyboards "ű" is found to the right of the right Shift key. Also, many Hungarians who were not exposed to typewriters, but started using computers when Hungarian keyboards were uncommon or unavailable, Sony 147977821 Keyboard
still prefer the layout with the y/z keys in their QWERTY locations because that is what they are used to. The same applies to Hungarians who frequently switch between a QWERTY and a Hungarian layout (for example because they write in several different languages).
[edit]Poland
Polish keyboard for typewriters according to PN-87.
Polish keyboard QWERTZ HP Pavilion dv6-2117eo Keyboard
used in Macintosh.
Layout PL-214 used in MS-Dos, Windows and Linux.
[edit]Slovak (QWERTZ)
Slovak QWERTY/Z keyboard layout
Typewriters in Slovakia have used the QWERTZ layout quite similar to the layout used on the Czech typewriters. Slovak QWERTZ layout differs from the Czech one in using the letter "ľ" instead of the Czech "ě" on the same position, also the letter "ť" is on the position of Czech "ř" and the letter "ô" is on the position of Czech "ů". There are 2 more keys that differ in these 2 languages: Slovak "ä" and "(" key replaces the Czech "(" and ")" key and Slovak "ň" and ")" key replaces the Czech "'" and "¨" key. There are 17 characters from American keyboard (@#$&\|[]{}<>^`~*') that are missing on the Slovak keyboard 45N2141
because of the presence of the Slovak letters (ľščňťžôúáíýéä°´ˇ§). Some people who want to access some special characters often quickly switch to American layout to write them. Since American keyboard has the QWERTY layout they prefer for Slovak to have the letters Y and Z on the same position like on the United States keyboard in order to have a consistent environment. So besides the QWERTZ keyboard 45N2141
layout inherited from the typewriter era, QWERTY layout is also used by computer users in Slovakia.
[edit]South Slavic Latin
Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Slovene keyboard layout
The Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian Latin and Slovene keyboard layout has five additional special characters Č, Ć, Ž, Š and Đ. This keyboard layout was standardized in the 1980s in Yugoslavia. Characters Ć and Đ are only part of Gaj's Latin alphabet but not part of the Slovene alphabet, nevertheless they remain in Slovenian keyboards (for economic reasons, for historical reasons and for writing words in the closelyAcer eMachines E732 Keyboard
related South Slavic languages). The Ž is on the right side of the Ć key on keyboards which have a longer Backspace key, and the usual inverted L shaped Enter key.
For Serbian, there is also a Cyrillic keyboard variant.
[edit]Switzerland (German, French, Italian, Romansh), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg
Swiss keyboard layout
The layout of the Swiss keyboard is designed to allow easy access to frequently used accents of the French, German and Italian languages. The difference between the Swiss German (sg) and the Swiss French (sf) layout is that the German variety has the German umlauts (ä, ö, ü) accessible without dead keys, while the FrenchAcer eMachines E732 Keyboard
version has the French accented characters (é, à, è) accessible in the unshifted state. The actual keyboards have the keys engraved for both variations; the difference is only in the driver setting. In the latest versions of Windows there are also separately listed driver settings for Swiss Italian and Swiss Romansh, but they correspond to the Swiss French and Swiss German layout, respectively. In Mac OS X 10.6 only Swiss French and Swiss German is available.
On Windows, Swiss German does not include the esszett (ß) ligature, which is only used in Germany and Austria, HP Pavilion DV6-1120er Keyboard
and so that letter is not found on the keyboard. Linux typically assigns ß to AltGr-s.
While the German keyboard uses German-language abbreviations (e.g. Strg for German Steuerung instead of Ctrl for Control), Swiss keyboards use the English abbreviations as a "neutral" solution, as they are used for all the national languages of Switzerland.
Luxembourg does not have a keyboard layout of its own. Public education uses the Swiss-French keyboard, while the banking sector prefers the Belgian layout[citation needed]. Other places use either or the US layout. Packard Bell PEW91 keyboard
Liechtenstein, which also has no keyboard layout of its own, uses the Swiss German keyboard.
[edit]AZERTY
Main article: AZERTY
The AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium and some African countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout thus:
A and Q are swapped,
Z and W are swapped,
M is moved to the right of L (where colon/semicolon is on a US keyboard),
The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used forDell Latitude D631 Keyboard
accented characters,
Caps lock is replaced by Shift lock, thus affects non-letter keys as well. But there is an evolution going towards a Caps lock key instead of a Shift lock.
The French and Belgian AZERTY keyboards also have special characters used in the French language, such as ç, à, é and è, and other characters such as &, ", ' and §, all located under the numbers.
[edit]French
French keyboard layout
Some French people use the Canadian Multilingual standard keyboard.
The Portuguese Gateway MT6705 Keyboard
(Portugal) keyboard layout may also be preferred, as it provides all the French accents (acute, grave, diaeresis, circumflex, cedilla, including on capital letters that are not all possible with a basic French standard layout, and also the French quotation marks or guillemets, «»). Furthermore, its dead-letter option for all the accent keys allows for easy input of all the possibilities in French and many other languages (áàäãâéèëêíìïîóòöõôúùüû). 'ç' is, Thinkpad X220
however, a separate key (but only as a lowercase letter in the basic French standard layout).
The US-International keyboard may also used for the same reason (notably by programmers as it allows easier input of ASCII characters, provided that they are trained to a QWERTY layout rather than the most common AZERTY layouts available in most computer shops, including online). An alternative (extremely rarely found) to AZERTY is the BÉPO layout : it's not available on any notebook, but may be used by adding an external keyboard, Thinkpad X220
bought separately from some specialized shops.
However the most common layouts available as an option in computer shops and that are not using the standard French layout is still the basic US layout, plus the QWERTY-based layouts used for Chinese and Vietnamese (that you can find in Parisian shops where there's a large enough Asian community, many of these shops being owned by people of Chinese or South-East Asian origin), or Arabic. Computer providers have also sold computers with the Belgian French AZERTY layout to French universities and schools. Most standard nationalThinkpad X220
layouts used in the world, and all layouts used in the European Union can easily be bought in online shops within the European Union as the old standard French keyboard is no longer mandatory.
[edit]Belgian
Belgian keyboard layout
The Belgian AZERTY keyboard was developed from the French AZERTY keyboard, but some adaptations were made in the 1980sSony AIO PCG-FR33/B Keyboard
.
All letters remain in the same positions as on the French keyboard, but there are:
additional symbols (³, ´, `)
other symbols in different locations (!, @, -, _, +, =, §)
[edit]Tamazight (Berber)
Tamazight (Berber) keyboard layout for Latin script
The Tamazight (Latin) standards-compliant layout is optimised for a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, and includes support for Tuareg variants. It installs as "Tamazight_L" and can be used both on the French locale and with Tamazight locales. QWERTY and QWERTZ adaptations are available for Sony VAIO PCG-FR33/B Keyboard
the physical keyboards used by major Amazigh (Berber) communities around the world.
Other non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY layouts exist which retain closer French keyboard compatibility and also allow typing in Tifinagh script without switching layout:
Tamazight (International) is optimised for French keyboard compatibility, with Tamazight (Berber) as an extension and limited Tifinagh script access (i.e. by deadkey). It installs as "Tamazight (Agraghlan)" or "Français+"Sony KFRMBA151B Keyboard.
Tamazight(International)+ is optimised for Tamazight (Berber), but with close French compatibility and easy typing in Tifinagh script. It installs as "Tamazight(Agraghlan)+" or "Tamazight_LF".
All the above layouts were designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and are available from there.
[edit]ĄŽERTY (Lithuanian)
Lithuanian keyboards use a layout known as ĄŽERTY, where Ą appears in place of Q above A, Ž in place of W above S, Compaq Presario CQ42-309AU Keyboard
with Q and W being available either on the far right-hand side or by use of the AltGr key. Depending on the software used, the Lithuanian symbols can also be positioned in the place of digits: 1 for Ą, 2 for Č, 3 for Ę, 4 for Ė, 5 for Į, 6 for Š, 7 for Ų, 8 for Ū and = for Ž.
[edit]QZERTY
The QZERTY layout is used mostly, if not exclusively, in Italy, where it is very common on typewriters[citation needed]. Computer keyboards usually have QWERTY, although non-alphanumeric characters vary.
Z and W are swappedAcer NSK-H361D Keyboard
M is moved from the right of N to the right of L, as in AZERTY
Apple supported QZERTY layout in its early Italian keyboards, and currently iPod Touch also has it available.[34]
[edit]Non-QWERTY keyboards for Latin scripts
There are also keyboard layouts that do not resemble QWERTY very closely, if at all. These are designed to reduce finger movement and are claimed by some proponents to offer higher typing speed along with ergonomic benefits. Acer Aspire 5310 Keyboard
[edit]Dvorak
Main article: Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (American Simplified Keyboard layout).
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) is the best-known alternative to QWERTY, also known as the American Simplified Keyboard, ASK layout. It was named after its inventor, August Dvorak. There are also numerous adaptations for languages other than English, and single-handed variants. Dvorak's original layout had the numerals rearranged, Packard Bell Easynote TK85 keyboard.
but the present-day layout has them in numerical order. The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard has numerous properties designed to increase typing speed, decrease errors, and increase comfort[citation needed]. The most prominent property involves concentrating the most used English letters in the home row where the fingers rest, thus having 70% of typing done in the home row (compared to 32% in QWERTY).
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is available out of the box on most operating systems, making switching through software very easy. Packard Bell NEW90 keyboard
"Hardwired" Dvorak keyboards are also available, though only from specialized hardware companies.
[edit]Colemak
Colemak keyboard layout
The Colemak keyboard layout is another alternativeHP Pavilion dv6-2130eg Keyboard
to the standard QWERTY layout, offering a more incremental change for users already accustomed to the standard layout.[35] It builds upon the QWERTY layout as a base, changing the positions of 17 keys while retaining the QWERTY positions of most non-alphabetic characters and many popular keyboard shortcuts, making it easier to learn than Dvorak for people who already type in QWERTY. Despite this, HP Mini 210-2004sa Keyboard
some measures show it to be equal to, if not a slight improvement over, Dvorak.[36]
An additional defining feature of the Colemak layout is the lack of a Caps Lock key; an additional Backspace key occupies the position typically occupied by Caps Lock on modern keyboards.[35]
The Colemak layout is supported out-of-the-box in the NetBSD,[37] FreeBSD,[38] DragonFly BSD,[39] Haiku,[40] Chrome and GNU/Linux[41] operating systems, as well as the X.org implementation of the X Window System (starting with X11R7. Toshiba Satellite A135-S4487 Keyboard
3 in 2007).[42] It is also included with the Apple Mac OS X and iOS (hardware keyboards), starting with Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5.0[43] and there is a multi-platform program available for Windows, Mac, and Linux,[44] although as of 2012 Windows has not yet adopted the keyboard in its out-of-the-box selection.
[edit]JCUKEN (Latin)
JCUKEN keyboard of the UKNC computer.
The JCUKEN layout was used in theAcer Aspire 4810TZ-4011 Keyboard
USSR for all computers (both domestically produced and imported such as Japan-made MSX-compatible systems) due to its phonetic compatibility with Russian ЙЦУКЕН layout (see below). The layout has the advantage of having punctuation marks on Latin and Cyrillic layouts mapped on the same keys.
[edit]Neo
Neo Layout, layer 1
Neo Layout, layer 3
The Neo layout is an optimized German keyboard layout developed 2004 by the Neo Users Group,[45] Asus F82 Keyboard
supporting nearly all Latin-based alphabets, including the International Phonetic Alphabet,[46] the Vietnamese language and some African languages.[47] The positions of the letters are not only optimized for German letter frequency, but also for typical groups of two or three letters. English is considered a major target as well. The design tries to enforce the alternating usage of both hands to increase typing speed. It is based on ideas from de-ergo and other ergonomic layouts. The high frequency keys are placed in the home row. HP G42-386TX Keyboard
The current layout Neo 2.0 (available since 2010) has unique features not present in other layouts, making it extremely suited for many target groups such as programmers, mathematicians, scientists or Latex authors.[citation needed] Neo is grouped in different layers, each designed for a special purpose. Most special characters inherit the meaning of the lower layers — for example the ⟨¿⟩ character is one layer above the ⟨?⟩,HP Mini 210-1030SW Keyboard
or the Greek ⟨α⟩ is above the ⟨a⟩ character. Neo uses a total of six layers with the following general use[48][49]:
Layer Usage
1 Lowercase characters
2 Uppercase characters, typographical characters
3 Special characters for programming, etc.
4 WASD-like movement keys and number block
5 Greek characters
6 Mathematical symbols and Greek uppercase characters
[edit]BÉPO
BÉPO layout
The BÉPO layout is an optimized French keyboard layout developed by the BÉPODell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
community,[50] supporting all Latin-based alphabets of the European Union, Greek and Esperanto.[51] It is also designed to ease programming. It is based on ideas from the Dvorak and other ergonomic layouts. Typing with it is usually easier due to the high frequency keys being in the home row.
[edit]Turkish (F-keyboard)
Turkish F-keyboard layout
The Turkish language uses the Turkish Latin alphabet, and a dedicated keyboard layout was designed in 1955 by İhsan Sıtkı Yener.[52] During its design, letter frequencies in the Turkish language were investigated with the aid of HP Mini 210-2180ca Keyboard
Turkish Language Association. These statistics were then combined with studies on bone and muscle anatomy of the fingers to design the Turkish F-keyboard. The keyboard provides a balanced distribution of typing effort between the hands: 49% for the left hand and 51% for the right. With this scientific preparation, Turkey has broken 14 world records in typewriting championships between 1957 and 1995.[53] In 2009, Recep Ertaş Toshiba NB200-00D Keyboard
and in 2011, Hakan Kurt from Turkey came in first in the text production event of the 47th (Beijing) and 48th (Paris) Intersteno congresses respectively.[54][55] Despite the greater efficiency of the Turkish F-keyboard however, the modified QWERTY keyboard ("Q-keyboard") is the one that is used on most computers in Turkey.
[edit]Chorded keyboards and mobile devices
Main article: Chorded keyboardToshiba NB200 Keyboard
The multi-touch screens of mobile devices allow implementation of virtual on-screen chorded keyboards. Buttons are fewer, so they can be made larger. Symbols on the keys can be changed dynamically depending on what other keys are pressed, thus eliminating the need to memorize combos for charactersToshiba NB200-00C Keyboard
and functions before use. For example, in the chorded GKOS keyboard which has been adapted for the Google Android, Apple iPhone, MS Windows Phone and Intel MeeGo/Harmattan platforms, thumbs are used for chording by pressing one or two keys at the same time. In the layout, the keys are divided in two separate pads which are located towards the sides of the screen and the text appears in the middle. Toshiba NB205 Keyboard
The most frequent letters have dedicated keys and do not require chording.
Some other layouts have also been designed specifically for use with mobile devices. The FITALY layout, which is optimised for use with a stylus to place the most commonly used letters closest to the centre and minimise the distance travelled when entering words. A similar concept was followed to research and develop the MessagEase keyboard layout for fast text entry with stylus or finger. The ATOMIK layout, designed for stylus use, Toshiba NB205-N313/P Keyboard
was developed by IBM using the Metropolis Algorithm to mathematically minimize the movement necessary to spell words in English.[56] The ATOMIK keyboard layout is an alternative to QWERTY in ShapeWriter's WritingPad software.[57]
Chorded keyboards in general, such as the Stenotype and Velotype, allow letters and words to be entered using combinations of keys in a single stroke. Toshiba P205-S6237 Keyboard
Users of stenotype machines can often reach rates as high as 300 words per minute and these systems are commonly used for realtime transcription by court reporters and in live closed captioning systems.
[edit]Other original layouts Toshiba P205-S6247 Keyboard
and layout design software
United-States Maltron 3D Keyboard-Layout
Several other alternative keyboard layouts have been designed either for use with specialist commercial keyboards (e.g. Maltron and PLUM) or by hobbyists (e.g. Asset, Arensito); however, none of them are in widespread use, and many of them are merely proofs of concept. Principles commonly used in their design include maximisingToshiba P205D-S7429 Keyboard
use of the home row, minimising finger movement, maximising hand alternation or inward rolls (where successive letters are typed moving towards the centre of the keyboard), minimising changes from QWERTY to ease the learning curve, and so on.
Maltron also has a single-handed keyboard layout.[ Toshiba P205D-S7438 Keyboard
58]
Programs such as the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator,[59] KbdEdit[60] and Keyman Developer[61] make it easy to create custom keyboard layouts for regular keyboards;[62] users may satisfy their own typing patterns or specific needs by creating new ones from scratch (like the IPA[63] or pan-iberian[64] layouts) or modify existing ones (for example, the Latin American Extended[65] or Gaelic[66] layouts). Toshiba Portege 2010 Keyboard
Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator can even construct complex key sequence using dead keys and AltGr key.
Some high end keyboards such as the Kinesis Advantage contoured keyboard allow users total flexibility to reprogram keyboard mappings at the hardware level.
A few companies offer "ABC" (alphabetical) layout keyboards.[67][68]
[edit]Keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scriptsToshiba Portege 3500 Keyboard
Some keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scripts, most notably the Greek layout, are based on the QWERTY layout, in that glyphs are assigned as far as possible to keys that bear similar-sounding or appearing glyphs in QWERTY. This saves learning time for those familiar with QWERTY.
This is not a general rule, Toshiba Portege 3505 Keyboard
and many non-Latin keyboard layouts have been invented from scratch.
All non-Latin computer keyboard layouts can also input Latin letters as well as the script of the language, for example, when typing in URLs or names. This may be done through a special key on the keyboard devoted to this task, or through some special combination of keys, or through software programs that do not interact with the keyboard much.
[editToshiba Portege 7100 Keyboard
]Arabic
Main article: Arabic keyboard
Arabic Windows keyboard layout
This layout was developed by Microsoft from the classic Arabic typewriter layout and is used by IBM PCs.
Arabic Mac keyboard layout
For Apple keyboards there is a different layout.
[edit]ArmenianToshiba Portege 7140ct Keyboard
Armenian keyboard layout
The Armenian keyboard is similar to the Greek in that in most (but not all) cases, a given Armenian letter is at the same location as the corresponding Latin letter on the QWERTY keyboard.
[edit]Brahmic scripts
Media related to Brahmic Toshiba Portege 7200 Keyboard
keyboard layouts at Wikimedia Commons
[edit]InScript
Main article: InScript
See also: Devanāgarī#Devanāgarī keyboard layouts
Script keyboard layout for Sanskrit
A Devanagari InScript bilingual keyboard
InScript is the standard keyboard for 12 Indian scripts including Devanagari, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu etc.
Most Indian scripts areToshiba Portege 7220cte Keyboard
derived from Brahmi, therefore their alphabetic order is identical. On the basis of this property, the InScript keyboard layout scheme was prepared. So a person who knows InScript typing in one language can type in other scripts using dictation even without knowledge of that script.
An InScript keyboard is inbuilt in most modern operating systems including Windows, Linux and Mac OS. It is also available in some mobile phones.
[edit]KhmerToshiba Portege M200 Keyboard
Khmer keyboard layout
Khmer uses its own layout roughly matched to the equivalent of its QWERTY counterpart. For example, the letter ល [lɔ] is typed on the same space as the letter L on the English based qwerty. Since most Khmer consonants have two forms, the shift key is used to switch between the first and second forms. The glyph below the letter Toshiba Portege M400 Keyboard
ញ [ɲɔ] is used to type in subscripts when they occur in a cluster. Since spaces are used in Khmer to separate sentences and not words, the space option is activated when pressed with the shift key only. Otherwise it has no effect.
[edit]Sinhalese
Sinhala keyboard layout
The Sinhala keyboard layout is based on the Wijesekara typewriter for Sinhala script.
[edit]Thai
Thai Toshiba Portege M500 Keyboard
Kedmanee keyboard layout
The less frequently used characters are accessed by the Shift key. Despite their wide usage in Thai, Arabic numbers are not present on the main section of the keyboard. Instead they are accessed via the numeric keypad. The backtick (`) key is blank, because this key is typically used to switch between input languages.
[edit]Tibetan
[edit]Tibetan (China)
Tibetan keyboard layout
The Chinese National Toshiba Portege p100 Keyboard
Standard on Tibetan Keyboard Layout standardises a layout for the Tibetan language in China.[69]
The first version of Microsoft Windows to support the Tibetan keyboard layout is MS Windows Vista. The layout has been available in GNU/Linux since September 2007.
[edit]Dzongkha (Bhutan)
Main article: Dzongkha keyboard layout
Dzongkha keyboard layout
The BhutaneseToshiba Portege pr100 Keyboard
Standard for a Dzongkha keyboard layout standardizes the layout for typing Dzongkha, and other languages using the Tibetan script, in Bhutan. This standard layout was formulated by the Dzongkha Development Commission and Department of Information Technology in Bhutan. The Dzongkha keyboard layout is very easy to learn as the key sequence essentially follows the order of letters in the Dzongkha and Tibetan alphabet. The layout has been available in GNU/Linux since 2004.
[edit]Cyrillic
Media related to Toshiba Portege R100 Keyboard
Cyrillic keyboard layouts at Wikimedia Commons
[edit]Bulgarian
Bulgarian keyboard layout (BDS 5237:1978)
The current official Bulgarian keyboard layout for both typewriters and computer keyboards is described in BDS (Bulgarian State/National Standard) 5237:1978.[70] It superseded the old standard, BDS 5237:1968, on 1 January 1978.[70] Like the Dvorak keyboard, it has been designed to optimize typing speed and efficiency, Toshiba Portege R100-40 Keyboard
placing the most common letters in the Bulgarian language — О, Н, Т and А — under the strongest fingers. In addition to the standard 30 letters of the Bulgarian alphabet, the layout includes the non-Bulgarian Cyrillic symbols Э and ы and the Roman numerals I and V (the X is supposed to be represented by the Cyrillic capital ХToshiba Portege S100-s113 Keyboard
, which is acceptable in typewriters but problematic in computers).
There is also a second, informal layout in widespread use — the so-called "phonetic" layout, in which Cyrillic letters are mapped Toshiba Portege S100-s1132 Keyboard
to the QWERTY keys for Latin letters that "sound" or "look" the same, with several exceptions (Я is mapped to Q, Ж is mapped to V, etc. — see the layout and compare it to the standard QWERTY layout). This layout is available as an alternative to the BDS one in some operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Normally, the layouts are set up so that the user can switch between LatinToshiba Portege S100-s213 Keyboard
and Cyrillic script by pressing Shift + Alt, and between BDS and Phonetic by pressing Shift + Ctrl.
In 2006, Prof. Dimiter Skordev from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of Sofia University and Dimitar Dobrev from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences proposed a new standard, prBDS 5237:2006, including a revised version of the old BDS layout and a standardization of the informal "phonetic" layout. After some controversy and a public discussion in 2008, the proposal was not accepted,[71] although itToshiba Portege S105-s1133 Keyboard
had been already used in several places – the "Bulgarian Phonetic" layout in MS Windows Vista is based on it.
[edit]Moldovan
Moldovan Cyrillic layout
The Moldovan Cyrillic keyboard layout is based on a mixture of Russian phonetic and Serbian keyboard layout while adding a unique letter Ӂ Toshiba Qosmio E10 series Keyboard
to the layout in place of the letter Џ on the Serbian Cyrillic layout. This is the ЭЖЕРТ (EZhERT) layout. The letter Я is mapped the same as on the standard Russian layout, while letter Й is mapped where J is in Serbian layout. Also, letters Ь and Ы are remapped. This unofficial keyboard layout can be found here.[72]
[edit]Russian
Main article: JCUKEN
See also: KeyboardToshiba Qosmio E15 Series Keyboard
layout#JCUKEN (Latin)
Russian Windows keyboard layout
The most common keyboard layout in modern Russia is the so-called Windows layout. It is the default Russian layout used in the MS Windows operating system. This layout allows using keyboards of the same physical design as in many other countries but has some usability issues for Russian-language users. Because of an unfortunate design decision, the comma and full stop symbols are on the same keyToshiba Qosmio E15-AV101 Keyboard
in this layout, and users need to hold Shift every time they enter a comma although the comma is much more frequent in the language.[73]
There are some other Russian keyboard layouts in use: in particular, the traditional Russian Typewriter layout (punctuation symbols are placed on numerical keys, one needs to press Shift to enter numbers) and the Russian DOS layout Toshiba Qosmio F10 Series Keyboard
(similar to the Russian Typewriter layout with common punctuation symbols on numerical keys, but numbers are entered without Shift). The Russian Typewriter layout can be found on many Russian typewriters produced before the 1990s, and it is the default Russian keyboard layout in the OpenSolaris operating system.[74]
Keyboards in Russia always have Cyrillic letters on the keytops as well as Latin letters. Usually Cyrillic and Latin letters are labeled with different colors. Toshiba Qosmio F15 Series Keyboard
Russian phonetic keyboard layout
The Russian phonetic keyboard layout (also called homophonic or transliterated) is widely used outside Russia, where normally there are no Russian letters drawn on keyboard buttons. This layout is made for typists who are more familiar with other layouts, like the common English QWERTY keyboard, and follows the Greek and Armenian layouts in placing most letters at the corresponding Latin letter locations. Toshiba Qosmio F20 Series Keyboard
It is famous among both native speakers and people who use, teach, or are learning Russian, and is recommended — along with the Standard Layout — by the linguists, translators, teachers and students of AATSEEL.org.[75]
There are several different Russian phonetic layouts, for example YaZhERT (яжерт), YaWERT (яверт), and YaShERT (яшерт) (also sometimes with the 'ы'/'y' — i.e. YaZhERTY (яжерты), YaWERTY (яверты), etc.) They are named after the first several letters that take over the 'QWERTY' row on the Latin keyboard. They differ byToshiba Qosmio F25 Series Keyboard
where a few of the letters are placed. For example, some have Cyrillic 'B' (which is pronounced 'V') on the Latin 'W' key (after the German transliteration of B), while others have it on the Latin 'V' key. There are also variations within these variations; for example the Mac OS X Phonetic Russian layout is YaShERT but differs in placement of ж and э.[76][77]
A virtual (on-screen) Russian keyboard[78] allows entering Cyrillic directly in a browser without installing Russian drivers. Toshiba QOSMIO F40 SERIES Keyboard
Another virtual keyboard[79] supports both traditional (MS Windows and Typewriter) and some phonetic keyboard layouts.
[edit]Serbian (Cyrillic)
Serbian Cyrillic keyboard layout
Apart from a set of characters common to most Cyrillic alphabets, the Serbian Cyrillic layout uses six additional special characters unique or nearly unique to the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet: Љ, Њ, Ћ, Ђ, Џ and Ј.
Due to the bialphabetic nature of the language, actual physical keyboards with the Serbian Cyrillic layout printed on the Toshiba Qosmio F40-ST4101 Keyboard
keys are somewhat uncommon today. Typical keyboards sold in Serbian-speaking markets are marked with Serbian Latin characters and used with both the Latin (QWERTZ) and Cyrillic layout configured in the software. What makes the two layouts this readily interchangeable is that the non-alphabetic keys are identical between them, and alphabetic keys always correspond directly to their counterparts (except the Latin letters Q, W, X, and Y that have no Cyrillic equivalents, and the Cyrillic letters Љ, Њ and Џ whoseToshiba Qosmio F40/85C Keyboard
Latin counterparts are digraphs LJ, NJ and DŽ). This also makes the Serbian Cyrillic layout a rare example of a non-Latin layout based on QWERTZ.
The Macedonian dze is on this keyboard despite not being used in Serbian Cyrillic. The gje and kje can be typed by striking the apostrophe key then striking the G or K key.
There is also a dedicated Macedonian keyboard that is based on QWERTY (LjNjERTDz) and uses Alt Gr to type the dje and tshe. However, Toshiba Qosmio F40/85D Keyboard
the capital forms are next to the small forms.
[edit]Ukrainian
Ukrainian keyboard layout
Ukrainian keyboards, based on a slight modification of Russian Standard Layout, often also have the Russian Standard ("Windows") layout marked on them, making it easy to switch from one language to another. This keyboard layout had several problems, Toshiba Qosmio F40/85E Keyboard
one of which was the omission of the letter Ґ, which does not exist in Russian. The other long-standing problem was the omission of the apostrophe, which is used in Ukrainian almost as commonly as in English (though with a different value), but which also does not exist in Russian. Both of these problems were resolved with the Toshiba Qosmio F40/85F Keyboard
"improved Ukrainian" keyboard layout for Windows available with Vista and subsequent Windows versions.
[edit]Georgian
Main article: Georgian keyboard
Georgian keyboard
All keyboards in Georgia are fitted with both Latin and Georgian letters.
[edit]Greek
Greek keyboard layout in comparison to UK layout
The usual Greek layout follows the U.S. Toshiba Qosmio F40/86DBL Keyboard
layout for letters related to Latin letters (ABDEHIKLMNOPRSTXYZ, ΑΒΔΕΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΡΣΤΧΥΖ, respectively), substitutes visually or phonetically similar letters (Φ at F; Γ at G) and uses the remaining slots for the remaining Greek letters: Ξ at J; Ψ at C; Ω at V; Θ at U).
Greek has two fewer letters than English, but has two accents which, because of their frequency, are placed on the home row at the U.K. ";" Toshiba Qosmio F40/86EBL Keyboard
position; they are dead keys. Word-final sigma has its own position as well, substituting W, and semicolon (which is used as a question mark in Greek) and colon move to the position of Q.
[edit]Hebrew
Main article: Hebrew keyboard
Hebrew keyboard
All keyboards in Israel are fitted with both Latin Toshiba Qosmio F40/86G Keyboard
and Hebrew letters. Trilingual editions including either Arabic or Russian also exist.
[edit]Inuktitut
Latin keyboard layout for Inuktitut
Naqittaut keyboard layout for InuktitutToshiba Qosmio F40/87C Keyboard
Inuktitut has two similar, though not identical, commonly available keyboard layouts for Windows. Both contain a basic Latin layout in its base and shift states, with a few Latin characters in the AltGr shift states. The Canadian Aboriginal syllabics can be found in the Capslock and AltGr shift states in both layouts as well.
The difference between the two layouts lies in the use of ] as an alternate to AltGr to create the dotted, long vowel syllables, and the mapping of the small plain consonants to the Caps + number keys in the "Naqittaut" layout, while the Toshiba Qosmio F40/87CBL Keyboard
"Latin" layout does not have access to the plain consonants, and can only access the long vowel syllables through the AltGr shift states.
[edit]Tifinagh
[edit]Tamazight (Berber)
Tamazight (Berber) keyboard layout for Tifinagh script
The Tamazight (Tifinagh) standards-compliant layout is optimised for a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, Toshiba Qosmio F40/87DBL Keyboard
and includes support for Tuareg variants. AZERTY-mapped, it installs as "Tamazight_F" and can be used both on the French locale and with Tamazight locales. QWERTY and QWERTZ adaptations are available for the physical keyboards used by major Amazigh (Berber) communities around the world.
Non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY Latin script layouts exist which also allow typing in Tifinagh script without switching layout:
Tamazight (International) is optimised for French keyboard compatibility, Toshiba Qosmio F40/87EBL Keyboard
with Tamazight (Berber) as an extension and limited Tifinagh script access (i.e. by deadkey). It installs as "Tamazight (Agraghlan)" or "Français+".
Tamazight(International)+ is optimised for Tamazight (Berber), but with close French compatibility and easy typing in Tifinagh script. It installs as "Tamazight(Agraghlan)+" or "Tamazight_LF".
A non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY-mapped Tifinagh layout exists which also allows typing in Latin script without Toshiba Qosmio F40/88DBL Keyboard
switching layout:
Tifinagh (International). It installs as "Tifinagh (Agraghlan)" or "Tamazight_FL".
All the above layouts were designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and are available from there.
Moroccan (IRCAM) Tamazight (Berber) keyboard layout for Tifinagh script
[edit]Morocco
The Royal institute of the Amazigh culture (IRCAM) developed a national standard Tifinagh layout for Tamazight (Berber) in Morocco. Toshiba Qosmio F40/88EBL Keyboard
It is included in Linux and Windows 8, and is available from IRCAM for the Mac and older versions of Windows.
A compatible, international version of this layout, called "Tifinagh (International)" exists for typing a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, and includes support for Tuareg variants as well as the ability to type in Latin script when required. It was designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and is available from there.
[edit]East Asian languagesToshiba Qosmio F45 Keyboard
Chinese, Japanese and Korean require special input methods, often abbreviated to CJK IMEs (Input Method Editors), due to the thousands of possible characters in these languages. Various methods have been invented to fit every possibility into a QWERTY keyboard, so East Asian keyboards are essentially the same as those in other countries. However, their input methods are considerably more complex, without one-to-one mappings between keys and characters.
In general, the range of possibilities is Toshiba QOSMIO F45 SERIES Keyboard
first narrowed down (often by entering the desired character's pronunciation). Then, if there remains more than one possibility, the desired ideogram is selected, either by typing the number before the character, or using a graphical menu to select it. The computer assists the typist by using heuristics to guess which character is most likely desired. Although this may seem painstaking, Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV411 Keyboard
East Asian input methods are today sufficient in that, even for beginners, typing in these languages is only slightly slower than typing English.
In Japanese, the QWERTY-based JIS keyboard layout is used, and the pronunciation of each character is entered using Hepburn romanization or Kunrei-shiki romanization. There are several kana-based typing methods. See also Japanese language and computers.
Chinese has the most complex and varied input methods. Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV423 Keyboard
Characters can be entered by pronunciation (like Japanese and Hanja in Korean) or by structure. Most of the structural methods are difficult to learn, but they are extremely fast for experienced typists, as they do not need to select characters from a menu. For a detailed treatment, see Chinese input methods for computers.
There exist a variety of other, Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV425 Keyboard
slower methods in which a character may be entered. If the pronunciation of a character is not known, the selection can be narrowed down by giving its component shapes, radicals, and stroke count. Also, many input systems include a "drawing pad" permitting "handwriting" of a character using a mouse. Finally, if the computer does not have CJK software installed, it may be possible to enter a character directly through its encoding number (e.g. Unicode).
In contrast to Chinese and Japanese, Toshiba Qosmio G10 Series Keyboard
Korean is typed similarly to Western languages. There exist two major forms of keyboard layouts: Dubeolsik (두벌식), and Sebeolsik (세벌식). Dubeolsik, which shares its symbol layout with the QWERTY keyboard, is more commonly used. While Korean consonants and vowels (jamo) are grouped together into syllabic grids when written, the script is essentially alphabetical, and therefore typing in Korean is quite simple for those who understand the Korean alphabet Hangul. Each jamo is assigned to a single key. Toshiba Qosmio G15 Series Keyboard
As the user types letters, the computer automatically groups them into syllabic characters. Given a sequence of jamo, there is only one unambiguous way letters can be validly grouped into syllables, so the computer groups them together as the user types.
[edit]Japanese
Japanese (OADG 109A) keyboard layout with Hiragana keysToshiba Qosmio G15-AV501 Keyboard
Media related to Japanese keyboard layouts at Wikimedia Commons
The JIS standard layout includes Japanese kana in addition to a QWERTY style layout.
Example of Microsoft's IME in Windows
For entering Japanese, the most common method is entering text phonetically, as romanized (transliterated) kana, which are then converted to kanji as appropriate by an input method editor. It is also possible to type kana directly, Toshiba Qosmio G20 Series Keyboard
depending on the mode used. For example, to type たかはし, "Takahashi", a Japanese name, one could type either "takahas(h)i" in Romanized (Rōmaji) input mode, or "qtfd" in kana input mode. Then the user can proceed to the conversion step to convert the input into the appropriate kanji.
The extra keys in the bottom row (muhenkan, henkan, and the Hiragana/Katakana switch key) Toshiba Qosmio G25 Series Keyboard
, and the special keys in the leftmost column (the hankaku/zenkaku key at the upper left corner, and the eisu key at the Caps Lock position), control various aspects of the conversion process and select different modes of input.
For more details, see the section on East Asian languages above, and the articles Japanese language and computers, Japanese input methods, and Language input keys. Toshiba Qosmio G30 Series Keyboard
[edit]Chinese
A Chinese keyboard is simply a US layout with/without Chinese input method labels printed on the keys. Without an input method handler, these keyboards would respond to Latin characters, provided that US keyboard layout is selected in the operating system.
Most modern input methods allow input of both simplified and traditional characters, and will simply default to one or the other based on the locale settingToshiba Qosmio G35 Series Keyboard
.
See the section on Chinese languages, and also Chinese input methods for computers.
[edit]China Mainland
Keyboards used in the People's Republic of China are typically standard or slightly modified English US (QWERTY) ones, while Chinese characters are input using various IMEs, most commonly Hanyu pinyin representing the pronunciation of characters using Latin letters; although models with labels for alternative input methods such as Wubi method can be found in some very rare cases, usually in very old product.
[edit]Taiwan
Chinese (Taiwan) keyboard layout, Toshiba Qosmio G40 Keyboard
a US keyboard with Zhuyin, Cangjie and Dayi key labels
Computers in Taiwan often use Zhuyin (bopomofo) style keyboards (US keyboards with bopomofo labels), many also with Cangjie method key labels, as Cangjie is the standard method for speed-typing in Traditional Chinese. The bopomofo style keyboards are in lexicographical order, top-to-bottom left-to-right. The codes of three input methods are typically printed on the Chinese (traditional) keyboard: Zhuyin Toshiba Qosmio G40/95C Keyboard
(upper right); Cangjie (lower left); and Dayi (lower right).
[edit]Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, both Chinese (Taiwan) and US keyboards are found. Japanese keyboards are occasionally found, but UK keyboards are rare.
Other input methods include the Cantonese Input Method for the Cantonese language speakers. The romanisation requires users to spell out the Cantonese sound of each character without tone marks, e.g. 'heung' and 'kong' (or 'gong') for 'Hong Kong'/香港 and to choose the characters from a list.
The advantage of the Cantonese Input Method isToshiba Qosmio G40/97C Keyboard
that nearly all Cantonese Speakers can input Traditional Chinese characters on their very instinct; no particular training and practice is required at all. The advantage available to a Hanyu Pinyin user is that any keyboard with just an English layout, i.e., without BoPoMoFo markings engraved, can deploy the Pinyin IME for bilingual (both Chinese and English on the same document) input. Toshiba Qosmio G40/97D Keyboard
All those who have received formal education in Mainland China can easily input with Hanyu Pinyin without any formal training. The drawback of Hanyu Pinyin to a Hong Kong native Cantonese speaker is that the alphabets are not pronounced exactly in the same way as the common English language syllables should be pronounced because it is only the Latin letters in the keyboard that have been used by the Hanyu Pinyin MethodToshiba Qosmio G45 Keyboard
.
Although Cantonese input method seems intuitive to Hong Kong people, it is an unpopular input method for various reasons. There are many characters that can have the same syllable in the spelling only (they sound the same but are written with different characters) that needed to be differentiated by different intonations for speech communication. Unless a user has also input a phonetic intonation or an accent numeral Toshiba Satellite 1130 Series Keyboard
(i.e., 1, 2, 3, or 4.) to narrow down the list of possible combinations, he or she can have a substantial set of ambiguous Chinese characters of the same pronunciation to select. The selection process can slow down the input speed for those do have not input an accent numeral after each and every Cantonese spelling. There is no official standard for Cantonese romanisation, and there are multiple romanisation schemes, which leads to different Cantonese input method implementations adopts different romanisationsToshiba Satellite 1300 Keyboard
. Moreover, Hong Kong students almost never learn any of the romanisation schemes. Also, Microsoft Windows, which is the most popular operating system used in desktops, doesn't carry Cantonese input method, users would need to find a third-party input method software and install into Windows to use Cantonese input method, Toshiba Satellite 1400 Series Keyboard
which may be cumbersome for system administrators who are responsible for office computers.
For these reasons, Hong Kong computer users often have to resort to use those "harder" shape-based Chinese input methods (e.g. Cangjie); or for those with formal Mandarin education, they may choose Pinyin instead. A minority of users may even have to use a graphics tableToshiba Satellite 1400-S151 Keyboard
t designed to recognize handwritten Chinese characters.
Thorough training and practice are required to input correctly with Changjie or Cangjie, yet it is, by impression, the quickest Chinese input method[clarification needed]. Many Cantonese speakers have taken Changjie or Cangjie input courses because of the fast typing speed availed by the input method. This method is the fastest because it has the capability to fetch the exact, unambiguous Chinese character which the userToshiba Satellite 1405 Series Keyboard
has in mind to input, pinpointing to only one character in most cases. This is also the reason why no provision for an input of phonetic accent is needed to complement this Input Method. The Changjie or Cangjie character feature is available on both Mac OS X and Windows. On Mac OS X the use of the multitouch pads of modern Macs makes it possible to write a glyph with a finger and the correct character is recognised by the computer.[clarification needed]
The clumsiest Chinese Input method is the StrokeToshiba Satellite 1405-S151 Keyboard
Input Method which is ideal for those who are not so proficient in spelling the Cantonese language in English Alphabets nor Mandarin in Pinyin. The method is widely installed in mobile phones with small screens because the method only requires five key taps for the 5,000 commonly used Chinese characters. Toshiba Satellite 1405-S152 Keyboard
It is also considered too tedious requiring a user to type out all the strokes constituting a single Chinese character. Chinese characters sharing the same 3 to 5 beginning brush strokes are grouped to response to users' tapping sequences. Thus, there yields a lengthly list of more than 40 some Chinese characters having these similar beginning strokes for the user to confirm which one of the listed characters Toshiba Satellite 1405-S171 Keyboard
should be the intended one to input.
The character picking process is a must for the Stroke Input Method users regardless of whether the Traditional or Simplified Chinese character set is to be used. To a native Hong Kong Cantonese speaker who can spell the Cantonese dialect fairly accurately in English alphabets and, who types Chinese in ad-hoc occasions only; Toshiba Satellite 1405-S172 Keyboard
Cantonese Input Method is, by far, the most convenient Chinese input method both for phone book searching and for word processing using laptops and smart phones.
See also: British and American keyboards and Technical standards in Hong Kong
[edit]Hangul (for Korean)
See also: Korean language and computers, Hangul, and Korean language
Media related to Korean keyboard layouts at Wikimedia Commons
[edit]Dubeolsik
Toshiba Satellite 1410 Series Keyboard
Dubeolsik Hangul keyboard layout
Dubeolsik (두벌식; 2-set) is by far the most common and the sole national standard of Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea since 1969. Pressing the Han/Eng (한/영) key once switches between Hangul as shown, and QWERTY. There is another key to the left of the space bar for Hanja input. If using a 104-key keyboard, the left Alt key will become the Ha/En key, and the right Ctrl key will become the Hanja keyToshiba Satellite 1410-S173 Keyboard
. Consonants occupy the left side of the layout, while vowels are on the right.
[edit]Sebeolsik 390
Sebeolsik 390 Hangul keyboard layout
Sebeolsik 390 (세벌식 390; 3-set 390) was released in 1990. It is based on Dr. Kong Byung Woo's earlier work. This layout is notable for its compatibility with the QWERTY layout; almost all QWERTY symbols that are not alphanumeric are available in Hangul mode. Numbers are placed in three rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right (shown green in the picture), and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left (shown red). Toshiba Satellite 1410-S174 Keyboard
Some consonant clusters are not printed on the keyboard; the user has to press multiple consonant keys to input some consonant clusters, unlike Sebeolsik Final. It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.
[edit]Sebeolsik Final
Sebeolsik Final Hangul keyboard layout
Sebeolsik Final (세벌식 최종; 3-set Final) is another Hangul keyboard layoutToshiba Satellite 1415 Keyboard
in use in South Korea. It is the final Sebulsik layout designed Dr. Kong Byung Woo, hence the name. Numbers are placed on two rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right, and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left. Vowels are in the middle. All consonant clusters are available on the keyboard, unlike the Sebeolsik 390 which does not include all of them. Toshiba Satellite 1415 Series Keyboard
It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.
[edit]Sebeolsik Noshift
Sebeolsik Noshift Hangul keyboard layout
Sebeolsik Noshift is a variant of sebeolsik which can be used without pressing the shift key. Its advantage is that people with disabilities who cannot press Toshiba Satellite 1415-S105 Keyboard
two keys at the same time will still be able to use it to type in Hangul.
Toshiba Satellite 1415-S106 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1415-S115 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1415-S173 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1800 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1800-214 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1800-314 Keyboard
The arrangement of the character input keys and the Shift keys contained in this layout is specified in the U.S. HP Mini 1126NR Keyboard
American national standard ANSI-INCITS 154-1988 (R1999) (formerly ANSI X3.154-1988 (R1999)),[25] where this layout is called "ASCII keyboard". The complete US keyboard layout, as it is usually found, also contains the usual function keys in accordance with the international standard ISO/IEC 9995-2, although this is not explicitly required by the US American national standard. Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110L Keyboard
US keyboards are used not only in the United States, but also in many other English-speaking places, including India, Australia, English Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines. However, the United Kingdom and Ireland, use a slightly different layout.
The US keyboard layout has a second Alt key instead of the AltGr key and does not use any dead keys; this makes it inefficient for Toshiba Mini NB 505-SP0110L Keyboard
all but a handful of languages. On the other hand, the US keyboard layout (or the similar UK layout) is occasionally used by programmers in countries where the keys for []{} are located in less convenient positions on the locally customary layout.[26]
On some keyboards the enter key is bigger than traditionally and takes up also a part of the line above, more or less the area of the traditional location of the backslash key (\). In these cases the backslash is located in alternative places.[27] Gateway MT6460 Keyboard
It can be situated one line above the default location, on the right of the equals sign key (=).[28][29] Sometimes it's placed one line below its traditional situation, on the right of the apostrophe key (') (in these cases the enter key is narrower than usual on the line of its default location).[30] It may also be two lines below its default situation, below the enter key, on the right of a narrower than traditionally right shift key.[31]
[edit]US-InternationalToshiba Satellite C655-S5132 Keyboard
US-International keyboard layout
There is an alternative layout that uses the physical US keyboard to type diacritics in some operating systems (including Windows). This is the US-International layout, which uses the right Alt key as an AltGr key which supports many additional characters directly as an additional shift key, and uses keys ', `, ", ^ and ~ as dead keys used to generate characters with diacritics by pressing the appropriate key, then the letter on the keyboard. The international keyboard is a software setting installed from the Windows control panel[32] or similar; Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
the additional functions (shown in blue) may or may not be engraved on the keyboard, but are always functional. It can be used to type most major Western European languages: Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Faroese, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, and Swedish. (Maltese and Welsh are a couple of minor unsupported exceptions.)
A diacritic key is activated by pressing and releasing it, then pressing the letter that requires a diacritic. After the two strokes, Asus X53S Keyboard
the single character with diacritics is generated. Note that only certain letters (such as vowels and n) can have diacritics in this way. To generate the symbols ', `, ", ^ and ~, when the following character is capable of having a diacritic, press the Spacebar after the key.
Characters with diacritics can be typed with the following combinations:
' + vowel → vowel with acute accent, e.g., '+e → é
` + vowel → vowel with grave accent, e.g., `+e → è
" + vowel → vowel with diaeresis (or umlaut), e.g., "+e → ë
^ + vowel → vowel with circumflex accent, e.g., ^+e → ê
~ + a, n or o → letter with tilde, e.g. ~+n → ñ, ~+o → õ
' + c → ç04W0872
The US-International layout is not entirely transparent to users familiar with the US layout; when using a machine with the international layout the commonly used single- and double-quote keys and the less commonly used grave accent, tilde, and caret keys will behave unexpectedly. This could be disconcerting on a machine for shared or public use
There are also alternative US-International formats, whereby modifier keys such as shift and alt are used, and the keys Sony VGN-FE21S Keyboard
for the characters with diacritics are in different places from their unmodified counterparts.
[edit]US-International in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands the US-International keyboard layout is nearly always used. The Dutch layout is historical, and keyboards with this layout are rarely used. Many US keyboards sold do not have the extra US-International characters or AltGr engraved on the keyboard, although € (AltGr+5) always is; nevertheless, Acer Aspire One D150-1322 Keyboard
the keys work as expected even if not marked. Many computer-experienced Dutch people have retained the habit of using Alt + number codes to type accented characters, though use of a spelling checker to replace words typed without diacritics by the correct form is common.
Windows has an error by which the (obsolete) Dutch layout is set as default if the Windows location is set to the Netherlands, and will even install this every time the system boots, replacing the US-International layout. Acer Aspire 5741Z Keyboard
This causes many issues, but has not been patched.
[edit]Apple International English Keyboard
International English version of Apple keyboard
There are three kinds of Apple Keyboards for English: the United States, the United Kingdom and International English. The International English version is almost identical to the United States version, but some features are identical to the United Kingdom version:
The `~ key is located on the left of the Z key, and the \| key is located on the right of the '" key.
The §± key is added on the left of the 1! Sony KFRSBA019A Keyboard
key.
The left ⇧ Shift key is shortened and the Return key has the shape of inverted L.
[edit]Vietnamese
Vietnamese keyboard layout
The Vietnamese keyboard layout is an extended Latin QWERTY layout. The letters Ă, Â, Ê, and Ô are found on what would be the number keys 1–4 on the American English keyboard, with 5–9 producing the tonal marks (grave accent, hook, tilde, acute accent, and dot below, in that order), 0 producing Đ, = producing the đồng sign Dell 3C048 Keyboard
(₫) when not shifted, and brackets ([]) producing Ư and Ơ.[33]
[edit]QWERTZ
Main article: QWERTZ
The QWERTZ layout is fairly widely used in Germany and much of Central Europe. The main difference between it and QWERTY is that Y and Z are swapped, and most special characters such as brackets are replaced by diacritical characters.
[edit]Austria and Germany
German keyboard layout “T2” according to DIN 2137:2012-06.
The characters shown in black are present in the traditional ”T1” layout also.
Main article: German keyboard layoutSony VAIO VGN-AR730E Keyboard
The PC keyboard layout commonly used in Germany and Austria is based on one defined in a former edition (October 1988) of the German standard DIN 2137-2. The current edition DIN 2137:2012-06 standardizes it as the first (basic) one of three layouts, calling it “T1” (“Tastaturbelegung 1” = “keyboard layout 1”).
It employs dead keys to type accented characters like “é”, and the AltGr key to access characters in the third level (e.g. “[”, “]”, “@”, the Euro sign “€”, or the Capital ẞ). The “T2” layout as specified in the 2012 edition of the German standard also uses the group selection to access special characters like the long s, Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
or foreign characters like “Æ” or “Ə”.
[edit]Czech (QWERTZ)
Czech QWERTY/Z keyboard layout
The QWERTZ keyboard layout is commonly used in the Czech Republic, but the QWERTY variant is an option. (The layout in the picture is a combination of the US and CZ keyboard layout.)
[edit]Hungary
Hungarian keyboard layout
Note that on some keyboards "ű" is found to the right of the right Shift key. Also, many Hungarians who were not exposed to typewriters, but started using computers when Hungarian keyboards were uncommon or unavailable, Sony 147977821 Keyboard
still prefer the layout with the y/z keys in their QWERTY locations because that is what they are used to. The same applies to Hungarians who frequently switch between a QWERTY and a Hungarian layout (for example because they write in several different languages).
[edit]Poland
Polish keyboard for typewriters according to PN-87.
Polish keyboard QWERTZ HP Pavilion dv6-2117eo Keyboard
used in Macintosh.
Layout PL-214 used in MS-Dos, Windows and Linux.
[edit]Slovak (QWERTZ)
Slovak QWERTY/Z keyboard layout
Typewriters in Slovakia have used the QWERTZ layout quite similar to the layout used on the Czech typewriters. Slovak QWERTZ layout differs from the Czech one in using the letter "ľ" instead of the Czech "ě" on the same position, also the letter "ť" is on the position of Czech "ř" and the letter "ô" is on the position of Czech "ů". There are 2 more keys that differ in these 2 languages: Slovak "ä" and "(" key replaces the Czech "(" and ")" key and Slovak "ň" and ")" key replaces the Czech "'" and "¨" key. There are 17 characters from American keyboard (@#$&\|[]{}<>^`~*') that are missing on the Slovak keyboard 45N2141
because of the presence of the Slovak letters (ľščňťžôúáíýéä°´ˇ§). Some people who want to access some special characters often quickly switch to American layout to write them. Since American keyboard has the QWERTY layout they prefer for Slovak to have the letters Y and Z on the same position like on the United States keyboard in order to have a consistent environment. So besides the QWERTZ keyboard 45N2141
layout inherited from the typewriter era, QWERTY layout is also used by computer users in Slovakia.
[edit]South Slavic Latin
Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Slovene keyboard layout
The Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian Latin and Slovene keyboard layout has five additional special characters Č, Ć, Ž, Š and Đ. This keyboard layout was standardized in the 1980s in Yugoslavia. Characters Ć and Đ are only part of Gaj's Latin alphabet but not part of the Slovene alphabet, nevertheless they remain in Slovenian keyboards (for economic reasons, for historical reasons and for writing words in the closelyAcer eMachines E732 Keyboard
related South Slavic languages). The Ž is on the right side of the Ć key on keyboards which have a longer Backspace key, and the usual inverted L shaped Enter key.
For Serbian, there is also a Cyrillic keyboard variant.
[edit]Switzerland (German, French, Italian, Romansh), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg
Swiss keyboard layout
The layout of the Swiss keyboard is designed to allow easy access to frequently used accents of the French, German and Italian languages. The difference between the Swiss German (sg) and the Swiss French (sf) layout is that the German variety has the German umlauts (ä, ö, ü) accessible without dead keys, while the FrenchAcer eMachines E732 Keyboard
version has the French accented characters (é, à, è) accessible in the unshifted state. The actual keyboards have the keys engraved for both variations; the difference is only in the driver setting. In the latest versions of Windows there are also separately listed driver settings for Swiss Italian and Swiss Romansh, but they correspond to the Swiss French and Swiss German layout, respectively. In Mac OS X 10.6 only Swiss French and Swiss German is available.
On Windows, Swiss German does not include the esszett (ß) ligature, which is only used in Germany and Austria, HP Pavilion DV6-1120er Keyboard
and so that letter is not found on the keyboard. Linux typically assigns ß to AltGr-s.
While the German keyboard uses German-language abbreviations (e.g. Strg for German Steuerung instead of Ctrl for Control), Swiss keyboards use the English abbreviations as a "neutral" solution, as they are used for all the national languages of Switzerland.
Luxembourg does not have a keyboard layout of its own. Public education uses the Swiss-French keyboard, while the banking sector prefers the Belgian layout[citation needed]. Other places use either or the US layout. Packard Bell PEW91 keyboard
Liechtenstein, which also has no keyboard layout of its own, uses the Swiss German keyboard.
[edit]AZERTY
Main article: AZERTY
The AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium and some African countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout thus:
A and Q are swapped,
Z and W are swapped,
M is moved to the right of L (where colon/semicolon is on a US keyboard),
The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used forDell Latitude D631 Keyboard
accented characters,
Caps lock is replaced by Shift lock, thus affects non-letter keys as well. But there is an evolution going towards a Caps lock key instead of a Shift lock.
The French and Belgian AZERTY keyboards also have special characters used in the French language, such as ç, à, é and è, and other characters such as &, ", ' and §, all located under the numbers.
[edit]French
French keyboard layout
Some French people use the Canadian Multilingual standard keyboard.
The Portuguese Gateway MT6705 Keyboard
(Portugal) keyboard layout may also be preferred, as it provides all the French accents (acute, grave, diaeresis, circumflex, cedilla, including on capital letters that are not all possible with a basic French standard layout, and also the French quotation marks or guillemets, «»). Furthermore, its dead-letter option for all the accent keys allows for easy input of all the possibilities in French and many other languages (áàäãâéèëêíìïîóòöõôúùüû). 'ç' is, Thinkpad X220
however, a separate key (but only as a lowercase letter in the basic French standard layout).
The US-International keyboard may also used for the same reason (notably by programmers as it allows easier input of ASCII characters, provided that they are trained to a QWERTY layout rather than the most common AZERTY layouts available in most computer shops, including online). An alternative (extremely rarely found) to AZERTY is the BÉPO layout : it's not available on any notebook, but may be used by adding an external keyboard, Thinkpad X220
bought separately from some specialized shops.
However the most common layouts available as an option in computer shops and that are not using the standard French layout is still the basic US layout, plus the QWERTY-based layouts used for Chinese and Vietnamese (that you can find in Parisian shops where there's a large enough Asian community, many of these shops being owned by people of Chinese or South-East Asian origin), or Arabic. Computer providers have also sold computers with the Belgian French AZERTY layout to French universities and schools. Most standard nationalThinkpad X220
layouts used in the world, and all layouts used in the European Union can easily be bought in online shops within the European Union as the old standard French keyboard is no longer mandatory.
[edit]Belgian
Belgian keyboard layout
The Belgian AZERTY keyboard was developed from the French AZERTY keyboard, but some adaptations were made in the 1980sSony AIO PCG-FR33/B Keyboard
.
All letters remain in the same positions as on the French keyboard, but there are:
additional symbols (³, ´, `)
other symbols in different locations (!, @, -, _, +, =, §)
[edit]Tamazight (Berber)
Tamazight (Berber) keyboard layout for Latin script
The Tamazight (Latin) standards-compliant layout is optimised for a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, and includes support for Tuareg variants. It installs as "Tamazight_L" and can be used both on the French locale and with Tamazight locales. QWERTY and QWERTZ adaptations are available for Sony VAIO PCG-FR33/B Keyboard
the physical keyboards used by major Amazigh (Berber) communities around the world.
Other non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY layouts exist which retain closer French keyboard compatibility and also allow typing in Tifinagh script without switching layout:
Tamazight (International) is optimised for French keyboard compatibility, with Tamazight (Berber) as an extension and limited Tifinagh script access (i.e. by deadkey). It installs as "Tamazight (Agraghlan)" or "Français+"Sony KFRMBA151B Keyboard.
Tamazight(International)+ is optimised for Tamazight (Berber), but with close French compatibility and easy typing in Tifinagh script. It installs as "Tamazight(Agraghlan)+" or "Tamazight_LF".
All the above layouts were designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and are available from there.
[edit]ĄŽERTY (Lithuanian)
Lithuanian keyboards use a layout known as ĄŽERTY, where Ą appears in place of Q above A, Ž in place of W above S, Compaq Presario CQ42-309AU Keyboard
with Q and W being available either on the far right-hand side or by use of the AltGr key. Depending on the software used, the Lithuanian symbols can also be positioned in the place of digits: 1 for Ą, 2 for Č, 3 for Ę, 4 for Ė, 5 for Į, 6 for Š, 7 for Ų, 8 for Ū and = for Ž.
[edit]QZERTY
The QZERTY layout is used mostly, if not exclusively, in Italy, where it is very common on typewriters[citation needed]. Computer keyboards usually have QWERTY, although non-alphanumeric characters vary.
Z and W are swappedAcer NSK-H361D Keyboard
M is moved from the right of N to the right of L, as in AZERTY
Apple supported QZERTY layout in its early Italian keyboards, and currently iPod Touch also has it available.[34]
[edit]Non-QWERTY keyboards for Latin scripts
There are also keyboard layouts that do not resemble QWERTY very closely, if at all. These are designed to reduce finger movement and are claimed by some proponents to offer higher typing speed along with ergonomic benefits. Acer Aspire 5310 Keyboard
[edit]Dvorak
Main article: Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (American Simplified Keyboard layout).
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) is the best-known alternative to QWERTY, also known as the American Simplified Keyboard, ASK layout. It was named after its inventor, August Dvorak. There are also numerous adaptations for languages other than English, and single-handed variants. Dvorak's original layout had the numerals rearranged, Packard Bell Easynote TK85 keyboard.
but the present-day layout has them in numerical order. The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard has numerous properties designed to increase typing speed, decrease errors, and increase comfort[citation needed]. The most prominent property involves concentrating the most used English letters in the home row where the fingers rest, thus having 70% of typing done in the home row (compared to 32% in QWERTY).
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is available out of the box on most operating systems, making switching through software very easy. Packard Bell NEW90 keyboard
"Hardwired" Dvorak keyboards are also available, though only from specialized hardware companies.
[edit]Colemak
Colemak keyboard layout
The Colemak keyboard layout is another alternativeHP Pavilion dv6-2130eg Keyboard
to the standard QWERTY layout, offering a more incremental change for users already accustomed to the standard layout.[35] It builds upon the QWERTY layout as a base, changing the positions of 17 keys while retaining the QWERTY positions of most non-alphabetic characters and many popular keyboard shortcuts, making it easier to learn than Dvorak for people who already type in QWERTY. Despite this, HP Mini 210-2004sa Keyboard
some measures show it to be equal to, if not a slight improvement over, Dvorak.[36]
An additional defining feature of the Colemak layout is the lack of a Caps Lock key; an additional Backspace key occupies the position typically occupied by Caps Lock on modern keyboards.[35]
The Colemak layout is supported out-of-the-box in the NetBSD,[37] FreeBSD,[38] DragonFly BSD,[39] Haiku,[40] Chrome and GNU/Linux[41] operating systems, as well as the X.org implementation of the X Window System (starting with X11R7. Toshiba Satellite A135-S4487 Keyboard
3 in 2007).[42] It is also included with the Apple Mac OS X and iOS (hardware keyboards), starting with Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5.0[43] and there is a multi-platform program available for Windows, Mac, and Linux,[44] although as of 2012 Windows has not yet adopted the keyboard in its out-of-the-box selection.
[edit]JCUKEN (Latin)
JCUKEN keyboard of the UKNC computer.
The JCUKEN layout was used in theAcer Aspire 4810TZ-4011 Keyboard
USSR for all computers (both domestically produced and imported such as Japan-made MSX-compatible systems) due to its phonetic compatibility with Russian ЙЦУКЕН layout (see below). The layout has the advantage of having punctuation marks on Latin and Cyrillic layouts mapped on the same keys.
[edit]Neo
Neo Layout, layer 1
Neo Layout, layer 3
The Neo layout is an optimized German keyboard layout developed 2004 by the Neo Users Group,[45] Asus F82 Keyboard
supporting nearly all Latin-based alphabets, including the International Phonetic Alphabet,[46] the Vietnamese language and some African languages.[47] The positions of the letters are not only optimized for German letter frequency, but also for typical groups of two or three letters. English is considered a major target as well. The design tries to enforce the alternating usage of both hands to increase typing speed. It is based on ideas from de-ergo and other ergonomic layouts. The high frequency keys are placed in the home row. HP G42-386TX Keyboard
The current layout Neo 2.0 (available since 2010) has unique features not present in other layouts, making it extremely suited for many target groups such as programmers, mathematicians, scientists or Latex authors.[citation needed] Neo is grouped in different layers, each designed for a special purpose. Most special characters inherit the meaning of the lower layers — for example the ⟨¿⟩ character is one layer above the ⟨?⟩,HP Mini 210-1030SW Keyboard
or the Greek ⟨α⟩ is above the ⟨a⟩ character. Neo uses a total of six layers with the following general use[48][49]:
Layer Usage
1 Lowercase characters
2 Uppercase characters, typographical characters
3 Special characters for programming, etc.
4 WASD-like movement keys and number block
5 Greek characters
6 Mathematical symbols and Greek uppercase characters
[edit]BÉPO
BÉPO layout
The BÉPO layout is an optimized French keyboard layout developed by the BÉPODell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
community,[50] supporting all Latin-based alphabets of the European Union, Greek and Esperanto.[51] It is also designed to ease programming. It is based on ideas from the Dvorak and other ergonomic layouts. Typing with it is usually easier due to the high frequency keys being in the home row.
[edit]Turkish (F-keyboard)
Turkish F-keyboard layout
The Turkish language uses the Turkish Latin alphabet, and a dedicated keyboard layout was designed in 1955 by İhsan Sıtkı Yener.[52] During its design, letter frequencies in the Turkish language were investigated with the aid of HP Mini 210-2180ca Keyboard
Turkish Language Association. These statistics were then combined with studies on bone and muscle anatomy of the fingers to design the Turkish F-keyboard. The keyboard provides a balanced distribution of typing effort between the hands: 49% for the left hand and 51% for the right. With this scientific preparation, Turkey has broken 14 world records in typewriting championships between 1957 and 1995.[53] In 2009, Recep Ertaş Toshiba NB200-00D Keyboard
and in 2011, Hakan Kurt from Turkey came in first in the text production event of the 47th (Beijing) and 48th (Paris) Intersteno congresses respectively.[54][55] Despite the greater efficiency of the Turkish F-keyboard however, the modified QWERTY keyboard ("Q-keyboard") is the one that is used on most computers in Turkey.
[edit]Chorded keyboards and mobile devices
Main article: Chorded keyboardToshiba NB200 Keyboard
The multi-touch screens of mobile devices allow implementation of virtual on-screen chorded keyboards. Buttons are fewer, so they can be made larger. Symbols on the keys can be changed dynamically depending on what other keys are pressed, thus eliminating the need to memorize combos for charactersToshiba NB200-00C Keyboard
and functions before use. For example, in the chorded GKOS keyboard which has been adapted for the Google Android, Apple iPhone, MS Windows Phone and Intel MeeGo/Harmattan platforms, thumbs are used for chording by pressing one or two keys at the same time. In the layout, the keys are divided in two separate pads which are located towards the sides of the screen and the text appears in the middle. Toshiba NB205 Keyboard
The most frequent letters have dedicated keys and do not require chording.
Some other layouts have also been designed specifically for use with mobile devices. The FITALY layout, which is optimised for use with a stylus to place the most commonly used letters closest to the centre and minimise the distance travelled when entering words. A similar concept was followed to research and develop the MessagEase keyboard layout for fast text entry with stylus or finger. The ATOMIK layout, designed for stylus use, Toshiba NB205-N313/P Keyboard
was developed by IBM using the Metropolis Algorithm to mathematically minimize the movement necessary to spell words in English.[56] The ATOMIK keyboard layout is an alternative to QWERTY in ShapeWriter's WritingPad software.[57]
Chorded keyboards in general, such as the Stenotype and Velotype, allow letters and words to be entered using combinations of keys in a single stroke. Toshiba P205-S6237 Keyboard
Users of stenotype machines can often reach rates as high as 300 words per minute and these systems are commonly used for realtime transcription by court reporters and in live closed captioning systems.
[edit]Other original layouts Toshiba P205-S6247 Keyboard
and layout design software
United-States Maltron 3D Keyboard-Layout
Several other alternative keyboard layouts have been designed either for use with specialist commercial keyboards (e.g. Maltron and PLUM) or by hobbyists (e.g. Asset, Arensito); however, none of them are in widespread use, and many of them are merely proofs of concept. Principles commonly used in their design include maximisingToshiba P205D-S7429 Keyboard
use of the home row, minimising finger movement, maximising hand alternation or inward rolls (where successive letters are typed moving towards the centre of the keyboard), minimising changes from QWERTY to ease the learning curve, and so on.
Maltron also has a single-handed keyboard layout.[ Toshiba P205D-S7438 Keyboard
58]
Programs such as the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator,[59] KbdEdit[60] and Keyman Developer[61] make it easy to create custom keyboard layouts for regular keyboards;[62] users may satisfy their own typing patterns or specific needs by creating new ones from scratch (like the IPA[63] or pan-iberian[64] layouts) or modify existing ones (for example, the Latin American Extended[65] or Gaelic[66] layouts). Toshiba Portege 2010 Keyboard
Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator can even construct complex key sequence using dead keys and AltGr key.
Some high end keyboards such as the Kinesis Advantage contoured keyboard allow users total flexibility to reprogram keyboard mappings at the hardware level.
A few companies offer "ABC" (alphabetical) layout keyboards.[67][68]
[edit]Keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scriptsToshiba Portege 3500 Keyboard
Some keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scripts, most notably the Greek layout, are based on the QWERTY layout, in that glyphs are assigned as far as possible to keys that bear similar-sounding or appearing glyphs in QWERTY. This saves learning time for those familiar with QWERTY.
This is not a general rule, Toshiba Portege 3505 Keyboard
and many non-Latin keyboard layouts have been invented from scratch.
All non-Latin computer keyboard layouts can also input Latin letters as well as the script of the language, for example, when typing in URLs or names. This may be done through a special key on the keyboard devoted to this task, or through some special combination of keys, or through software programs that do not interact with the keyboard much.
[editToshiba Portege 7100 Keyboard
]Arabic
Main article: Arabic keyboard
Arabic Windows keyboard layout
This layout was developed by Microsoft from the classic Arabic typewriter layout and is used by IBM PCs.
Arabic Mac keyboard layout
For Apple keyboards there is a different layout.
[edit]ArmenianToshiba Portege 7140ct Keyboard
Armenian keyboard layout
The Armenian keyboard is similar to the Greek in that in most (but not all) cases, a given Armenian letter is at the same location as the corresponding Latin letter on the QWERTY keyboard.
[edit]Brahmic scripts
Media related to Brahmic Toshiba Portege 7200 Keyboard
keyboard layouts at Wikimedia Commons
[edit]InScript
Main article: InScript
See also: Devanāgarī#Devanāgarī keyboard layouts
Script keyboard layout for Sanskrit
A Devanagari InScript bilingual keyboard
InScript is the standard keyboard for 12 Indian scripts including Devanagari, Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu etc.
Most Indian scripts areToshiba Portege 7220cte Keyboard
derived from Brahmi, therefore their alphabetic order is identical. On the basis of this property, the InScript keyboard layout scheme was prepared. So a person who knows InScript typing in one language can type in other scripts using dictation even without knowledge of that script.
An InScript keyboard is inbuilt in most modern operating systems including Windows, Linux and Mac OS. It is also available in some mobile phones.
[edit]KhmerToshiba Portege M200 Keyboard
Khmer keyboard layout
Khmer uses its own layout roughly matched to the equivalent of its QWERTY counterpart. For example, the letter ល [lɔ] is typed on the same space as the letter L on the English based qwerty. Since most Khmer consonants have two forms, the shift key is used to switch between the first and second forms. The glyph below the letter Toshiba Portege M400 Keyboard
ញ [ɲɔ] is used to type in subscripts when they occur in a cluster. Since spaces are used in Khmer to separate sentences and not words, the space option is activated when pressed with the shift key only. Otherwise it has no effect.
[edit]Sinhalese
Sinhala keyboard layout
The Sinhala keyboard layout is based on the Wijesekara typewriter for Sinhala script.
[edit]Thai
Thai Toshiba Portege M500 Keyboard
Kedmanee keyboard layout
The less frequently used characters are accessed by the Shift key. Despite their wide usage in Thai, Arabic numbers are not present on the main section of the keyboard. Instead they are accessed via the numeric keypad. The backtick (`) key is blank, because this key is typically used to switch between input languages.
[edit]Tibetan
[edit]Tibetan (China)
Tibetan keyboard layout
The Chinese National Toshiba Portege p100 Keyboard
Standard on Tibetan Keyboard Layout standardises a layout for the Tibetan language in China.[69]
The first version of Microsoft Windows to support the Tibetan keyboard layout is MS Windows Vista. The layout has been available in GNU/Linux since September 2007.
[edit]Dzongkha (Bhutan)
Main article: Dzongkha keyboard layout
Dzongkha keyboard layout
The BhutaneseToshiba Portege pr100 Keyboard
Standard for a Dzongkha keyboard layout standardizes the layout for typing Dzongkha, and other languages using the Tibetan script, in Bhutan. This standard layout was formulated by the Dzongkha Development Commission and Department of Information Technology in Bhutan. The Dzongkha keyboard layout is very easy to learn as the key sequence essentially follows the order of letters in the Dzongkha and Tibetan alphabet. The layout has been available in GNU/Linux since 2004.
[edit]Cyrillic
Media related to Toshiba Portege R100 Keyboard
Cyrillic keyboard layouts at Wikimedia Commons
[edit]Bulgarian
Bulgarian keyboard layout (BDS 5237:1978)
The current official Bulgarian keyboard layout for both typewriters and computer keyboards is described in BDS (Bulgarian State/National Standard) 5237:1978.[70] It superseded the old standard, BDS 5237:1968, on 1 January 1978.[70] Like the Dvorak keyboard, it has been designed to optimize typing speed and efficiency, Toshiba Portege R100-40 Keyboard
placing the most common letters in the Bulgarian language — О, Н, Т and А — under the strongest fingers. In addition to the standard 30 letters of the Bulgarian alphabet, the layout includes the non-Bulgarian Cyrillic symbols Э and ы and the Roman numerals I and V (the X is supposed to be represented by the Cyrillic capital ХToshiba Portege S100-s113 Keyboard
, which is acceptable in typewriters but problematic in computers).
There is also a second, informal layout in widespread use — the so-called "phonetic" layout, in which Cyrillic letters are mapped Toshiba Portege S100-s1132 Keyboard
to the QWERTY keys for Latin letters that "sound" or "look" the same, with several exceptions (Я is mapped to Q, Ж is mapped to V, etc. — see the layout and compare it to the standard QWERTY layout). This layout is available as an alternative to the BDS one in some operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Normally, the layouts are set up so that the user can switch between LatinToshiba Portege S100-s213 Keyboard
and Cyrillic script by pressing Shift + Alt, and between BDS and Phonetic by pressing Shift + Ctrl.
In 2006, Prof. Dimiter Skordev from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of Sofia University and Dimitar Dobrev from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences proposed a new standard, prBDS 5237:2006, including a revised version of the old BDS layout and a standardization of the informal "phonetic" layout. After some controversy and a public discussion in 2008, the proposal was not accepted,[71] although itToshiba Portege S105-s1133 Keyboard
had been already used in several places – the "Bulgarian Phonetic" layout in MS Windows Vista is based on it.
[edit]Moldovan
Moldovan Cyrillic layout
The Moldovan Cyrillic keyboard layout is based on a mixture of Russian phonetic and Serbian keyboard layout while adding a unique letter Ӂ Toshiba Qosmio E10 series Keyboard
to the layout in place of the letter Џ on the Serbian Cyrillic layout. This is the ЭЖЕРТ (EZhERT) layout. The letter Я is mapped the same as on the standard Russian layout, while letter Й is mapped where J is in Serbian layout. Also, letters Ь and Ы are remapped. This unofficial keyboard layout can be found here.[72]
[edit]Russian
Main article: JCUKEN
See also: KeyboardToshiba Qosmio E15 Series Keyboard
layout#JCUKEN (Latin)
Russian Windows keyboard layout
The most common keyboard layout in modern Russia is the so-called Windows layout. It is the default Russian layout used in the MS Windows operating system. This layout allows using keyboards of the same physical design as in many other countries but has some usability issues for Russian-language users. Because of an unfortunate design decision, the comma and full stop symbols are on the same keyToshiba Qosmio E15-AV101 Keyboard
in this layout, and users need to hold Shift every time they enter a comma although the comma is much more frequent in the language.[73]
There are some other Russian keyboard layouts in use: in particular, the traditional Russian Typewriter layout (punctuation symbols are placed on numerical keys, one needs to press Shift to enter numbers) and the Russian DOS layout Toshiba Qosmio F10 Series Keyboard
(similar to the Russian Typewriter layout with common punctuation symbols on numerical keys, but numbers are entered without Shift). The Russian Typewriter layout can be found on many Russian typewriters produced before the 1990s, and it is the default Russian keyboard layout in the OpenSolaris operating system.[74]
Keyboards in Russia always have Cyrillic letters on the keytops as well as Latin letters. Usually Cyrillic and Latin letters are labeled with different colors. Toshiba Qosmio F15 Series Keyboard
Russian phonetic keyboard layout
The Russian phonetic keyboard layout (also called homophonic or transliterated) is widely used outside Russia, where normally there are no Russian letters drawn on keyboard buttons. This layout is made for typists who are more familiar with other layouts, like the common English QWERTY keyboard, and follows the Greek and Armenian layouts in placing most letters at the corresponding Latin letter locations. Toshiba Qosmio F20 Series Keyboard
It is famous among both native speakers and people who use, teach, or are learning Russian, and is recommended — along with the Standard Layout — by the linguists, translators, teachers and students of AATSEEL.org.[75]
There are several different Russian phonetic layouts, for example YaZhERT (яжерт), YaWERT (яверт), and YaShERT (яшерт) (also sometimes with the 'ы'/'y' — i.e. YaZhERTY (яжерты), YaWERTY (яверты), etc.) They are named after the first several letters that take over the 'QWERTY' row on the Latin keyboard. They differ byToshiba Qosmio F25 Series Keyboard
where a few of the letters are placed. For example, some have Cyrillic 'B' (which is pronounced 'V') on the Latin 'W' key (after the German transliteration of B), while others have it on the Latin 'V' key. There are also variations within these variations; for example the Mac OS X Phonetic Russian layout is YaShERT but differs in placement of ж and э.[76][77]
A virtual (on-screen) Russian keyboard[78] allows entering Cyrillic directly in a browser without installing Russian drivers. Toshiba QOSMIO F40 SERIES Keyboard
Another virtual keyboard[79] supports both traditional (MS Windows and Typewriter) and some phonetic keyboard layouts.
[edit]Serbian (Cyrillic)
Serbian Cyrillic keyboard layout
Apart from a set of characters common to most Cyrillic alphabets, the Serbian Cyrillic layout uses six additional special characters unique or nearly unique to the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet: Љ, Њ, Ћ, Ђ, Џ and Ј.
Due to the bialphabetic nature of the language, actual physical keyboards with the Serbian Cyrillic layout printed on the Toshiba Qosmio F40-ST4101 Keyboard
keys are somewhat uncommon today. Typical keyboards sold in Serbian-speaking markets are marked with Serbian Latin characters and used with both the Latin (QWERTZ) and Cyrillic layout configured in the software. What makes the two layouts this readily interchangeable is that the non-alphabetic keys are identical between them, and alphabetic keys always correspond directly to their counterparts (except the Latin letters Q, W, X, and Y that have no Cyrillic equivalents, and the Cyrillic letters Љ, Њ and Џ whoseToshiba Qosmio F40/85C Keyboard
Latin counterparts are digraphs LJ, NJ and DŽ). This also makes the Serbian Cyrillic layout a rare example of a non-Latin layout based on QWERTZ.
The Macedonian dze is on this keyboard despite not being used in Serbian Cyrillic. The gje and kje can be typed by striking the apostrophe key then striking the G or K key.
There is also a dedicated Macedonian keyboard that is based on QWERTY (LjNjERTDz) and uses Alt Gr to type the dje and tshe. However, Toshiba Qosmio F40/85D Keyboard
the capital forms are next to the small forms.
[edit]Ukrainian
Ukrainian keyboard layout
Ukrainian keyboards, based on a slight modification of Russian Standard Layout, often also have the Russian Standard ("Windows") layout marked on them, making it easy to switch from one language to another. This keyboard layout had several problems, Toshiba Qosmio F40/85E Keyboard
one of which was the omission of the letter Ґ, which does not exist in Russian. The other long-standing problem was the omission of the apostrophe, which is used in Ukrainian almost as commonly as in English (though with a different value), but which also does not exist in Russian. Both of these problems were resolved with the Toshiba Qosmio F40/85F Keyboard
"improved Ukrainian" keyboard layout for Windows available with Vista and subsequent Windows versions.
[edit]Georgian
Main article: Georgian keyboard
Georgian keyboard
All keyboards in Georgia are fitted with both Latin and Georgian letters.
[edit]Greek
Greek keyboard layout in comparison to UK layout
The usual Greek layout follows the U.S. Toshiba Qosmio F40/86DBL Keyboard
layout for letters related to Latin letters (ABDEHIKLMNOPRSTXYZ, ΑΒΔΕΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΡΣΤΧΥΖ, respectively), substitutes visually or phonetically similar letters (Φ at F; Γ at G) and uses the remaining slots for the remaining Greek letters: Ξ at J; Ψ at C; Ω at V; Θ at U).
Greek has two fewer letters than English, but has two accents which, because of their frequency, are placed on the home row at the U.K. ";" Toshiba Qosmio F40/86EBL Keyboard
position; they are dead keys. Word-final sigma has its own position as well, substituting W, and semicolon (which is used as a question mark in Greek) and colon move to the position of Q.
[edit]Hebrew
Main article: Hebrew keyboard
Hebrew keyboard
All keyboards in Israel are fitted with both Latin Toshiba Qosmio F40/86G Keyboard
and Hebrew letters. Trilingual editions including either Arabic or Russian also exist.
[edit]Inuktitut
Latin keyboard layout for Inuktitut
Naqittaut keyboard layout for InuktitutToshiba Qosmio F40/87C Keyboard
Inuktitut has two similar, though not identical, commonly available keyboard layouts for Windows. Both contain a basic Latin layout in its base and shift states, with a few Latin characters in the AltGr shift states. The Canadian Aboriginal syllabics can be found in the Capslock and AltGr shift states in both layouts as well.
The difference between the two layouts lies in the use of ] as an alternate to AltGr to create the dotted, long vowel syllables, and the mapping of the small plain consonants to the Caps + number keys in the "Naqittaut" layout, while the Toshiba Qosmio F40/87CBL Keyboard
"Latin" layout does not have access to the plain consonants, and can only access the long vowel syllables through the AltGr shift states.
[edit]Tifinagh
[edit]Tamazight (Berber)
Tamazight (Berber) keyboard layout for Tifinagh script
The Tamazight (Tifinagh) standards-compliant layout is optimised for a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, Toshiba Qosmio F40/87DBL Keyboard
and includes support for Tuareg variants. AZERTY-mapped, it installs as "Tamazight_F" and can be used both on the French locale and with Tamazight locales. QWERTY and QWERTZ adaptations are available for the physical keyboards used by major Amazigh (Berber) communities around the world.
Non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY Latin script layouts exist which also allow typing in Tifinagh script without switching layout:
Tamazight (International) is optimised for French keyboard compatibility, Toshiba Qosmio F40/87EBL Keyboard
with Tamazight (Berber) as an extension and limited Tifinagh script access (i.e. by deadkey). It installs as "Tamazight (Agraghlan)" or "Français+".
Tamazight(International)+ is optimised for Tamazight (Berber), but with close French compatibility and easy typing in Tifinagh script. It installs as "Tamazight(Agraghlan)+" or "Tamazight_LF".
A non-standards-compliant but convenient combined AZERTY-mapped Tifinagh layout exists which also allows typing in Latin script without Toshiba Qosmio F40/88DBL Keyboard
switching layout:
Tifinagh (International). It installs as "Tifinagh (Agraghlan)" or "Tamazight_FL".
All the above layouts were designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and are available from there.
Moroccan (IRCAM) Tamazight (Berber) keyboard layout for Tifinagh script
[edit]Morocco
The Royal institute of the Amazigh culture (IRCAM) developed a national standard Tifinagh layout for Tamazight (Berber) in Morocco. Toshiba Qosmio F40/88EBL Keyboard
It is included in Linux and Windows 8, and is available from IRCAM for the Mac and older versions of Windows.
A compatible, international version of this layout, called "Tifinagh (International)" exists for typing a wide range of Tamazight (Berber) language variants, and includes support for Tuareg variants as well as the ability to type in Latin script when required. It was designed by the Universal Amazigh Keyboard Project and is available from there.
[edit]East Asian languagesToshiba Qosmio F45 Keyboard
Chinese, Japanese and Korean require special input methods, often abbreviated to CJK IMEs (Input Method Editors), due to the thousands of possible characters in these languages. Various methods have been invented to fit every possibility into a QWERTY keyboard, so East Asian keyboards are essentially the same as those in other countries. However, their input methods are considerably more complex, without one-to-one mappings between keys and characters.
In general, the range of possibilities is Toshiba QOSMIO F45 SERIES Keyboard
first narrowed down (often by entering the desired character's pronunciation). Then, if there remains more than one possibility, the desired ideogram is selected, either by typing the number before the character, or using a graphical menu to select it. The computer assists the typist by using heuristics to guess which character is most likely desired. Although this may seem painstaking, Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV411 Keyboard
East Asian input methods are today sufficient in that, even for beginners, typing in these languages is only slightly slower than typing English.
In Japanese, the QWERTY-based JIS keyboard layout is used, and the pronunciation of each character is entered using Hepburn romanization or Kunrei-shiki romanization. There are several kana-based typing methods. See also Japanese language and computers.
Chinese has the most complex and varied input methods. Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV423 Keyboard
Characters can be entered by pronunciation (like Japanese and Hanja in Korean) or by structure. Most of the structural methods are difficult to learn, but they are extremely fast for experienced typists, as they do not need to select characters from a menu. For a detailed treatment, see Chinese input methods for computers.
There exist a variety of other, Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV425 Keyboard
slower methods in which a character may be entered. If the pronunciation of a character is not known, the selection can be narrowed down by giving its component shapes, radicals, and stroke count. Also, many input systems include a "drawing pad" permitting "handwriting" of a character using a mouse. Finally, if the computer does not have CJK software installed, it may be possible to enter a character directly through its encoding number (e.g. Unicode).
In contrast to Chinese and Japanese, Toshiba Qosmio G10 Series Keyboard
Korean is typed similarly to Western languages. There exist two major forms of keyboard layouts: Dubeolsik (두벌식), and Sebeolsik (세벌식). Dubeolsik, which shares its symbol layout with the QWERTY keyboard, is more commonly used. While Korean consonants and vowels (jamo) are grouped together into syllabic grids when written, the script is essentially alphabetical, and therefore typing in Korean is quite simple for those who understand the Korean alphabet Hangul. Each jamo is assigned to a single key. Toshiba Qosmio G15 Series Keyboard
As the user types letters, the computer automatically groups them into syllabic characters. Given a sequence of jamo, there is only one unambiguous way letters can be validly grouped into syllables, so the computer groups them together as the user types.
[edit]Japanese
Japanese (OADG 109A) keyboard layout with Hiragana keysToshiba Qosmio G15-AV501 Keyboard
Media related to Japanese keyboard layouts at Wikimedia Commons
The JIS standard layout includes Japanese kana in addition to a QWERTY style layout.
Example of Microsoft's IME in Windows
For entering Japanese, the most common method is entering text phonetically, as romanized (transliterated) kana, which are then converted to kanji as appropriate by an input method editor. It is also possible to type kana directly, Toshiba Qosmio G20 Series Keyboard
depending on the mode used. For example, to type たかはし, "Takahashi", a Japanese name, one could type either "takahas(h)i" in Romanized (Rōmaji) input mode, or "qtfd" in kana input mode. Then the user can proceed to the conversion step to convert the input into the appropriate kanji.
The extra keys in the bottom row (muhenkan, henkan, and the Hiragana/Katakana switch key) Toshiba Qosmio G25 Series Keyboard
, and the special keys in the leftmost column (the hankaku/zenkaku key at the upper left corner, and the eisu key at the Caps Lock position), control various aspects of the conversion process and select different modes of input.
For more details, see the section on East Asian languages above, and the articles Japanese language and computers, Japanese input methods, and Language input keys. Toshiba Qosmio G30 Series Keyboard
[edit]Chinese
A Chinese keyboard is simply a US layout with/without Chinese input method labels printed on the keys. Without an input method handler, these keyboards would respond to Latin characters, provided that US keyboard layout is selected in the operating system.
Most modern input methods allow input of both simplified and traditional characters, and will simply default to one or the other based on the locale settingToshiba Qosmio G35 Series Keyboard
.
See the section on Chinese languages, and also Chinese input methods for computers.
[edit]China Mainland
Keyboards used in the People's Republic of China are typically standard or slightly modified English US (QWERTY) ones, while Chinese characters are input using various IMEs, most commonly Hanyu pinyin representing the pronunciation of characters using Latin letters; although models with labels for alternative input methods such as Wubi method can be found in some very rare cases, usually in very old product.
[edit]Taiwan
Chinese (Taiwan) keyboard layout, Toshiba Qosmio G40 Keyboard
a US keyboard with Zhuyin, Cangjie and Dayi key labels
Computers in Taiwan often use Zhuyin (bopomofo) style keyboards (US keyboards with bopomofo labels), many also with Cangjie method key labels, as Cangjie is the standard method for speed-typing in Traditional Chinese. The bopomofo style keyboards are in lexicographical order, top-to-bottom left-to-right. The codes of three input methods are typically printed on the Chinese (traditional) keyboard: Zhuyin Toshiba Qosmio G40/95C Keyboard
(upper right); Cangjie (lower left); and Dayi (lower right).
[edit]Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, both Chinese (Taiwan) and US keyboards are found. Japanese keyboards are occasionally found, but UK keyboards are rare.
Other input methods include the Cantonese Input Method for the Cantonese language speakers. The romanisation requires users to spell out the Cantonese sound of each character without tone marks, e.g. 'heung' and 'kong' (or 'gong') for 'Hong Kong'/香港 and to choose the characters from a list.
The advantage of the Cantonese Input Method isToshiba Qosmio G40/97C Keyboard
that nearly all Cantonese Speakers can input Traditional Chinese characters on their very instinct; no particular training and practice is required at all. The advantage available to a Hanyu Pinyin user is that any keyboard with just an English layout, i.e., without BoPoMoFo markings engraved, can deploy the Pinyin IME for bilingual (both Chinese and English on the same document) input. Toshiba Qosmio G40/97D Keyboard
All those who have received formal education in Mainland China can easily input with Hanyu Pinyin without any formal training. The drawback of Hanyu Pinyin to a Hong Kong native Cantonese speaker is that the alphabets are not pronounced exactly in the same way as the common English language syllables should be pronounced because it is only the Latin letters in the keyboard that have been used by the Hanyu Pinyin MethodToshiba Qosmio G45 Keyboard
.
Although Cantonese input method seems intuitive to Hong Kong people, it is an unpopular input method for various reasons. There are many characters that can have the same syllable in the spelling only (they sound the same but are written with different characters) that needed to be differentiated by different intonations for speech communication. Unless a user has also input a phonetic intonation or an accent numeral Toshiba Satellite 1130 Series Keyboard
(i.e., 1, 2, 3, or 4.) to narrow down the list of possible combinations, he or she can have a substantial set of ambiguous Chinese characters of the same pronunciation to select. The selection process can slow down the input speed for those do have not input an accent numeral after each and every Cantonese spelling. There is no official standard for Cantonese romanisation, and there are multiple romanisation schemes, which leads to different Cantonese input method implementations adopts different romanisationsToshiba Satellite 1300 Keyboard
. Moreover, Hong Kong students almost never learn any of the romanisation schemes. Also, Microsoft Windows, which is the most popular operating system used in desktops, doesn't carry Cantonese input method, users would need to find a third-party input method software and install into Windows to use Cantonese input method, Toshiba Satellite 1400 Series Keyboard
which may be cumbersome for system administrators who are responsible for office computers.
For these reasons, Hong Kong computer users often have to resort to use those "harder" shape-based Chinese input methods (e.g. Cangjie); or for those with formal Mandarin education, they may choose Pinyin instead. A minority of users may even have to use a graphics tableToshiba Satellite 1400-S151 Keyboard
t designed to recognize handwritten Chinese characters.
Thorough training and practice are required to input correctly with Changjie or Cangjie, yet it is, by impression, the quickest Chinese input method[clarification needed]. Many Cantonese speakers have taken Changjie or Cangjie input courses because of the fast typing speed availed by the input method. This method is the fastest because it has the capability to fetch the exact, unambiguous Chinese character which the userToshiba Satellite 1405 Series Keyboard
has in mind to input, pinpointing to only one character in most cases. This is also the reason why no provision for an input of phonetic accent is needed to complement this Input Method. The Changjie or Cangjie character feature is available on both Mac OS X and Windows. On Mac OS X the use of the multitouch pads of modern Macs makes it possible to write a glyph with a finger and the correct character is recognised by the computer.[clarification needed]
The clumsiest Chinese Input method is the StrokeToshiba Satellite 1405-S151 Keyboard
Input Method which is ideal for those who are not so proficient in spelling the Cantonese language in English Alphabets nor Mandarin in Pinyin. The method is widely installed in mobile phones with small screens because the method only requires five key taps for the 5,000 commonly used Chinese characters. Toshiba Satellite 1405-S152 Keyboard
It is also considered too tedious requiring a user to type out all the strokes constituting a single Chinese character. Chinese characters sharing the same 3 to 5 beginning brush strokes are grouped to response to users' tapping sequences. Thus, there yields a lengthly list of more than 40 some Chinese characters having these similar beginning strokes for the user to confirm which one of the listed characters Toshiba Satellite 1405-S171 Keyboard
should be the intended one to input.
The character picking process is a must for the Stroke Input Method users regardless of whether the Traditional or Simplified Chinese character set is to be used. To a native Hong Kong Cantonese speaker who can spell the Cantonese dialect fairly accurately in English alphabets and, who types Chinese in ad-hoc occasions only; Toshiba Satellite 1405-S172 Keyboard
Cantonese Input Method is, by far, the most convenient Chinese input method both for phone book searching and for word processing using laptops and smart phones.
See also: British and American keyboards and Technical standards in Hong Kong
[edit]Hangul (for Korean)
See also: Korean language and computers, Hangul, and Korean language
Media related to Korean keyboard layouts at Wikimedia Commons
[edit]Dubeolsik
Toshiba Satellite 1410 Series Keyboard
Dubeolsik Hangul keyboard layout
Dubeolsik (두벌식; 2-set) is by far the most common and the sole national standard of Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea since 1969. Pressing the Han/Eng (한/영) key once switches between Hangul as shown, and QWERTY. There is another key to the left of the space bar for Hanja input. If using a 104-key keyboard, the left Alt key will become the Ha/En key, and the right Ctrl key will become the Hanja keyToshiba Satellite 1410-S173 Keyboard
. Consonants occupy the left side of the layout, while vowels are on the right.
[edit]Sebeolsik 390
Sebeolsik 390 Hangul keyboard layout
Sebeolsik 390 (세벌식 390; 3-set 390) was released in 1990. It is based on Dr. Kong Byung Woo's earlier work. This layout is notable for its compatibility with the QWERTY layout; almost all QWERTY symbols that are not alphanumeric are available in Hangul mode. Numbers are placed in three rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right (shown green in the picture), and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left (shown red). Toshiba Satellite 1410-S174 Keyboard
Some consonant clusters are not printed on the keyboard; the user has to press multiple consonant keys to input some consonant clusters, unlike Sebeolsik Final. It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.
[edit]Sebeolsik Final
Sebeolsik Final Hangul keyboard layout
Sebeolsik Final (세벌식 최종; 3-set Final) is another Hangul keyboard layoutToshiba Satellite 1415 Keyboard
in use in South Korea. It is the final Sebulsik layout designed Dr. Kong Byung Woo, hence the name. Numbers are placed on two rows. Syllable-initial consonants are on the right, and syllable-final consonants and consonant clusters are on the left. Vowels are in the middle. All consonant clusters are available on the keyboard, unlike the Sebeolsik 390 which does not include all of them. Toshiba Satellite 1415 Series Keyboard
It is more ergonomic than the dubeolsik, but is not in wide use.
[edit]Sebeolsik Noshift
Sebeolsik Noshift Hangul keyboard layout
Sebeolsik Noshift is a variant of sebeolsik which can be used without pressing the shift key. Its advantage is that people with disabilities who cannot press Toshiba Satellite 1415-S105 Keyboard
two keys at the same time will still be able to use it to type in Hangul.
Toshiba Satellite 1415-S106 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1415-S115 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1415-S173 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1800 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1800-214 Keyboard
Toshiba Satellite 1800-314 Keyboard
单击此处进行编辑.
Keyboard layout
QWERTY keyboard on a laptop.
A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, Acer AEZR1R00110 Keyboard
or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard.
Mechanical layout Acer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
The placements and keys of a keyboard.
Visual layout
The arrangement of the legends (labels, markings, engravings) that appear on the keys of a keyboard.
Functional layoutAcer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
The arrangement of the key-meaning associations, determined in software, of all the keys of a keyboard.
Most computer keyboards are designed to send scancodes to the operating system, rather than directly sending characters. From there, the series of scancodes is converted into a character stream by keyboard layout software. Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
This allows a physical keyboard to be dynamically mapped to any number of layouts without switching hardware components – merely by changing the software that interprets the keystrokes. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
It is usually possible for an advanced user to change keyboard operation, and third-party software is available to modify or extend keyboard functionality.
Contents [hide]
1 Key types
1.1 Character keys
1.2 Modifier keys
1.2.1 Dead keysAcer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
1.2.2 Compose key
2 History
3 Mechanical, visual and functional layouts
3.1 Mechanical and visual layouts
3.2 Functional layoutAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
3.2.1 Customized functional layouts
3.3 National variants
4 QWERTY-based layouts for Latin script
4.1 QWERTY
4.1.1 CanadianAcer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
4.1.1.1 Canadian Multilingual Standard
4.1.1.2 Canadian French (Quebec)
4.1.2 Czech (QWERTY)
4.1.3 Danish
4.1.4 Dutch (Netherlands) Acer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
4.1.5 Estonian
4.1.6 Latvian
4.1.7 FaroeseAcer Aspire One AOA150-1001 Keyboard
4.1.8 Finnish multilingual
4.1.9 Icelandic
4.1.10 Irish
4.1.11 Italian
4.1.12 Maltese
4.1.13 NorwegianAcer Aspire One D250-1326 Keyboard
4.1.14 Persian (Farsi)
4.1.15 Polish
4.1.16 Portuguese
4.1.16.1 Brazil
4.1.16.2 Portugal
4.1.17 Romanian (in Romania and Moldova)
4.1.18 Slovak (QWERTY)
4.1.19 Spanish
4.1.19.1 Spain, a.k.a. Spanish (International sort)
4.1.19.2 Latin America
4.1.20 Swedish
4.1.21 Turkish (Q-keyboard)
4.1.22 United Kingdom
4.1.22.1 UK Apple keyboard
4.1.22.2 United Kingdom extended
4.1.23 United States
4.1.23.1 US-International
4.1.23.2 US-International in the Netherlands
4.1.23.3 Apple International English Keyboard
4.1.24 Vietnamese
4.2 QWERTZAcer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
4.2.1 Austria and Germany
4.2.2 Czech (QWERTZ)
4.2.3 Hungary
4.2.4 Poland
4.2.5 Slovak (QWERTZ)
4.2.6 South Slavic Latin
4.2.7 Switzerland (German, French, Italian, Romansh), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg
4.3 AZERTY
4.3.1 French
4.3.2 Belgian
4.3.3 Tamazight (Berber)
4.4 ĄŽERTY (Lithuanian)
4.5 QZERTY
5 Non-QWERTY keyboards for Latin scripts
5.1 Dvorak
5.2 Colemak
5.3 JCUKEN (Latin)
5.4 Neo
5.5 BÉPO
5.6 Turkish (F-keyboard) Acer eMachines G640 Keyboard
5.7 Chorded keyboards and mobile devices
5.8 Other original layouts and layout design software
6 Keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scripts
6.1 Arabic
6.2 Armenian
6.3 Brahmic scripts
6.3.1 InScript
6.3.2 Khmer
6.3.3 Sinhalese
6.3.4 Thai
6.3.5 Tibetan
6.3.5.1 Tibetan (China) Acer Extensa 5635G 5635Z Keyboard
6.3.5.2 Dzongkha (Bhutan)
6.4 Cyrillic
6.4.1 Bulgarian
6.4.2 Moldovan
6.4.3 Russian
6.4.4 Serbian (Cyrillic)
6.4.5 Ukrainian
6.5 Georgian
6.6 Greek
6.7 Hebrew
6.8 Inuktitut
6.9 Tifinagh
6.9.1 Tamazight (Berber)
6.9.1.1 MoroccoAcer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
7 East Asian languages
7.1 Japanese
7.2 Chinese
7.2.1 China Mainland
7.2.2 Taiwan
7.2.3 Hong Kong
7.3 Hangul (for Korean)
7.3.1 Dubeolsik
7.3.2 Sebeolsik 390
7.3.3 Sebeolsik Final
7.3.4 Sebeolsik Noshift
8 See also
9 Notes and references
10 External links
10.1 Custom LayoutsAcer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
[edit]Key types
A typical computer keyboard comprises sections with different types of keys.
A computer keyboard comprises alphanumeric or character keys for typing, modifier keys for altering the functions of other keys, Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
navigation keys for moving the text cursor on the screen, function keys and system command keys – such as Esc and Break – for special actions, and often a numeric keypad to facilitate calculations.
There is some variation between different keyboard models in the mechanical layout – i.e., how many keys there are and how they are positioned on the keyboard. Acer PK1301K0100 Keyboard
However, differences between national layouts are mostly due to different selections and placements of symbols on the character keys.
[edit]Character keys
The core section of a keyboard comprises character keys, which can be used to type letters and other characters. Typically, there are three rows of keys for typing letters and punctuation, an upper row for typing digits and special symbols, and the Space bar on the bottom row. The positioning of the character keys is similar to the keyboard of a typewriter. Acer PK130AE3000 Keyboard
[edit]Modifier keys
Main article: Modifier key
Besides the character keys, a keyboard incorporates special keys that do nothing by themselves but modify the functions of other keys. For example, the ⇧ Shift key can be used to alter the output of character keys, Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
whereas the Ctrl (control) and Alt (alternate) keys trigger special operations when used in concert with other keys.
Typically, a modifier key is held down while another key is struck. To facilitate this, modifier keys usually come in pairs, one functionally identical key for each hand, Acer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
so holding a modifier key with one hand leaves the other hand free to strike another key.
An alphanumeric key labeled with only a single letter (usually the capital form) can generally be struck to type either a lower case or capital letter, the latter requiring the simultaneous holding of the ⇧ Shift key. Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
The ⇧ Shift key is also used to type the upper of two symbols engraved on a given key, the lower being typed without using the modifier key.
The English alphanumeric keyboard has a dedicated key for each of the letters A–Z, along with punctuation and other symbols. Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
In many other languages there are special letters (often with diacritics) or symbols, which also need to be available on the keyboard. To make room for additional symbols, keyboards often have what is effectively a secondary shift key, labeled AltGr (which typically takes the place of the right-hand Alt key). It can be used to type an extra symbol beyond the two otherwise available with an alphanumeric key, Asus A6F Keyboard
and using it simultaneously with the ⇧ Shift key may give access to even a fourth symbol. On the visual layout, these third-level and fourth-level symbols may appear on the right half of the key top, or they may be unmarked.
Instead of the Alt and AltGr keys, Apple Keyboards have ⌘ Cmd (command) and ⌥ Option keys. The ⌥ Option key is used much like the AltGr, and the ⌘ Cmd key like the Ctrl on IBM PCs, to access menu options and shortcuts. Asus A9Rp Keyboard
The main use of the actual Ctrl key on Macs is to produce a secondary mouse click, and to provide support for programs running in X11 (a Unix environment included with OS X as an install option) or MS Windows. There is also a Fn key on modern Mac keyboards, which is used for switching between use of the F1, F2 etc. Asus F3Jr Keyboard
keys either as function keys or for other functions like media control, accessing dashboard widgets, controlling the volume, or handling exposé.
Many Unix workstation (and also Home Computers like the Amiga) keyboards placed the Ctrl key to the left of the letter A, and the ⇪ Caps Lock key in the bottom left. This layout is often preferred by programmers as it makes the Ctrl key easier to reach. This position of the Ctrl key is also used on the XO laptop, which does not have a ⇪ Caps Lock. Asus F80L Keyboard
The UNIX keyboard layout is also different where to place the ESC key, it was placed left to 1.
[edit]Dead keys
Main article: Dead key
A dead key is a special kind of a modifier key that, instead of being held while another key is struck, is pressed and released before the other key. The dead key does not generate a character by itself, but it modifies the character generated by the key struck immediately after, typically making it possible to type a letter with a specific diacritic. Asus X53S Keyboard
For example, on some keyboard layouts, the grave accent key ` is a dead key; in this case, striking ` and then A results in à (a with grave accent), whereas ` followed by E results in è (e with grave accent). A grave accent in isolated form can be typed by striking ` and then Space bar.
A key may function as a dead key by default, or sometimes a normal key can temporarily be altered to function as a dead key by simultaneously holding down the secondary-shift key – AltGr or ⌥ Option. In some systems, Compaq 6720 Keyboard
there is no indication to the user that a dead key has been struck, so the key appears dead, but in some text-entry systems the diacritical mark is displayed along with an indication that the system is waiting for another keystroke: either the base character to be marked, an additional diacritical mark, or Space bar to produce the diacritical mark in isolation. Compaq Presario CQ41-209AU Keyboard
Compared with the secondary-shift modifier key, the dead-key approach may be a little more complicated, but it allows more additional letters. Compaq Presario CQ50-130US Keyboard
Using the secondary shift, you may only type one or (if you use it simultaneously with the normal shift key) two additional letters with each key, whereas using a dead key, a specific diacritic can be attached to a number of different base letters.
[edit]Compose keyCompaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
Main article: Compose key
A Compose key can be characterized as a generic dead key that may in some systems be available instead of or in addition to the more specific dead keys. It allows access to a wide range of predefined extra characters by interpreting a whole sequence of keystrokes following it. For example, Compaq Presario CQ60-310eq Keyboard
striking Compose followed by ' (apostrophe) and then A results in á (a with acute accent), Compose followed by A and then E results in æ (ae ligature), and Compose followed by O and then C results in © (circled c, copyright symbol).
The Compose key is supported by the X Window System (used by most Unix-like operating systems, including most GNU/Linux distributions). Compaq Presario CQ71 Series Keyboard
Some keyboards have a key labelled "Compose", but any key can be configured to serve this function. For example, the otherwise redundant right-hand ⊞ Win key may, when available, be used for this purpose.
[edit]HistoryDell 0NK831 Keyboard
Keyboard of a Letter-Printing Telegraph Set built by Siemens and Halske in Saint Petersburg, Russia, ca. 1900
Keyboard layouts have evolved over time. The earliest mechanical keyboards were used in musical instruments to play particular notes. With the advent of printing telegraph, a keyboard was needed to select characters. Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
Some of the earliest printing telegraph machines used a layout similar to a piano keyboard.[1][2]
In countries using the Latin script, the center, alphanumeric portion of the modern keyboard is most often based on the QWERTY design by Christopher Sholes, Dell Inspiron N4020 Keyboard
who laid out the keys in such a way that common two-letter combinations were placed on opposite sides of the keyboard so that his mechanical keyboard would not jam, and laid out the keys in rows offset horizontally from each other by three-eighths, three-sixteenths, and three-eighths inches to provide room for the levers. Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
Although it has been demonstrated that the QWERTY layout is not the most efficient layout for typing[citation needed], it has become such a standard that people will not change to a more efficient alphanumeric layout.
Sholes chose the size of the keys to be on three-quarter inch (0.75-inch) centers (about 19 mm, Dell Latitude D400 Keyboard
versus musical piano keys which are 23.5 mm or about 0.93 inches wide). Actually, 0.75 inches has turned out to be optimum for fast key entry by the average size hand, and keyboards with this key size are called "full-sized keyboards".
The standard 101/102-key PC keyboard layout was invented by Mark Tiddens of Key Tronic Corporation in 1982.[citation needed] IBM adoptedDell PVDG3 Keyboard
the layout on its PC AT in 1984 (after previously using an 84-key keyboard which did not have separate cursor and numeric key pads).
Most modern keyboards basically conform to the layout specifications contained in parts 1, 2, and 5 of the international standard series ISO/IEC 9995. These specifications were first defined by the user group at AFNOR in 1984 working under the direction of Alain Souloumiac.[3] Based on this work, a well known ergonomic expert wrote a report[4Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
] which was adopted at the ISO Berlin meeting in 1985 and became the reference for keyboard layouts.
The 104/105-key PC keyboard was born when two ⊞ Win keys and a ≣ Menu key were added on the bottom row (originally for the Microsoft Windows operating system). Newer keyboards may incorporate even further additions, such as Internet access (World Wide Web navigation) keys and multimedia (access to media players) buttons. Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
[edit]Mechanical, visual and functional layouts
The ANSI mechanical layout is characteristic for United States keyboards.
The ISO mechanical layout is common, e.g., in the United Kingdom. Compared with the ANSI layout, the enter key is vertical rather than horizontal. In addition, the left shift key is smaller, to make room for an additional key to its right. Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
The JIS mechanical layout is the basis for Japanese keyboards. Here it is the right-hand shift key that is smaller. Furthermore, the space bar and backspace key are also smaller, to make room for four more additional keys.
Today, most keyboards use one of three different mechanical layouts, FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
usually referred to as simply ISO (ISO/IEC 9995-2), ANSI (ANSI-INCITS 154-1988), and JIS (JIS X 6002-1980), referring roughly to the organizations issuing the relevant worldwide, United States, and Japanese standards, respectively. (In fact, the mechanical layouts referred such as “ISO” and “ANSI” comply to the primary recommendations in the named standards, FujitsuLifebook S6230 Keyboard
while each of these standards in fact also allows the other way.) Keyboard layout in this sense may refer either to this broad categorization or to finer distinctions within these categories. For example, as of May 2008 Apple Inc produces ISO, ANSI, and JIS desktop keyboards, each in both extended and compact forms. The extended keyboards have 110, 109, and 112 keys (ISO, ANSI, and JIS, respectively), and the compact models have 79, 78, and 80. HP 317443-001 Keyboard
[edit]Mechanical and visual layouts
Mechanical layouts only address tangible differences among keyboards. When a key is pressed, the keyboard does not send a message such as the A-key is depressed but rather the left-most main key of the home row is depressed. (Technically, each key has an internal reference number, "raw keycodes", and these numbers are what is sent to the computer when a key is pressed or released.) The keyboard and the computer each have no information about what is marked on that key, and it could equally well be the letter A or the digit 9. HP 491274-031 Keyboard
The user of the computer is requested to identify the visual layout of the keyboard when installing the operating system. Visual layouts vary by language, country, and user preference, and the same mechanical layout can be produced with a number of different visual layouts. For example, the "ISO" keyboard layout is used throughout Europe, HP 496878-001 Keyboard
but typical French, German, and UK variants of mechanically identical keyboards appear different because they bear different legends on their keys. Even blank keyboards – with no legends – are sometimes used to learn typing skills or by user preference. HP 505999-001 Keyboard
[edit]Functional layout
The functional layout of the keyboard refers to the mapping between the physical keys, such as the A key, and software events, such as the letter "A" appearing on the screen. Usually the functional layout is set to match the visual layout of the keyboard being used, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
so that pressing a key will produce the expected result, corresponding to the legends on the keyboard. However, most operating systems have software that allow the user to easily switch between functional layouts, such as the language bar in Microsoft Windows. HP 608558-001 Keyboard
For example, a user with a Swedish keyboard who wishes to type more easily in German may switch to a functional layout intended for German – without regard to key markings – just as a Dvorak touch typist may choose a Dvorak layout regardless of the visual layout of the keyboard used. HP 633736-001 Keyboard
[edit]Customized functional layouts
See also: Overlay keyboard
Functional layouts can be redefined or customized within the operating system, by reconfiguring operating system keyboard driver, HP 640208-001 Keyboard
or with a use of a separate software application. Transliteration is one example of that whereby letters in other language get matched to visible Latin letters on the keyboard by the way they sound. Thus, touch typist can type various foreign languages with visible English-language keyboard only. HP Envy 15-1050es Keyboard
Mixed hardware-to-software keyboard extensions exist to overcome above discrepancies between functional and visual layouts. A keyboard overlay[5] is a plastic or paper masks that can be placed over the empty space between the keys, providing the user with the functional use of various keys. Alternatively, HP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
a user applies keyboard stickers with an extra imprinted language alphabet and adds another keyboard layout via language support options in the operating system.[6] The visual layout of any keyboard can also be changed by simply replacing its keys or attaching labels to them, such as to change an English-language keyboard from the common QWERTY to the Dvorak layout, HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
although for touch typists, the placement of the tactile bumps on the home keys is of more practical importance than that of the visual markings.
[edit]National variants
The U.S. IBM PC keyboard has 104 keys, HP Pavilion dm1-1028tu Keyboard
while the PC keyboards for most other countries have 105 keys. In an operating system configured for a non-English language, the keys are placed differently. For example, keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shifted, HP Pavilion dv2-1008ax Keyboard
to release space for Ñ/ñ; similarly those for French may have a special key for the character Ç/ç. Keyboards designed for Japanese may have special keys to switch between Japanese and Latin scripts, and the character ¥ (Japanese yen or Chinese yuan currency symbol) instead of \ (backslash, which may be replaced by the former in some typefaces and codepages). HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
Using a keyboard for alternative languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the key, because the standard keyboard layouts do not even share similar characters of different languages.
The United States keyboard layout is used as default in the currently most popular operating HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
systems: MS Windows,[citation needed] Apple Mac OS X[citation needed] and GNU/Linux.[7]
Most operating systems allow switching between functional keyboard layouts, using a key combination involving register keys that are not used for normal operations (e.g. Microsoft reserve Alt+⇧ Shift or Ctrl+⇧ Shift register control keys for sequential layout switching; those keys were inherited from old DOS keyboard drivers). HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
There are keyboards with two parallel sets of characters labeled on the keys, representing alternate alphabets or scripts. It is also possible to add a second set of characters to a keyboard with keyboard stickers manufactured by third parties. HP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
[edit]QWERTY-based layouts for Latin script
This section needs additional citations for verification. (March 2012)
Geographic distribution of different keyboard layouts in Europe:
QWERTYHP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
QWERTZ
AZERTY
National layouts (Turkish FGĞIOD, Latvian ŪGJRMV, Lithuanian ĄŽERTY, Italian QZERTY)
Non-Latin scripts
Although there are a large number of different keyboard layouts used for different languages written in Latin script, most of these layouts are quite similar. They can be divided into three main families according to where the Q, A, Z, M, and Y keys are placed on the keyboard. These are usually named after the first six letters. HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
While the core of the keyboard, the alphabetic section, remains fairly constant, and the numbers from 1–9 are almost invariably on the top row, keyboards differ vastly in:
the placement of punctuation chaHP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
racters,
which punctuation characters are included,
whether numbers are accessible directly or in a shift-state,
the presence and placement of dead keys and letters with diacritics.
HP Pavilion dv6-3141se Keyboard
The actual mechanical keyboard is of the basic ISO, ANSI, or JIS type; functioning is entirely determined by operating-system or other software. It is customary for keyboards to be used with a particular software keyboard mapping to be engraved appropriately; for example, when the ⇧ Shift and numeric 2 keys are pressed simultaneously on a US keyboard; "@" is generated, and the HP Pavilion G6-1139TX Keyboard
key is engraved appropriately. On a UK keyboard this key combination generates the double-quote character, and UK keyboards are so engraved.
In the keyboard charts listed below, the primary letters or characters available with each alphanumeric key are often shown in black in the left half of the key, whereas characters HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
accessed using the AltGr key appear in blue in the right half of the corresponding key. Symbols representing dead keys usually appear in red.
[edit]QWERTY
Main article: QWERTY
HP Probook 4325s Keyboard
By far the most widespread layout in use, and the only one that is not confined to a particular geographical area. Some varieties have keys like ↵ Enter and ⇪ Caps Lock not translated to the language of the keyboard in question. In other varieties such keys have been translated, such as "Bloq mayús" for "Caps Lock", in the Spanish[8] and Latin American keyboards. On Macintosh HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
computers these keys are usually just represented by symbols without the word "Enter", "Shift", "Command", "Option/Alt" or "Control".
[edit]Canadian
IBM 08K4729 Keyboard
The ACNOR keyboard
English-speaking Canadians have traditionally most often used the same keyboard layout as in the United States, unless they are in a position where they have to write French on a regular IBM 08K4757 Keyboard
basis. French-speaking Canadians respectively have favoured the Canadian French keyboard layout (see below). However, due to Canada's official bilingualism laws, Canadian French keyboards have recently (as of 2010)[citation needed] become standard across most of the country on both laptops and household computers.
IBM 39T0550 Keyboard
[edit]Canadian Multilingual Standard
Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard layout
SIBM 39T0581 Keyboard
ee also: Languages of Canada
The Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard layout is used by some Canadians. Though this keyboard lacks the caret (^) character, this is easily accomplished by typing the circumflex accent followed by a space.
IBM 39T0928 Keyboard
[edit]Canadian French (Quebec)
Canadian French keyboard layout
TIBM 39T0958 Keyboard
his keyboard layout is commonly used in Canada by French-speaking Canadians. It is the most common layout for laptops and stand-alone keyboards targeting French speakers. It can be used to type all accented French characters, as well as some from other languages. It also serves all English functions as well. It is popular mainly because of its close similarity to the basic US IBM 39T0982 Keyboard
keyboard commonly used by English-speaking Canadians, and is the standard for keyboards in Quebec.
In some variants of this keyboard "Caps Lock" is "Fix Maj" or "Verr Maj", "Enter" is "Entrée",[9] and "Esc" is "Échap".
IBM 39T7142 Keyboard
[edit]Czech (QWERTY)
Czech QWERTY keyboard layout
SIBM 39T7265 Keyboard
ince the typewriter came to the Czech area from Germany in the late 19th century, Czech typewriters have the QWERTZ layout. However, the QWERTY keyboard layout is frequently used for Czech too. Czech QWERTY layout for computers has one advantage against the QWERTZ one. In QWERTY keyboard the characters (e.g. @$& and others) missing from the Czech keyboard are IBM 42T3133 Keyboard
accessible with AltGr on the same keys where they are located on American keyboard. In Czech QWERTZ keyboard the position of these characters accessed through AltGr differs.
[edit]Danish
IBM 42T3167 Keyboard
Danish keyboard layout
Both the Danish and Norwegian keyboards include dedicated keys for the letters Å/å, Æ/æ and Ø/ø, but the placement is a little different, as the Æ and Ø keys are swapped on the Norwegian IBM 42T3265 Keyboard
layout. (The Finnish–Swedish keyboard is also largely similar to the Norwegian layout, but the Ø and Æ are replaced with Ö and Ä. On some systems, the Danish keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ø and Æ, respectively.)
[edit]Dutch (Netherlands)
IBM 42T3297 Keyboard
Dutch (Netherlands) keyboard layout
This is a modern version of the Dutch layout. In the 1990s there was a version with the IBM 42T3567 Keyboard
now-obsolete florin sign (Dutch: guldenteken) for IBM PCs. It has additions for the € sign, the ¨ (diaresis) and more, and the braces ("{ }") and other symbols are differently located. The Dutch layout is seldom used. A Dutch keyboard uses "qwerty" not "azerty". Most computers in The Netherlands use the US International layout.
IBM 42T3600 Keyboard
[edit]Estonian
Estonian keyboard layout
TIBM 42T3638 Keyboard
he keyboard layout used in Estonia is virtually the same as the Swedish layout. The main difference is that the Å and ¨ keys (to the right of P) are replaced with Ü and Õ respectively (the latter letter being the most distinguishing feature of the Estonian alphabet). Some special symbols and dead keys are also moved around.
IBM 42T3671 Keyboard
[edit]Latvian
Apostrophe, LV: Ice3.
[edit]Faroese
IBM 42T3704 Keyboard
Faroese keyboard layout
Basically the same as the Danish layout with added Đ, since the Faroese Islands are a self-governed part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
IBM 42T3737 Keyboard
[edit]Finnish multilingual
Finnish multilingual keyboard layout
TIBM 42T3961 Keyboard
he visual layout used in Finland is basically the same as the Swedish layout. This is practical, as Finnish and Swedish share the special characters Ä/ä and Ö/ö, and while the Swedish Å/å is unnecessary for writing Finnish, it is needed by Swedish-speaking Finns.
As of 2008, there is a new standard for the Finnish multilingual keyboard layout, developed as IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
part of a localization project by CSC. All the engravings of the traditional Finnish–Swedish visual layout have been retained, so there is no need to change the hardware, but the functionality has been extended considerably, as additional characters (e.g., Æ/æ, Ə/ə, Ʒ/ʒ) are available through the AltGr key, as well as dead keys, which allow typing a wide variety of letters with diacritics (e.g., IBM 42T4090 Keyboard
Ç/ç, Ǥ/ǥ, Ǯ/ǯ).[10][11]
Based on the Latin letter repertory included in the Multilingual European Subset No. 2 (MES-2) of the Unicode standard, the layout has three main objectives. First, it provides for easy entering of text in both Finnish and Swedish, the two official languages of Finland, using the familiar IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1831 Keyboard
keyboard layout but adding some advanced punctuation options, such as dashes, typographical quotation marks, and the non-breaking space (NBSP).
Second, it is designed to offer an indirect but intuitive way to enter the special letters and diacritics needed by the other three Nordic national languages (Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1832 Keyboard
as well as the regional and minority languages (Northern Sámi, Southern Sámi, Lule Sámi, Inari Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Romani language as spoken in Finland, Faroese, Kalaallisut a.k.a. Greenlandic, and German).
As a third objective, it allows for relatively easy entering of particularly names (of persons, places IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1833 Keyboard
or products) in a variety of European languages using a more or less extended Latin alphabet, such as the official languages of the European Union (excluding Bulgarian and Greek). However, the Romanian letters Ș/ș and Ț/ț (S/s and T/t with comma below) are not supported; the presumption is that Ş/ş and Ţ/ţ (with cedilla) suffice as surrogates.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1836 Keyboard
[edit]Icelandic
Icelandic keyboard layout
TIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1840 Keyboard
he Icelandic keyboard layout is different from the standard QWERTY keyboard because the Icelandic alphabet has some special letters, most of which it shares with the other Nordic countries: Þ/þ, Ð/ð, Æ/æ and Ö/ö. (Æ/æ also occurs in Norwegian, Danish and Faroese, Ð/ð in Faroese, and Ö/ö in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian.)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1841 Keyboard
The letters Å/å, Ä/ä, Ÿ/ÿ, Ü/ü and Ï/ï can be produced with the Icelandic keyboard by first pressing the ° or ⇧ Shift+° (for ¨) dead key located below the Esc key, and then the corresponding letter. (i.e. ° followed by A yields å) These letters are not used natively in Icelandic, but may have been implemented for ease of communication in other Nordic languages.[citation needed]
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2883 Keyboard
[edit]Irish
Microsoft Windows Irish layout
TIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2887 Keyboard
he default keyboard layout for Irish on Microsoft Windows is similar to the UK layout with two exceptions. The keyboards have the same keys with the same markings but (1) the default use for key left of "1", is a grave dead key (this change is also made on UK-Extended) and (2) when AltGr is pressed, the apostrophe key becomes an acute dead key.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2888 Keyboard
[edit]Italian
Italian keyboard layout
bIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2889 Keyboard
races (right above square brackets and shown in purple) are given with both AltGr and Shift pressed.
the tilde (~) character is not present on the Italian keyboard layout
the standard Italian keyboard layout does not allow one to write 100% correct Italian language, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2894 Keyboard
since it lacks the È key. The common workaround is writing E' (E followed by an apostrophe) instead, or relying on the auto-correction feature of several word processors when available. It is possible to obtain the È symbol in MS Word by typing Alt + 212. Mac users, however, can write the correct accented character by pressing ⇧ Shift + ⌥ Option + E. GNU/Linux users can also IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2895 Keyboard
write it by pressing the è key with Caps Lock enabled.
There is also no backquote (`).
There is an alternate layout, which differ only in disposition of characters accessible through AltGr, and includes the tilde and the curly brackets. It is commonly used in IBM keyboards.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 Keyboard
Italian typewriters often have the QZERTY layout instead.
[edit]Maltese
The Maltese language uses Unicode (UTF-8) to display the Maltese diacritics: ċ Ċ; ġ Ġ; ħ Ħ; ż Ż (together with à À; è È; ì Ì; ò Ò; ù Ù). There are 2 standard keyboard layouts for Maltese, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50-1829 Keyboard
according to "MSA 100:2002 Maltese Keyboard Standard"; one of 47 keys and one of 48 keys.
[edit]Norwegian
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50-1830 Keyboard
Norwegian keyboard layout
Norwegian with Sámi
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e 2670 Keyboard
The Norwegian languages use the same letters as Danish, but the Norwegian keyboard differs from the Danish layout regarding the placement of the Ø, Æ and \ (backslash) keys. On the Danish keyboard, the Ø and Æ are swapped. The Finnish–Swedish keyboard is also similar to the Norwegian layout, but Ø and Æ are replaced with Ö and Ä. On some systems, the Norwegian IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E Keyboard
keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ø and Æ, respectively.
There is also an alternative keyboard layout called Norwegian with Sámi, which allows for easier input of the characters required to write various Sámi (also known as Lapp) languages. All the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E-1834 Keyboard
Sámi characters are accessed through the AltGr key.
On Macintosh computers, the Norwegian and Norwegian extended keyboard layouts have a slightly different placement for some of the symbols obtained with the help of the ⇧ Shift or ⌥ Option keys. Notably, the $ sign is accessed with ⇧ Shift+4 and ¢ with ⇧ Shift+⌥ Option+4. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E-1842 Keyboard
Furthermore, the frequently used @ is placed between Æ and Return.
[edit]Persian (Farsi)
See also: Persian keyboard
The Persian keyboard is contributed by Desphilic group for writing Internationalized Persian IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1844 Keyboard
language. It supports Unipers characters [ ä š ü ž] and an additional set of Desphilic extended character [ ö ķ ğ ] and their Capitals [ Ä Š Ü Ž Ö Ķ Ğ ]. These characters are added to Latin-1 character set to form Persian Roman alphabet. The keyboard is in increasing use specially in Persian chat. It is intended to be used as a base for future standards for a Universal Persian IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1845 Keyboard
Keyboard. The keyboard is likely to be agreed by two Persian Romanization standards (Desphilic and Unipers) and is used for transliteration of Persian and writing Persian Latin alphabet. The base and shifted layouts are identical with US-English keyboard and the AltGr layout is shown in the image to the right.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1846 Keyboard
[edit]Polish
Most typewriters use a QWERTZ keyboard with Polish accented letters accessed directly (officially approved as "Typist's keyboard", Polish: klawiatura maszynisty, Polish Standard PN-87), which is mainly ignored in Poland as impractical (except custom-made, e.g., in public sector and some AIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1847 Keyboard
pple computers); the "Polish programmer's" (Polish: polski programisty) layout has become the de facto standard, used on virtually all computers sold on the Polish market.
Polish programmers use QWERTY keyboards identical with the standard US layout. In this layout Polish letters are accessed in the same manner as the usage of keyboard shortcuts, with Latin IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1848 Keyboard
letter keys in combination with right Alt (actually working as AltGr) key. These key combinations (excluding one for "€") obey states of both Shift and Caps Lock keys, preserving normal capitalization while typing Polish characters. For example, to obtain capital "Ź" pressing Shift-rightAlt-X is needed, with Caps Lock off. The use of the right Alt in Polish programmers IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1849 Keyboard
layout may be confused with Alt-A, Alt-C etc. (which are common shortcuts in most programs and can be obtained only with left Alt) because the key really acting as AltGr is also marked as Alt. This is because most keyboards sold in Poland are US-layout with Alt marked on both keys, without AltGr.[12]
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1850 Keyboard
Key combinations to obtain Polish characters
Caps Lock state In combination with Keystroke
A C E L N O S Z X U
Off right Alt ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ż ź €
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1858 Keyboard
Shift & right Alt Ą Ć Ę Ł Ń Ó Ś Ż Ź
On right Alt Ą Ć Ę Ł Ń Ó Ś Ż Ź €
Shift & right Alt ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ż ź
Note: On Polish programmer keyboard, right Alt plays the role of AltGr
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1859 Keyboard
Also, on MS Windows, the tilde character (Shift+` ) acts as a dead key to type Polish letters (with diacritical marks) thus, to obtain an "Ł", one may press ~ followed by L. The tilde character is obtained with ~ and space.
[edit]Portuguese
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1860 Keyboard
See also: Portuguese alphabet#Keyboard layout
[edit]Brazil
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1862 Keyboard
Portuguese (Brazil) keyboard layout
The Brazilian computer keyboard layout is specified in the ABNT NBR 10346 variant 2 (alphanumeric portion) and 10347 (numeric portion) standards.
Essentially, the Brazilian keyboard contains dead keys for five variants of diacritics in use in the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1863 Keyboard
language; the letter Ç, the only application of the cedilla in Portuguese, has its own key. In some keyboard layouts the AltGr+C combination produces the ₢ character (Unicode 0x20A2), symbol for the old currency cruzeiro, a symbol that is not used in practice (the common abbreviation in the eighties and nineties used to be Cr$). The cent sign ¢, is accessible via AltGr+5, but is not IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1870 Keyboard
commonly used for the centavo, subunit of previous currencies as well as the current real, which itself is represented by R$. The Euro sign € is not standardized in this layout. The masculine and feminine ordinals ª and º plus the degree sign ° are accessible via AltGr combinations. The section sign § (Unicode U+00A7), in Portuguese called parágrafo, is nowadays practically only used to IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1829 Keyboard
denote sections of laws.
Variant 2 of the Brazilian keyboard, the only which gained general acceptance (MS Windows treats both variants as the same layout),[13] has a unique mechanical layout, combining some features of the ISO 9995-3 and the JIS keyboards in order to fit 12 keys between the left and right IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1830 Keyboard
Shift (compared to the American standard of 10 and the international of 11). Its modern, IBM PS/2-based variations, are thus known as 107-keys keyboards, and the original PS/2 variation was 104-key. Variant 1, never widely adopted, was based on the ISO 9995-2 keyboards. In order to make this layout usable with keyboards that have only 11 keys in the last row, the rightmost key IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1831 Keyboard
(/?°) has its functions replicated across the AltGr+Q, AltGr+W, and AltGr+E combinations.
[edit]Portugal
PIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1832 Keyboard
ortuguese (Portugal) keyboard layout
During the 20th century, a different keyboard layout, HCESAR, was in widespread use in Portugal. On some QWERTY keyboards the key labels are translated, but the majority are labelled in English.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1833 Keyboard
[edit]Romanian (in Romania and Moldova)
Romanian keyboard layout
TIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1840 Keyboard
he current Romanian National Standard SR 13392:2004 establishes two layouts for Romanian keyboards: a "primary"[14] one and a "secondary"[15] one.
The "primary" layout is intended for traditional users who have learned how to type with older, Microsoft-style implementations of the Romanian keyboard. The "secondary" layout is mainly IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1841 Keyboard
used by programmers as it does not contradict the physical arrangement of keys on a US-style keyboard. The "secondary" arrangement is used as the default Romanian layout by GNU/Linux distributions, as defined in the "X Keyboard Configuration Database"[16]
There are four Romanian-specific characters that are incorrectly implemented in versions of IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2883 Keyboard
Microsoft Windows prior to Vista:
Ș (U+0218, S with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ş (U+015E, S with cedilla)
ș (U+0219, s with comma), incorrectly implemented as ş (U+015F, s with cedilla)
Ț (U+021A, T with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ţ (U+0162, T with cedilla)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2887 Keyboard
ț (U+021B, t with comma), incorrectly implemented as ţ (U+0163, t with cedilla)
The cedilla-versions of the characters do not exist in the Romanian language (they came to be used due to a historic bug).[17]
Since Romanian hardware keyboards are not widely available, Cristian Secară has created a driver IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2888 Keyboard
that allows Romanian characters to be generated with a US-style keyboard in all versions of Windows prior to Vista through the use of the AltGr key modifier.[18]
MS Windows 7 now includes the correct diacritical signs in the default Romanian Keyboard layout. This layout has the Z and Y keys mapped like in English layouts and also includes characters like IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2889 Keyboard
the 'at' (@) and dollar ($) signs, among others. The older cedilla-version layout is still included albeit as the 'Legacy' layout.
[edit]Slovak (QWERTY)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2894 Keyboard
Slovak QWERTY/Z keyboard layout
In Slovakia, similarly to the Czech Republic, both QWERTZ and QWERTY keyboard layouts are used. QWERTZ is the default keyboard layout for Slovak in Microsoft Windows.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2895 Keyboard
[edit]Spanish
[edit]Spain, a.k.a. Spanish (International sort)
See also: Languages of Spain
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50P Keyboard
Spanish keyboard layout
The Spanish keyboard layout is used to write in Spanish and in other languages of Spain such as Valencian, Aragonese, Asturian, Catalan, Occitan, Galician and Basque. It includes Ñ for Spanish, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p1836 Keyboard
Asturian and Galician, the acute accent, the diaeresis, the left question and exclamation marks (¿, ¡) and, finally, some characters required only for typing Catalan and Occitan that are Ç, the grave accent and the interpunct (punt volat/punt interior, used in l·l, n·h, s·h; located at Shift-3). It can also be used to write other international characters, such as the circumflex accent (used in IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1829 Keyboard
French and Portuguese among others) and the tilde (used in Portuguese), which are available as dead keys. However, it lacks two characters used in Asturian: Ḥ[disambiguation needed] and Ḷ (historically, general support for these two has been poor – they aren't present in the ISO 8859-1 character encoding standard, or any other ISO/IEC 8859 standard); several alternative IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1832 Keyboard
distributions, based on this one or created from scratch, have been created to address this issue (see the Other original layouts and layout design software section for more information).
On most keyboards, € is marked as Alt Gr + E and not Alt Gr + 5 as shown in the image.
Spanish keyboards are usually labelled in Spanish instead of English, its abbreviations being:
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1833 Keyboard
Spanish label English equivalent
Insertar (Ins) Insert (Ins)
Suprimir (Supr) Delete (Del)
Retroceder página (Re Pág) Page up (PgUp)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1840 Keyboard
Avanzar página (Av Pág) Page down (PgDn)
Inicio Home
Fin End
Imprimir pantalla / Petición de sistema (Impr Pant/PetSis) Print Screen / System request IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1841 Keyboard
(PrtScn/SysRq)
Bloqueo de mayúsculas (Bloq Mayús) Caps Lock
Bloqueo numérico (Bloq Num) Num Lock
Bloqueo de desplazamiento (Bloq Despl) Scroll Lock
PIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 2894 Keyboard
ausa / Interrumpir (Pausa/Inter) Pause/Break
Intro Enter
The c-cedilla key (Ç), instead of on the right of the acute accent key (´), is located alternatively on some keyboards one or two lines above. In some cases it's placed on the right of the plus sign key IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 2895 Keyboard
(+).[19][20] In other keyboards it's situated on the right of the inverted exclamation mark key (¡).[21][22]
[edit]Latin America
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 Keyboard
Latin American Spanish keyboard layout
The Latin American Spanish keyboard layout is used throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Latin American vendors in the last few years have been preferring the Spanish (Spain) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1830 Keyboard
layout as default; as of 2011, the latter is becoming dominant.
Its most obvious difference with the Spanish (Spain) layout is the lack of a Ç key; on Microsoft Windows it lacks a tilde (~) dead key, whereas on Linux systems the dead tilde can be optionally enabled. This is not a problem when typing in Spanish, but it is rather problematic when typing in IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1831 Keyboard
Portuguese, which can be an issue in countries with large commercial ties to Brazil (Argentina and Paraguay).
Normally "Bloq Mayús" is used instead of "Caps Lock", and "Intro" instead of "Enter".
[edit]Swedish
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1836 Keyboard
Swedish Windows keyboard layout
The central characteristics of the Swedish keyboard are the three additional letters Å/å, Ä/ä, and IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2883 Keyboard
Ö/ö. The same visual layout is also in use in Finland, as the letters Ä/ä and Ö/ö are shared with the Finnish language, and even Å/å is needed by Swedish-speaking Finns. However, the Finnish multilingual keyboard adds new letters and punctuation to the functional layout.
The Norwegian keyboard largely resembles the Swedish layout, but the Ö and Ä are replaced with IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2887 Keyboard
Ø and Æ. The Danish keyboard is also similar, but it has the Ø and Æ swapped. On some systems, the Swedish or Finnish keyboard may allow typing Ø/ø and Æ/æ by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ö and Ä, respectively.
The Swedish with Sámi keyboard allows typing not only Ø/ø and Æ/æ, but even the letters IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2888 Keyboard
required to write various Sámi (also known as Lapp) languages. This keyboard has the same function for all the keys engraved on the regular Swedish keyboard, and the additional letters are available through the AltGr key.
On Macintosh computers, the Swedish and Swedish Pro keyboards differ somewhat from the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2889 Keyboard
image shown above, especially as regards the characters available using the ⇧ Shift or ⌥ Option keys. ⇧ Shift+§ (on the upper row) produces the ° sign, and ⇧ Shift+4 produces the € sign. The digit keys produce ©@£$∞§|[]≈ with ⌥ Option and ¡”¥¢‰¶\{}≠ with ⌥ Option+⇧ Shift.
On Linux systems, the Swedish keyboard may also give access to additional characters as follows:
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e 1843 Keyboard
first row: AltGr ¶¡@£$€¥{[]}\± and AltGr+⇧ Shift ¾¹²³¼¢⅝÷«»°¿¬
second row: AltGr @ł€®þ←↓→œþ"~ and AltGr+⇧ Shift ΩŁ¢®Þ¥↑ıŒÞ°ˇ
third row: AltGr ªßðđŋħjĸłøæ´ and AltGr+⇧ Shift º§ÐªŊĦJ&ŁØÆ×
fourth row: AltGr |«»©“”nµ¸·̣ and AltGr+⇧ Shift ¦<>©‘’Nº˛˙˙
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e 1844 Keyboard
Several of these characters function as dead keys.
[edit]Turkish (Q-keyboard)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1834 Keyboard
Turkish Q-keyboard layout
Today the majority of Turkish keyboards are based on QWERTY (the so-called Q-keyboard layout), although there is also the older F-keyboard layout specifically designed for the language.
[edit]United Kingdom
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1842 Keyboard
United Kingdom and Ireland (except Mac) keyboard layout
The United Kingdom and Ireland[23] use a keyboard layout based on the 48-key version defined IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1845 Keyboard
in British Standard BS 4822.[24] It is very similar to that of the United States, but has an extra key and a larger Enter key, includes £ and € signs and some rarely used EBCDIC symbols (¬, ¦), and uses different positions for the characters @, ", #, ~, \, and |. See the article British and American keyboards for details.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1846 Keyboard
The BS 4822:1994 standard does not make any use of the AltGr key and lacks support for any non-ASCII characters other than ¬ and £. It also assigns a key for the non-ASCII character broken bar (¦), but lacks one for the far more commonly used ASCII character vertical bar (|). It also lacks support for various diacritics used in the Welsh alphabet. Therefore, various manufacturers have IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1847 Keyboard
modified or extended the BS 4822 standard:
The B00 key (left of Z) shifted results in vertical bar (|) on some systems (e.g. Windows UK/Ireland keyboard layout and GNU/Linux/X11 UK/Ireland keyboard layout), rather than the broken bar (¦) assigned by BS 4822 and provided in some systems (e.g. IBM OS/2 UK166 IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1848 Keyboard
keyboard layout)
The E00 key (left of 1) with AltGr provides either vertical bar (|) (OS/2's UK166 keyboard layout, GNU/Linux/X11 UK keyboard layout) or broken bar (¦) (Microsoft Windows UK/Ireland keyboard layout)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1849 Keyboard
(Hong Kong uses US and Chinese (Traditional) keyboards rather than UK and Ireland ones. See also Technical standards in colonial Hong Kong.)
[edit]UK Apple keyboard
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1850 Keyboard
United Kingdom version of Apple keyboard
The British version of the Apple Keyboard does not use the standard UK layout. Instead, some older versions have the US layout (see below) with a few differences: the £ sign is reached by IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1858 Keyboard
shift-3 and the # sign by option-3, the opposite to the US layout. The € is also present and is typed with shift-option-2.
Newer Apple "British" keyboards use a layout that is relatively unlike either the US or traditional UK keyboard. It uses an elongated return key, a shortened left-shift with ` and ~ in the newly IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1859 Keyboard
created position, and in the upper left of the keyboard are § and ± instead of the traditional EBCDIC codes. The middle-row key that fits inside the return key has \ and |.
[edit]United Kingdom extended
Windows XP SP2 and later also offer a "United Kingdom Extended" keyboard layout which allows IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1860 Keyboard
input on a standard physical UK keyboard for many languages (including Welsh) without changing any of the allocations of frequently used keys (the rarely used grave accent key becomes a dead key). In particular, the apostrophe, double-quote, tilde and caret keys are not changed into dead keys modifying the character generated by the next key pressed, as used by the US International IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1861 Keyboard
layout. Instead, the additional characters are obtained using the AltGr key. The extended keyboard is software installed from the Windows control panel, and the extended characters are not normally engraved on keyboards.
The layout provides support for adding diacritics to the vowels a, e, i, o, u, w and y (the last two IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1862 Keyboard
being used in Welsh) as well as capitals:
The grave accent key ` (left of 1) becomes a dead key which adds a grave accent to a subsequent vowel, generating à, è, etc. Pressing the key followed by a character which does not take a grave accent behaves as on a standard keyboard; grave followed by spacebar generates a grave accent IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1863 Keyboard
character.
Vowels with acute accents are generated either by pressing AltGr and the relevant character key simultaneously, or AltGr and apostrophe ' (acting as a dead key combination) followed by the character. Some programs use the combination of AltGr and a letter for other functions, in which IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1870 Keyboard
case the AltGr+' method must be used to generate acute accents.
AltGr+6 acts as a dead key combination to add a circumflex to a subsequent vowel (â, ê, etc.). Use of the shifted 6 key is intended to be mnemonic as the key is marked with the caret (^), which looks like a circumflex.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1843 Keyboard
AltGr+2 acts as a dead key combination to add a diaeresis/umlaut to a subsequent vowel (ä, ë, etc.). Use of the shifted 2 key is intended to be mnemonic as on UK keyboards the key is marked with the double quote ("), which looks a similar to a diaeresis.
AltGr+# (hash) acts as a dead key combination to add a tilde (~) to a subsequent A/a, N/n or O/o IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1844 Keyboard
(ã, ñ, õ etc.), as used in Spanish and Portuguese. This is mnemonic again; the # key on a UK keyboard is marked with the tilde character (~).
With Windows versions newer than Windows XP SP2, AltGr+C generates lower-case c with cedilla (ç), and AltGr+⇧ Shift+C generates the capital letter (Ç).
TIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1845 Keyboard
he UK extended layout is almost entirely transparent to users familiar with the UK layout; a machine with the extended layout will behave exactly as with the standard UK except for the rarely used grave accent key. This makes this layout suitable for a machine for shared or public use by a user population in which some, but not all, are aware of the extended functionality.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1850 Keyboard
[edit]United States
QWERTY keyboard on a laptop.
A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, Acer AEZR1R00110 Keyboard
or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard.
Mechanical layout Acer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
The placements and keys of a keyboard.
Visual layout
The arrangement of the legends (labels, markings, engravings) that appear on the keys of a keyboard.
Functional layoutAcer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
The arrangement of the key-meaning associations, determined in software, of all the keys of a keyboard.
Most computer keyboards are designed to send scancodes to the operating system, rather than directly sending characters. From there, the series of scancodes is converted into a character stream by keyboard layout software. Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
This allows a physical keyboard to be dynamically mapped to any number of layouts without switching hardware components – merely by changing the software that interprets the keystrokes. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
It is usually possible for an advanced user to change keyboard operation, and third-party software is available to modify or extend keyboard functionality.
Contents [hide]
1 Key types
1.1 Character keys
1.2 Modifier keys
1.2.1 Dead keysAcer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
1.2.2 Compose key
2 History
3 Mechanical, visual and functional layouts
3.1 Mechanical and visual layouts
3.2 Functional layoutAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
3.2.1 Customized functional layouts
3.3 National variants
4 QWERTY-based layouts for Latin script
4.1 QWERTY
4.1.1 CanadianAcer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
4.1.1.1 Canadian Multilingual Standard
4.1.1.2 Canadian French (Quebec)
4.1.2 Czech (QWERTY)
4.1.3 Danish
4.1.4 Dutch (Netherlands) Acer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
4.1.5 Estonian
4.1.6 Latvian
4.1.7 FaroeseAcer Aspire One AOA150-1001 Keyboard
4.1.8 Finnish multilingual
4.1.9 Icelandic
4.1.10 Irish
4.1.11 Italian
4.1.12 Maltese
4.1.13 NorwegianAcer Aspire One D250-1326 Keyboard
4.1.14 Persian (Farsi)
4.1.15 Polish
4.1.16 Portuguese
4.1.16.1 Brazil
4.1.16.2 Portugal
4.1.17 Romanian (in Romania and Moldova)
4.1.18 Slovak (QWERTY)
4.1.19 Spanish
4.1.19.1 Spain, a.k.a. Spanish (International sort)
4.1.19.2 Latin America
4.1.20 Swedish
4.1.21 Turkish (Q-keyboard)
4.1.22 United Kingdom
4.1.22.1 UK Apple keyboard
4.1.22.2 United Kingdom extended
4.1.23 United States
4.1.23.1 US-International
4.1.23.2 US-International in the Netherlands
4.1.23.3 Apple International English Keyboard
4.1.24 Vietnamese
4.2 QWERTZAcer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
4.2.1 Austria and Germany
4.2.2 Czech (QWERTZ)
4.2.3 Hungary
4.2.4 Poland
4.2.5 Slovak (QWERTZ)
4.2.6 South Slavic Latin
4.2.7 Switzerland (German, French, Italian, Romansh), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg
4.3 AZERTY
4.3.1 French
4.3.2 Belgian
4.3.3 Tamazight (Berber)
4.4 ĄŽERTY (Lithuanian)
4.5 QZERTY
5 Non-QWERTY keyboards for Latin scripts
5.1 Dvorak
5.2 Colemak
5.3 JCUKEN (Latin)
5.4 Neo
5.5 BÉPO
5.6 Turkish (F-keyboard) Acer eMachines G640 Keyboard
5.7 Chorded keyboards and mobile devices
5.8 Other original layouts and layout design software
6 Keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabetic scripts
6.1 Arabic
6.2 Armenian
6.3 Brahmic scripts
6.3.1 InScript
6.3.2 Khmer
6.3.3 Sinhalese
6.3.4 Thai
6.3.5 Tibetan
6.3.5.1 Tibetan (China) Acer Extensa 5635G 5635Z Keyboard
6.3.5.2 Dzongkha (Bhutan)
6.4 Cyrillic
6.4.1 Bulgarian
6.4.2 Moldovan
6.4.3 Russian
6.4.4 Serbian (Cyrillic)
6.4.5 Ukrainian
6.5 Georgian
6.6 Greek
6.7 Hebrew
6.8 Inuktitut
6.9 Tifinagh
6.9.1 Tamazight (Berber)
6.9.1.1 MoroccoAcer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
7 East Asian languages
7.1 Japanese
7.2 Chinese
7.2.1 China Mainland
7.2.2 Taiwan
7.2.3 Hong Kong
7.3 Hangul (for Korean)
7.3.1 Dubeolsik
7.3.2 Sebeolsik 390
7.3.3 Sebeolsik Final
7.3.4 Sebeolsik Noshift
8 See also
9 Notes and references
10 External links
10.1 Custom LayoutsAcer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
[edit]Key types
A typical computer keyboard comprises sections with different types of keys.
A computer keyboard comprises alphanumeric or character keys for typing, modifier keys for altering the functions of other keys, Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
navigation keys for moving the text cursor on the screen, function keys and system command keys – such as Esc and Break – for special actions, and often a numeric keypad to facilitate calculations.
There is some variation between different keyboard models in the mechanical layout – i.e., how many keys there are and how they are positioned on the keyboard. Acer PK1301K0100 Keyboard
However, differences between national layouts are mostly due to different selections and placements of symbols on the character keys.
[edit]Character keys
The core section of a keyboard comprises character keys, which can be used to type letters and other characters. Typically, there are three rows of keys for typing letters and punctuation, an upper row for typing digits and special symbols, and the Space bar on the bottom row. The positioning of the character keys is similar to the keyboard of a typewriter. Acer PK130AE3000 Keyboard
[edit]Modifier keys
Main article: Modifier key
Besides the character keys, a keyboard incorporates special keys that do nothing by themselves but modify the functions of other keys. For example, the ⇧ Shift key can be used to alter the output of character keys, Acer TravelMate 2353 Keyboard
whereas the Ctrl (control) and Alt (alternate) keys trigger special operations when used in concert with other keys.
Typically, a modifier key is held down while another key is struck. To facilitate this, modifier keys usually come in pairs, one functionally identical key for each hand, Acer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
so holding a modifier key with one hand leaves the other hand free to strike another key.
An alphanumeric key labeled with only a single letter (usually the capital form) can generally be struck to type either a lower case or capital letter, the latter requiring the simultaneous holding of the ⇧ Shift key. Acer Travelmate 4260 Series Keyboard
The ⇧ Shift key is also used to type the upper of two symbols engraved on a given key, the lower being typed without using the modifier key.
The English alphanumeric keyboard has a dedicated key for each of the letters A–Z, along with punctuation and other symbols. Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
In many other languages there are special letters (often with diacritics) or symbols, which also need to be available on the keyboard. To make room for additional symbols, keyboards often have what is effectively a secondary shift key, labeled AltGr (which typically takes the place of the right-hand Alt key). It can be used to type an extra symbol beyond the two otherwise available with an alphanumeric key, Asus A6F Keyboard
and using it simultaneously with the ⇧ Shift key may give access to even a fourth symbol. On the visual layout, these third-level and fourth-level symbols may appear on the right half of the key top, or they may be unmarked.
Instead of the Alt and AltGr keys, Apple Keyboards have ⌘ Cmd (command) and ⌥ Option keys. The ⌥ Option key is used much like the AltGr, and the ⌘ Cmd key like the Ctrl on IBM PCs, to access menu options and shortcuts. Asus A9Rp Keyboard
The main use of the actual Ctrl key on Macs is to produce a secondary mouse click, and to provide support for programs running in X11 (a Unix environment included with OS X as an install option) or MS Windows. There is also a Fn key on modern Mac keyboards, which is used for switching between use of the F1, F2 etc. Asus F3Jr Keyboard
keys either as function keys or for other functions like media control, accessing dashboard widgets, controlling the volume, or handling exposé.
Many Unix workstation (and also Home Computers like the Amiga) keyboards placed the Ctrl key to the left of the letter A, and the ⇪ Caps Lock key in the bottom left. This layout is often preferred by programmers as it makes the Ctrl key easier to reach. This position of the Ctrl key is also used on the XO laptop, which does not have a ⇪ Caps Lock. Asus F80L Keyboard
The UNIX keyboard layout is also different where to place the ESC key, it was placed left to 1.
[edit]Dead keys
Main article: Dead key
A dead key is a special kind of a modifier key that, instead of being held while another key is struck, is pressed and released before the other key. The dead key does not generate a character by itself, but it modifies the character generated by the key struck immediately after, typically making it possible to type a letter with a specific diacritic. Asus X53S Keyboard
For example, on some keyboard layouts, the grave accent key ` is a dead key; in this case, striking ` and then A results in à (a with grave accent), whereas ` followed by E results in è (e with grave accent). A grave accent in isolated form can be typed by striking ` and then Space bar.
A key may function as a dead key by default, or sometimes a normal key can temporarily be altered to function as a dead key by simultaneously holding down the secondary-shift key – AltGr or ⌥ Option. In some systems, Compaq 6720 Keyboard
there is no indication to the user that a dead key has been struck, so the key appears dead, but in some text-entry systems the diacritical mark is displayed along with an indication that the system is waiting for another keystroke: either the base character to be marked, an additional diacritical mark, or Space bar to produce the diacritical mark in isolation. Compaq Presario CQ41-209AU Keyboard
Compared with the secondary-shift modifier key, the dead-key approach may be a little more complicated, but it allows more additional letters. Compaq Presario CQ50-130US Keyboard
Using the secondary shift, you may only type one or (if you use it simultaneously with the normal shift key) two additional letters with each key, whereas using a dead key, a specific diacritic can be attached to a number of different base letters.
[edit]Compose keyCompaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
Main article: Compose key
A Compose key can be characterized as a generic dead key that may in some systems be available instead of or in addition to the more specific dead keys. It allows access to a wide range of predefined extra characters by interpreting a whole sequence of keystrokes following it. For example, Compaq Presario CQ60-310eq Keyboard
striking Compose followed by ' (apostrophe) and then A results in á (a with acute accent), Compose followed by A and then E results in æ (ae ligature), and Compose followed by O and then C results in © (circled c, copyright symbol).
The Compose key is supported by the X Window System (used by most Unix-like operating systems, including most GNU/Linux distributions). Compaq Presario CQ71 Series Keyboard
Some keyboards have a key labelled "Compose", but any key can be configured to serve this function. For example, the otherwise redundant right-hand ⊞ Win key may, when available, be used for this purpose.
[edit]HistoryDell 0NK831 Keyboard
Keyboard of a Letter-Printing Telegraph Set built by Siemens and Halske in Saint Petersburg, Russia, ca. 1900
Keyboard layouts have evolved over time. The earliest mechanical keyboards were used in musical instruments to play particular notes. With the advent of printing telegraph, a keyboard was needed to select characters. Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
Some of the earliest printing telegraph machines used a layout similar to a piano keyboard.[1][2]
In countries using the Latin script, the center, alphanumeric portion of the modern keyboard is most often based on the QWERTY design by Christopher Sholes, Dell Inspiron N4020 Keyboard
who laid out the keys in such a way that common two-letter combinations were placed on opposite sides of the keyboard so that his mechanical keyboard would not jam, and laid out the keys in rows offset horizontally from each other by three-eighths, three-sixteenths, and three-eighths inches to provide room for the levers. Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
Although it has been demonstrated that the QWERTY layout is not the most efficient layout for typing[citation needed], it has become such a standard that people will not change to a more efficient alphanumeric layout.
Sholes chose the size of the keys to be on three-quarter inch (0.75-inch) centers (about 19 mm, Dell Latitude D400 Keyboard
versus musical piano keys which are 23.5 mm or about 0.93 inches wide). Actually, 0.75 inches has turned out to be optimum for fast key entry by the average size hand, and keyboards with this key size are called "full-sized keyboards".
The standard 101/102-key PC keyboard layout was invented by Mark Tiddens of Key Tronic Corporation in 1982.[citation needed] IBM adoptedDell PVDG3 Keyboard
the layout on its PC AT in 1984 (after previously using an 84-key keyboard which did not have separate cursor and numeric key pads).
Most modern keyboards basically conform to the layout specifications contained in parts 1, 2, and 5 of the international standard series ISO/IEC 9995. These specifications were first defined by the user group at AFNOR in 1984 working under the direction of Alain Souloumiac.[3] Based on this work, a well known ergonomic expert wrote a report[4Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
] which was adopted at the ISO Berlin meeting in 1985 and became the reference for keyboard layouts.
The 104/105-key PC keyboard was born when two ⊞ Win keys and a ≣ Menu key were added on the bottom row (originally for the Microsoft Windows operating system). Newer keyboards may incorporate even further additions, such as Internet access (World Wide Web navigation) keys and multimedia (access to media players) buttons. Dell Vostro 1088 Keyboard
[edit]Mechanical, visual and functional layouts
The ANSI mechanical layout is characteristic for United States keyboards.
The ISO mechanical layout is common, e.g., in the United Kingdom. Compared with the ANSI layout, the enter key is vertical rather than horizontal. In addition, the left shift key is smaller, to make room for an additional key to its right. Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
The JIS mechanical layout is the basis for Japanese keyboards. Here it is the right-hand shift key that is smaller. Furthermore, the space bar and backspace key are also smaller, to make room for four more additional keys.
Today, most keyboards use one of three different mechanical layouts, FujitsuLifebook P1510 Keyboard
usually referred to as simply ISO (ISO/IEC 9995-2), ANSI (ANSI-INCITS 154-1988), and JIS (JIS X 6002-1980), referring roughly to the organizations issuing the relevant worldwide, United States, and Japanese standards, respectively. (In fact, the mechanical layouts referred such as “ISO” and “ANSI” comply to the primary recommendations in the named standards, FujitsuLifebook S6230 Keyboard
while each of these standards in fact also allows the other way.) Keyboard layout in this sense may refer either to this broad categorization or to finer distinctions within these categories. For example, as of May 2008 Apple Inc produces ISO, ANSI, and JIS desktop keyboards, each in both extended and compact forms. The extended keyboards have 110, 109, and 112 keys (ISO, ANSI, and JIS, respectively), and the compact models have 79, 78, and 80. HP 317443-001 Keyboard
[edit]Mechanical and visual layouts
Mechanical layouts only address tangible differences among keyboards. When a key is pressed, the keyboard does not send a message such as the A-key is depressed but rather the left-most main key of the home row is depressed. (Technically, each key has an internal reference number, "raw keycodes", and these numbers are what is sent to the computer when a key is pressed or released.) The keyboard and the computer each have no information about what is marked on that key, and it could equally well be the letter A or the digit 9. HP 491274-031 Keyboard
The user of the computer is requested to identify the visual layout of the keyboard when installing the operating system. Visual layouts vary by language, country, and user preference, and the same mechanical layout can be produced with a number of different visual layouts. For example, the "ISO" keyboard layout is used throughout Europe, HP 496878-001 Keyboard
but typical French, German, and UK variants of mechanically identical keyboards appear different because they bear different legends on their keys. Even blank keyboards – with no legends – are sometimes used to learn typing skills or by user preference. HP 505999-001 Keyboard
[edit]Functional layout
The functional layout of the keyboard refers to the mapping between the physical keys, such as the A key, and software events, such as the letter "A" appearing on the screen. Usually the functional layout is set to match the visual layout of the keyboard being used, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
so that pressing a key will produce the expected result, corresponding to the legends on the keyboard. However, most operating systems have software that allow the user to easily switch between functional layouts, such as the language bar in Microsoft Windows. HP 608558-001 Keyboard
For example, a user with a Swedish keyboard who wishes to type more easily in German may switch to a functional layout intended for German – without regard to key markings – just as a Dvorak touch typist may choose a Dvorak layout regardless of the visual layout of the keyboard used. HP 633736-001 Keyboard
[edit]Customized functional layouts
See also: Overlay keyboard
Functional layouts can be redefined or customized within the operating system, by reconfiguring operating system keyboard driver, HP 640208-001 Keyboard
or with a use of a separate software application. Transliteration is one example of that whereby letters in other language get matched to visible Latin letters on the keyboard by the way they sound. Thus, touch typist can type various foreign languages with visible English-language keyboard only. HP Envy 15-1050es Keyboard
Mixed hardware-to-software keyboard extensions exist to overcome above discrepancies between functional and visual layouts. A keyboard overlay[5] is a plastic or paper masks that can be placed over the empty space between the keys, providing the user with the functional use of various keys. Alternatively, HP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
a user applies keyboard stickers with an extra imprinted language alphabet and adds another keyboard layout via language support options in the operating system.[6] The visual layout of any keyboard can also be changed by simply replacing its keys or attaching labels to them, such as to change an English-language keyboard from the common QWERTY to the Dvorak layout, HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
although for touch typists, the placement of the tactile bumps on the home keys is of more practical importance than that of the visual markings.
[edit]National variants
The U.S. IBM PC keyboard has 104 keys, HP Pavilion dm1-1028tu Keyboard
while the PC keyboards for most other countries have 105 keys. In an operating system configured for a non-English language, the keys are placed differently. For example, keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shifted, HP Pavilion dv2-1008ax Keyboard
to release space for Ñ/ñ; similarly those for French may have a special key for the character Ç/ç. Keyboards designed for Japanese may have special keys to switch between Japanese and Latin scripts, and the character ¥ (Japanese yen or Chinese yuan currency symbol) instead of \ (backslash, which may be replaced by the former in some typefaces and codepages). HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
Using a keyboard for alternative languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the key, because the standard keyboard layouts do not even share similar characters of different languages.
The United States keyboard layout is used as default in the currently most popular operating HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
systems: MS Windows,[citation needed] Apple Mac OS X[citation needed] and GNU/Linux.[7]
Most operating systems allow switching between functional keyboard layouts, using a key combination involving register keys that are not used for normal operations (e.g. Microsoft reserve Alt+⇧ Shift or Ctrl+⇧ Shift register control keys for sequential layout switching; those keys were inherited from old DOS keyboard drivers). HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
There are keyboards with two parallel sets of characters labeled on the keys, representing alternate alphabets or scripts. It is also possible to add a second set of characters to a keyboard with keyboard stickers manufactured by third parties. HP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
[edit]QWERTY-based layouts for Latin script
This section needs additional citations for verification. (March 2012)
Geographic distribution of different keyboard layouts in Europe:
QWERTYHP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
QWERTZ
AZERTY
National layouts (Turkish FGĞIOD, Latvian ŪGJRMV, Lithuanian ĄŽERTY, Italian QZERTY)
Non-Latin scripts
Although there are a large number of different keyboard layouts used for different languages written in Latin script, most of these layouts are quite similar. They can be divided into three main families according to where the Q, A, Z, M, and Y keys are placed on the keyboard. These are usually named after the first six letters. HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
While the core of the keyboard, the alphabetic section, remains fairly constant, and the numbers from 1–9 are almost invariably on the top row, keyboards differ vastly in:
the placement of punctuation chaHP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
racters,
which punctuation characters are included,
whether numbers are accessible directly or in a shift-state,
the presence and placement of dead keys and letters with diacritics.
HP Pavilion dv6-3141se Keyboard
The actual mechanical keyboard is of the basic ISO, ANSI, or JIS type; functioning is entirely determined by operating-system or other software. It is customary for keyboards to be used with a particular software keyboard mapping to be engraved appropriately; for example, when the ⇧ Shift and numeric 2 keys are pressed simultaneously on a US keyboard; "@" is generated, and the HP Pavilion G6-1139TX Keyboard
key is engraved appropriately. On a UK keyboard this key combination generates the double-quote character, and UK keyboards are so engraved.
In the keyboard charts listed below, the primary letters or characters available with each alphanumeric key are often shown in black in the left half of the key, whereas characters HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
accessed using the AltGr key appear in blue in the right half of the corresponding key. Symbols representing dead keys usually appear in red.
[edit]QWERTY
Main article: QWERTY
HP Probook 4325s Keyboard
By far the most widespread layout in use, and the only one that is not confined to a particular geographical area. Some varieties have keys like ↵ Enter and ⇪ Caps Lock not translated to the language of the keyboard in question. In other varieties such keys have been translated, such as "Bloq mayús" for "Caps Lock", in the Spanish[8] and Latin American keyboards. On Macintosh HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
computers these keys are usually just represented by symbols without the word "Enter", "Shift", "Command", "Option/Alt" or "Control".
[edit]Canadian
IBM 08K4729 Keyboard
The ACNOR keyboard
English-speaking Canadians have traditionally most often used the same keyboard layout as in the United States, unless they are in a position where they have to write French on a regular IBM 08K4757 Keyboard
basis. French-speaking Canadians respectively have favoured the Canadian French keyboard layout (see below). However, due to Canada's official bilingualism laws, Canadian French keyboards have recently (as of 2010)[citation needed] become standard across most of the country on both laptops and household computers.
IBM 39T0550 Keyboard
[edit]Canadian Multilingual Standard
Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard layout
SIBM 39T0581 Keyboard
ee also: Languages of Canada
The Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard layout is used by some Canadians. Though this keyboard lacks the caret (^) character, this is easily accomplished by typing the circumflex accent followed by a space.
IBM 39T0928 Keyboard
[edit]Canadian French (Quebec)
Canadian French keyboard layout
TIBM 39T0958 Keyboard
his keyboard layout is commonly used in Canada by French-speaking Canadians. It is the most common layout for laptops and stand-alone keyboards targeting French speakers. It can be used to type all accented French characters, as well as some from other languages. It also serves all English functions as well. It is popular mainly because of its close similarity to the basic US IBM 39T0982 Keyboard
keyboard commonly used by English-speaking Canadians, and is the standard for keyboards in Quebec.
In some variants of this keyboard "Caps Lock" is "Fix Maj" or "Verr Maj", "Enter" is "Entrée",[9] and "Esc" is "Échap".
IBM 39T7142 Keyboard
[edit]Czech (QWERTY)
Czech QWERTY keyboard layout
SIBM 39T7265 Keyboard
ince the typewriter came to the Czech area from Germany in the late 19th century, Czech typewriters have the QWERTZ layout. However, the QWERTY keyboard layout is frequently used for Czech too. Czech QWERTY layout for computers has one advantage against the QWERTZ one. In QWERTY keyboard the characters (e.g. @$& and others) missing from the Czech keyboard are IBM 42T3133 Keyboard
accessible with AltGr on the same keys where they are located on American keyboard. In Czech QWERTZ keyboard the position of these characters accessed through AltGr differs.
[edit]Danish
IBM 42T3167 Keyboard
Danish keyboard layout
Both the Danish and Norwegian keyboards include dedicated keys for the letters Å/å, Æ/æ and Ø/ø, but the placement is a little different, as the Æ and Ø keys are swapped on the Norwegian IBM 42T3265 Keyboard
layout. (The Finnish–Swedish keyboard is also largely similar to the Norwegian layout, but the Ø and Æ are replaced with Ö and Ä. On some systems, the Danish keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ø and Æ, respectively.)
[edit]Dutch (Netherlands)
IBM 42T3297 Keyboard
Dutch (Netherlands) keyboard layout
This is a modern version of the Dutch layout. In the 1990s there was a version with the IBM 42T3567 Keyboard
now-obsolete florin sign (Dutch: guldenteken) for IBM PCs. It has additions for the € sign, the ¨ (diaresis) and more, and the braces ("{ }") and other symbols are differently located. The Dutch layout is seldom used. A Dutch keyboard uses "qwerty" not "azerty". Most computers in The Netherlands use the US International layout.
IBM 42T3600 Keyboard
[edit]Estonian
Estonian keyboard layout
TIBM 42T3638 Keyboard
he keyboard layout used in Estonia is virtually the same as the Swedish layout. The main difference is that the Å and ¨ keys (to the right of P) are replaced with Ü and Õ respectively (the latter letter being the most distinguishing feature of the Estonian alphabet). Some special symbols and dead keys are also moved around.
IBM 42T3671 Keyboard
[edit]Latvian
Apostrophe, LV: Ice3.
[edit]Faroese
IBM 42T3704 Keyboard
Faroese keyboard layout
Basically the same as the Danish layout with added Đ, since the Faroese Islands are a self-governed part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
IBM 42T3737 Keyboard
[edit]Finnish multilingual
Finnish multilingual keyboard layout
TIBM 42T3961 Keyboard
he visual layout used in Finland is basically the same as the Swedish layout. This is practical, as Finnish and Swedish share the special characters Ä/ä and Ö/ö, and while the Swedish Å/å is unnecessary for writing Finnish, it is needed by Swedish-speaking Finns.
As of 2008, there is a new standard for the Finnish multilingual keyboard layout, developed as IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
part of a localization project by CSC. All the engravings of the traditional Finnish–Swedish visual layout have been retained, so there is no need to change the hardware, but the functionality has been extended considerably, as additional characters (e.g., Æ/æ, Ə/ə, Ʒ/ʒ) are available through the AltGr key, as well as dead keys, which allow typing a wide variety of letters with diacritics (e.g., IBM 42T4090 Keyboard
Ç/ç, Ǥ/ǥ, Ǯ/ǯ).[10][11]
Based on the Latin letter repertory included in the Multilingual European Subset No. 2 (MES-2) of the Unicode standard, the layout has three main objectives. First, it provides for easy entering of text in both Finnish and Swedish, the two official languages of Finland, using the familiar IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1831 Keyboard
keyboard layout but adding some advanced punctuation options, such as dashes, typographical quotation marks, and the non-breaking space (NBSP).
Second, it is designed to offer an indirect but intuitive way to enter the special letters and diacritics needed by the other three Nordic national languages (Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1832 Keyboard
as well as the regional and minority languages (Northern Sámi, Southern Sámi, Lule Sámi, Inari Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Romani language as spoken in Finland, Faroese, Kalaallisut a.k.a. Greenlandic, and German).
As a third objective, it allows for relatively easy entering of particularly names (of persons, places IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1833 Keyboard
or products) in a variety of European languages using a more or less extended Latin alphabet, such as the official languages of the European Union (excluding Bulgarian and Greek). However, the Romanian letters Ș/ș and Ț/ț (S/s and T/t with comma below) are not supported; the presumption is that Ş/ş and Ţ/ţ (with cedilla) suffice as surrogates.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1836 Keyboard
[edit]Icelandic
Icelandic keyboard layout
TIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1840 Keyboard
he Icelandic keyboard layout is different from the standard QWERTY keyboard because the Icelandic alphabet has some special letters, most of which it shares with the other Nordic countries: Þ/þ, Ð/ð, Æ/æ and Ö/ö. (Æ/æ also occurs in Norwegian, Danish and Faroese, Ð/ð in Faroese, and Ö/ö in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian.)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 1841 Keyboard
The letters Å/å, Ä/ä, Ÿ/ÿ, Ü/ü and Ï/ï can be produced with the Icelandic keyboard by first pressing the ° or ⇧ Shift+° (for ¨) dead key located below the Esc key, and then the corresponding letter. (i.e. ° followed by A yields å) These letters are not used natively in Icelandic, but may have been implemented for ease of communication in other Nordic languages.[citation needed]
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2883 Keyboard
[edit]Irish
Microsoft Windows Irish layout
TIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2887 Keyboard
he default keyboard layout for Irish on Microsoft Windows is similar to the UK layout with two exceptions. The keyboards have the same keys with the same markings but (1) the default use for key left of "1", is a grave dead key (this change is also made on UK-Extended) and (2) when AltGr is pressed, the apostrophe key becomes an acute dead key.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2888 Keyboard
[edit]Italian
Italian keyboard layout
bIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2889 Keyboard
races (right above square brackets and shown in purple) are given with both AltGr and Shift pressed.
the tilde (~) character is not present on the Italian keyboard layout
the standard Italian keyboard layout does not allow one to write 100% correct Italian language, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2894 Keyboard
since it lacks the È key. The common workaround is writing E' (E followed by an apostrophe) instead, or relying on the auto-correction feature of several word processors when available. It is possible to obtain the È symbol in MS Word by typing Alt + 212. Mac users, however, can write the correct accented character by pressing ⇧ Shift + ⌥ Option + E. GNU/Linux users can also IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2895 Keyboard
write it by pressing the è key with Caps Lock enabled.
There is also no backquote (`).
There is an alternate layout, which differ only in disposition of characters accessible through AltGr, and includes the tilde and the curly brackets. It is commonly used in IBM keyboards.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 Keyboard
Italian typewriters often have the QZERTY layout instead.
[edit]Maltese
The Maltese language uses Unicode (UTF-8) to display the Maltese diacritics: ċ Ċ; ġ Ġ; ħ Ħ; ż Ż (together with à À; è È; ì Ì; ò Ò; ù Ù). There are 2 standard keyboard layouts for Maltese, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50-1829 Keyboard
according to "MSA 100:2002 Maltese Keyboard Standard"; one of 47 keys and one of 48 keys.
[edit]Norwegian
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50-1830 Keyboard
Norwegian keyboard layout
Norwegian with Sámi
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e 2670 Keyboard
The Norwegian languages use the same letters as Danish, but the Norwegian keyboard differs from the Danish layout regarding the placement of the Ø, Æ and \ (backslash) keys. On the Danish keyboard, the Ø and Æ are swapped. The Finnish–Swedish keyboard is also similar to the Norwegian layout, but Ø and Æ are replaced with Ö and Ä. On some systems, the Norwegian IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E Keyboard
keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ø and Æ, respectively.
There is also an alternative keyboard layout called Norwegian with Sámi, which allows for easier input of the characters required to write various Sámi (also known as Lapp) languages. All the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E-1834 Keyboard
Sámi characters are accessed through the AltGr key.
On Macintosh computers, the Norwegian and Norwegian extended keyboard layouts have a slightly different placement for some of the symbols obtained with the help of the ⇧ Shift or ⌥ Option keys. Notably, the $ sign is accessed with ⇧ Shift+4 and ¢ with ⇧ Shift+⌥ Option+4. IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50E-1842 Keyboard
Furthermore, the frequently used @ is placed between Æ and Return.
[edit]Persian (Farsi)
See also: Persian keyboard
The Persian keyboard is contributed by Desphilic group for writing Internationalized Persian IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1844 Keyboard
language. It supports Unipers characters [ ä š ü ž] and an additional set of Desphilic extended character [ ö ķ ğ ] and their Capitals [ Ä Š Ü Ž Ö Ķ Ğ ]. These characters are added to Latin-1 character set to form Persian Roman alphabet. The keyboard is in increasing use specially in Persian chat. It is intended to be used as a base for future standards for a Universal Persian IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1845 Keyboard
Keyboard. The keyboard is likely to be agreed by two Persian Romanization standards (Desphilic and Unipers) and is used for transliteration of Persian and writing Persian Latin alphabet. The base and shifted layouts are identical with US-English keyboard and the AltGr layout is shown in the image to the right.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1846 Keyboard
[edit]Polish
Most typewriters use a QWERTZ keyboard with Polish accented letters accessed directly (officially approved as "Typist's keyboard", Polish: klawiatura maszynisty, Polish Standard PN-87), which is mainly ignored in Poland as impractical (except custom-made, e.g., in public sector and some AIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1847 Keyboard
pple computers); the "Polish programmer's" (Polish: polski programisty) layout has become the de facto standard, used on virtually all computers sold on the Polish market.
Polish programmers use QWERTY keyboards identical with the standard US layout. In this layout Polish letters are accessed in the same manner as the usage of keyboard shortcuts, with Latin IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1848 Keyboard
letter keys in combination with right Alt (actually working as AltGr) key. These key combinations (excluding one for "€") obey states of both Shift and Caps Lock keys, preserving normal capitalization while typing Polish characters. For example, to obtain capital "Ź" pressing Shift-rightAlt-X is needed, with Caps Lock off. The use of the right Alt in Polish programmers IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1849 Keyboard
layout may be confused with Alt-A, Alt-C etc. (which are common shortcuts in most programs and can be obtained only with left Alt) because the key really acting as AltGr is also marked as Alt. This is because most keyboards sold in Poland are US-layout with Alt marked on both keys, without AltGr.[12]
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1850 Keyboard
Key combinations to obtain Polish characters
Caps Lock state In combination with Keystroke
A C E L N O S Z X U
Off right Alt ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ż ź €
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1858 Keyboard
Shift & right Alt Ą Ć Ę Ł Ń Ó Ś Ż Ź
On right Alt Ą Ć Ę Ł Ń Ó Ś Ż Ź €
Shift & right Alt ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ż ź
Note: On Polish programmer keyboard, right Alt plays the role of AltGr
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1859 Keyboard
Also, on MS Windows, the tilde character (Shift+` ) acts as a dead key to type Polish letters (with diacritical marks) thus, to obtain an "Ł", one may press ~ followed by L. The tilde character is obtained with ~ and space.
[edit]Portuguese
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1860 Keyboard
See also: Portuguese alphabet#Keyboard layout
[edit]Brazil
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1862 Keyboard
Portuguese (Brazil) keyboard layout
The Brazilian computer keyboard layout is specified in the ABNT NBR 10346 variant 2 (alphanumeric portion) and 10347 (numeric portion) standards.
Essentially, the Brazilian keyboard contains dead keys for five variants of diacritics in use in the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1863 Keyboard
language; the letter Ç, the only application of the cedilla in Portuguese, has its own key. In some keyboard layouts the AltGr+C combination produces the ₢ character (Unicode 0x20A2), symbol for the old currency cruzeiro, a symbol that is not used in practice (the common abbreviation in the eighties and nineties used to be Cr$). The cent sign ¢, is accessible via AltGr+5, but is not IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e-1870 Keyboard
commonly used for the centavo, subunit of previous currencies as well as the current real, which itself is represented by R$. The Euro sign € is not standardized in this layout. The masculine and feminine ordinals ª and º plus the degree sign ° are accessible via AltGr combinations. The section sign § (Unicode U+00A7), in Portuguese called parágrafo, is nowadays practically only used to IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1829 Keyboard
denote sections of laws.
Variant 2 of the Brazilian keyboard, the only which gained general acceptance (MS Windows treats both variants as the same layout),[13] has a unique mechanical layout, combining some features of the ISO 9995-3 and the JIS keyboards in order to fit 12 keys between the left and right IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1830 Keyboard
Shift (compared to the American standard of 10 and the international of 11). Its modern, IBM PS/2-based variations, are thus known as 107-keys keyboards, and the original PS/2 variation was 104-key. Variant 1, never widely adopted, was based on the ISO 9995-2 keyboards. In order to make this layout usable with keyboards that have only 11 keys in the last row, the rightmost key IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1831 Keyboard
(/?°) has its functions replicated across the AltGr+Q, AltGr+W, and AltGr+E combinations.
[edit]Portugal
PIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1832 Keyboard
ortuguese (Portugal) keyboard layout
During the 20th century, a different keyboard layout, HCESAR, was in widespread use in Portugal. On some QWERTY keyboards the key labels are translated, but the majority are labelled in English.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1833 Keyboard
[edit]Romanian (in Romania and Moldova)
Romanian keyboard layout
TIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1840 Keyboard
he current Romanian National Standard SR 13392:2004 establishes two layouts for Romanian keyboards: a "primary"[14] one and a "secondary"[15] one.
The "primary" layout is intended for traditional users who have learned how to type with older, Microsoft-style implementations of the Romanian keyboard. The "secondary" layout is mainly IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1841 Keyboard
used by programmers as it does not contradict the physical arrangement of keys on a US-style keyboard. The "secondary" arrangement is used as the default Romanian layout by GNU/Linux distributions, as defined in the "X Keyboard Configuration Database"[16]
There are four Romanian-specific characters that are incorrectly implemented in versions of IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2883 Keyboard
Microsoft Windows prior to Vista:
Ș (U+0218, S with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ş (U+015E, S with cedilla)
ș (U+0219, s with comma), incorrectly implemented as ş (U+015F, s with cedilla)
Ț (U+021A, T with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ţ (U+0162, T with cedilla)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2887 Keyboard
ț (U+021B, t with comma), incorrectly implemented as ţ (U+0163, t with cedilla)
The cedilla-versions of the characters do not exist in the Romanian language (they came to be used due to a historic bug).[17]
Since Romanian hardware keyboards are not widely available, Cristian Secară has created a driver IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2888 Keyboard
that allows Romanian characters to be generated with a US-style keyboard in all versions of Windows prior to Vista through the use of the AltGr key modifier.[18]
MS Windows 7 now includes the correct diacritical signs in the default Romanian Keyboard layout. This layout has the Z and Y keys mapped like in English layouts and also includes characters like IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2889 Keyboard
the 'at' (@) and dollar ($) signs, among others. The older cedilla-version layout is still included albeit as the 'Legacy' layout.
[edit]Slovak (QWERTY)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2894 Keyboard
Slovak QWERTY/Z keyboard layout
In Slovakia, similarly to the Czech Republic, both QWERTZ and QWERTY keyboard layouts are used. QWERTZ is the default keyboard layout for Slovak in Microsoft Windows.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 2895 Keyboard
[edit]Spanish
[edit]Spain, a.k.a. Spanish (International sort)
See also: Languages of Spain
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50P Keyboard
Spanish keyboard layout
The Spanish keyboard layout is used to write in Spanish and in other languages of Spain such as Valencian, Aragonese, Asturian, Catalan, Occitan, Galician and Basque. It includes Ñ for Spanish, IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50p1836 Keyboard
Asturian and Galician, the acute accent, the diaeresis, the left question and exclamation marks (¿, ¡) and, finally, some characters required only for typing Catalan and Occitan that are Ç, the grave accent and the interpunct (punt volat/punt interior, used in l·l, n·h, s·h; located at Shift-3). It can also be used to write other international characters, such as the circumflex accent (used in IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1829 Keyboard
French and Portuguese among others) and the tilde (used in Portuguese), which are available as dead keys. However, it lacks two characters used in Asturian: Ḥ[disambiguation needed] and Ḷ (historically, general support for these two has been poor – they aren't present in the ISO 8859-1 character encoding standard, or any other ISO/IEC 8859 standard); several alternative IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1832 Keyboard
distributions, based on this one or created from scratch, have been created to address this issue (see the Other original layouts and layout design software section for more information).
On most keyboards, € is marked as Alt Gr + E and not Alt Gr + 5 as shown in the image.
Spanish keyboards are usually labelled in Spanish instead of English, its abbreviations being:
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1833 Keyboard
Spanish label English equivalent
Insertar (Ins) Insert (Ins)
Suprimir (Supr) Delete (Del)
Retroceder página (Re Pág) Page up (PgUp)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1840 Keyboard
Avanzar página (Av Pág) Page down (PgDn)
Inicio Home
Fin End
Imprimir pantalla / Petición de sistema (Impr Pant/PetSis) Print Screen / System request IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 1841 Keyboard
(PrtScn/SysRq)
Bloqueo de mayúsculas (Bloq Mayús) Caps Lock
Bloqueo numérico (Bloq Num) Num Lock
Bloqueo de desplazamiento (Bloq Despl) Scroll Lock
PIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 2894 Keyboard
ausa / Interrumpir (Pausa/Inter) Pause/Break
Intro Enter
The c-cedilla key (Ç), instead of on the right of the acute accent key (´), is located alternatively on some keyboards one or two lines above. In some cases it's placed on the right of the plus sign key IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 2895 Keyboard
(+).[19][20] In other keyboards it's situated on the right of the inverted exclamation mark key (¡).[21][22]
[edit]Latin America
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51 Keyboard
Latin American Spanish keyboard layout
The Latin American Spanish keyboard layout is used throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Latin American vendors in the last few years have been preferring the Spanish (Spain) IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1830 Keyboard
layout as default; as of 2011, the latter is becoming dominant.
Its most obvious difference with the Spanish (Spain) layout is the lack of a Ç key; on Microsoft Windows it lacks a tilde (~) dead key, whereas on Linux systems the dead tilde can be optionally enabled. This is not a problem when typing in Spanish, but it is rather problematic when typing in IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1831 Keyboard
Portuguese, which can be an issue in countries with large commercial ties to Brazil (Argentina and Paraguay).
Normally "Bloq Mayús" is used instead of "Caps Lock", and "Intro" instead of "Enter".
[edit]Swedish
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-1836 Keyboard
Swedish Windows keyboard layout
The central characteristics of the Swedish keyboard are the three additional letters Å/å, Ä/ä, and IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2883 Keyboard
Ö/ö. The same visual layout is also in use in Finland, as the letters Ä/ä and Ö/ö are shared with the Finnish language, and even Å/å is needed by Swedish-speaking Finns. However, the Finnish multilingual keyboard adds new letters and punctuation to the functional layout.
The Norwegian keyboard largely resembles the Swedish layout, but the Ö and Ä are replaced with IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2887 Keyboard
Ø and Æ. The Danish keyboard is also similar, but it has the Ø and Æ swapped. On some systems, the Swedish or Finnish keyboard may allow typing Ø/ø and Æ/æ by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ö and Ä, respectively.
The Swedish with Sámi keyboard allows typing not only Ø/ø and Æ/æ, but even the letters IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2888 Keyboard
required to write various Sámi (also known as Lapp) languages. This keyboard has the same function for all the keys engraved on the regular Swedish keyboard, and the additional letters are available through the AltGr key.
On Macintosh computers, the Swedish and Swedish Pro keyboards differ somewhat from the IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51-2889 Keyboard
image shown above, especially as regards the characters available using the ⇧ Shift or ⌥ Option keys. ⇧ Shift+§ (on the upper row) produces the ° sign, and ⇧ Shift+4 produces the € sign. The digit keys produce ©@£$∞§|[]≈ with ⌥ Option and ¡”¥¢‰¶\{}≠ with ⌥ Option+⇧ Shift.
On Linux systems, the Swedish keyboard may also give access to additional characters as follows:
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e 1843 Keyboard
first row: AltGr ¶¡@£$€¥{[]}\± and AltGr+⇧ Shift ¾¹²³¼¢⅝÷«»°¿¬
second row: AltGr @ł€®þ←↓→œþ"~ and AltGr+⇧ Shift ΩŁ¢®Þ¥↑ıŒÞ°ˇ
third row: AltGr ªßðđŋħjĸłøæ´ and AltGr+⇧ Shift º§ÐªŊĦJ&ŁØÆ×
fourth row: AltGr |«»©“”nµ¸·̣ and AltGr+⇧ Shift ¦<>©‘’Nº˛˙˙
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e 1844 Keyboard
Several of these characters function as dead keys.
[edit]Turkish (Q-keyboard)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1834 Keyboard
Turkish Q-keyboard layout
Today the majority of Turkish keyboards are based on QWERTY (the so-called Q-keyboard layout), although there is also the older F-keyboard layout specifically designed for the language.
[edit]United Kingdom
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1842 Keyboard
United Kingdom and Ireland (except Mac) keyboard layout
The United Kingdom and Ireland[23] use a keyboard layout based on the 48-key version defined IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1845 Keyboard
in British Standard BS 4822.[24] It is very similar to that of the United States, but has an extra key and a larger Enter key, includes £ and € signs and some rarely used EBCDIC symbols (¬, ¦), and uses different positions for the characters @, ", #, ~, \, and |. See the article British and American keyboards for details.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1846 Keyboard
The BS 4822:1994 standard does not make any use of the AltGr key and lacks support for any non-ASCII characters other than ¬ and £. It also assigns a key for the non-ASCII character broken bar (¦), but lacks one for the far more commonly used ASCII character vertical bar (|). It also lacks support for various diacritics used in the Welsh alphabet. Therefore, various manufacturers have IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1847 Keyboard
modified or extended the BS 4822 standard:
The B00 key (left of Z) shifted results in vertical bar (|) on some systems (e.g. Windows UK/Ireland keyboard layout and GNU/Linux/X11 UK/Ireland keyboard layout), rather than the broken bar (¦) assigned by BS 4822 and provided in some systems (e.g. IBM OS/2 UK166 IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1848 Keyboard
keyboard layout)
The E00 key (left of 1) with AltGr provides either vertical bar (|) (OS/2's UK166 keyboard layout, GNU/Linux/X11 UK keyboard layout) or broken bar (¦) (Microsoft Windows UK/Ireland keyboard layout)
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1849 Keyboard
(Hong Kong uses US and Chinese (Traditional) keyboards rather than UK and Ireland ones. See also Technical standards in colonial Hong Kong.)
[edit]UK Apple keyboard
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1850 Keyboard
United Kingdom version of Apple keyboard
The British version of the Apple Keyboard does not use the standard UK layout. Instead, some older versions have the US layout (see below) with a few differences: the £ sign is reached by IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1858 Keyboard
shift-3 and the # sign by option-3, the opposite to the US layout. The € is also present and is typed with shift-option-2.
Newer Apple "British" keyboards use a layout that is relatively unlike either the US or traditional UK keyboard. It uses an elongated return key, a shortened left-shift with ` and ~ in the newly IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1859 Keyboard
created position, and in the upper left of the keyboard are § and ± instead of the traditional EBCDIC codes. The middle-row key that fits inside the return key has \ and |.
[edit]United Kingdom extended
Windows XP SP2 and later also offer a "United Kingdom Extended" keyboard layout which allows IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1860 Keyboard
input on a standard physical UK keyboard for many languages (including Welsh) without changing any of the allocations of frequently used keys (the rarely used grave accent key becomes a dead key). In particular, the apostrophe, double-quote, tilde and caret keys are not changed into dead keys modifying the character generated by the next key pressed, as used by the US International IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1861 Keyboard
layout. Instead, the additional characters are obtained using the AltGr key. The extended keyboard is software installed from the Windows control panel, and the extended characters are not normally engraved on keyboards.
The layout provides support for adding diacritics to the vowels a, e, i, o, u, w and y (the last two IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1862 Keyboard
being used in Welsh) as well as capitals:
The grave accent key ` (left of 1) becomes a dead key which adds a grave accent to a subsequent vowel, generating à, è, etc. Pressing the key followed by a character which does not take a grave accent behaves as on a standard keyboard; grave followed by spacebar generates a grave accent IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1863 Keyboard
character.
Vowels with acute accents are generated either by pressing AltGr and the relevant character key simultaneously, or AltGr and apostrophe ' (acting as a dead key combination) followed by the character. Some programs use the combination of AltGr and a letter for other functions, in which IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1870 Keyboard
case the AltGr+' method must be used to generate acute accents.
AltGr+6 acts as a dead key combination to add a circumflex to a subsequent vowel (â, ê, etc.). Use of the shifted 6 key is intended to be mnemonic as the key is marked with the caret (^), which looks like a circumflex.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1843 Keyboard
AltGr+2 acts as a dead key combination to add a diaeresis/umlaut to a subsequent vowel (ä, ë, etc.). Use of the shifted 2 key is intended to be mnemonic as on UK keyboards the key is marked with the double quote ("), which looks a similar to a diaeresis.
AltGr+# (hash) acts as a dead key combination to add a tilde (~) to a subsequent A/a, N/n or O/o IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1844 Keyboard
(ã, ñ, õ etc.), as used in Spanish and Portuguese. This is mnemonic again; the # key on a UK keyboard is marked with the tilde character (~).
With Windows versions newer than Windows XP SP2, AltGr+C generates lower-case c with cedilla (ç), and AltGr+⇧ Shift+C generates the capital letter (Ç).
TIBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1845 Keyboard
he UK extended layout is almost entirely transparent to users familiar with the UK layout; a machine with the extended layout will behave exactly as with the standard UK except for the rarely used grave accent key. This makes this layout suitable for a machine for shared or public use by a user population in which some, but not all, are aware of the extended functionality.
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R52 1850 Keyboard
[edit]United States
Love
Love
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, searchSony VGN-FE31H Keyboard
For other uses, see Love (disambiguation).
Archetypal lovers Romeo and Juliet portrayed by Frank Dicksee
Love is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment.[1] Love is also a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection —"the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another".[2] Love may describe actions towards others or oneself based on compassion or affection.[3] HP G72-b09EG Keyboard
In English, love refers to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from pleasure ("I loved that meal") to interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). "Love" may refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, to the platonic love that defines friendship,[4] or to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love[5], Sony KFRMBA152A Keyboard
or to a concept of love that encompasses all of those feelings. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.
Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.[6]
Love may be understood as part of the survival instinct, Acer 9Z.N3K82.01D Keyboard
a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species.[7]
The word "love" can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts. Often, other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that English relies mainly on "love" to encapsulate; one example is the plurality of Greek words for "love." Cultural differences in conceptualizing Compaq Mini 701ES Keyboard
love thus make it doubly difficult to establish any universal definition.[8]
Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't love. As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is sometimes contrasted with friendship, Acer KB.I100A.026 Keyboard
although the word love is often applied to close friendships.
Fraternal love (Prehispanic sculpture from 250–900 A.D., of Huastec origin). Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.
When discussed in the abstract, love usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience felt by a person for another person. Love often involves caring for or identifying with a person or thing (cf. vulnerability and care theory of love), including oneself (cf. narcissism). In addition to cross-cultural differences in understanding love, Asus F5 Keyboard
ideas about love have also changed greatly over time. Some historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages, although the prior existence of romantic attachments is attested by ancient love poetry.[9]
Because of the complex and abstract nature of love, discourse on love is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating cliché, and there are a number of common proverbs regarding love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love". St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defines love as "to will the good of another." ThinkPad T410s-2924
[10] Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value," as opposed to relative value. Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said that love is "to be delighted by the happiness of another."[11]
Love is sometimes referred to as being the "international language", overriding cultural and linguistic divisions.
Impersonal love
A person canAcer Aspire 4736ZG Keyboard
be said to love an object, principle, or goal if they value it greatly and are deeply committed to it. Similarly, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers' "love" of their cause may sometimes be born not of interpersonal love, but impersonal love coupled with altruism and strong spiritual or political convictions.[12] People can also "love" material objects, animals, or activities if they invest themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with those things. If sexual passion is also involved, this condition is called paraphilia. HP Mini 110-3115tu Keyboard
[13]
Interpersonal love
Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings. It is a more potent sentiment than a simple liking for another. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love that are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with interpersonal relationships.[12] Such love might exist between family members, friends, and couples. There are also a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania.
Pair of Lovers. 1480-1485 HP 491274-031 Keyboard
Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love.
People with histrionic personality disorder and narcissism may have a limited or minimal capability for experiencing love.[14][15][16][17]
Biological basisThinkPad Edge E520
Main article: Biological basis of love
Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst.[18] Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust is the feeling of sexual desire; romantic attraction determines what partners mates find attractive and pursue, conserving time and energy by choosing; and attachment involves sharing a home, parental duties, mutual defense, and in humans involves feelings of safety and security.[19] Three distinct neural circuitries, including neurotransmitters, Compaq Presario CQ57-315NR Keyboard
and also three behavioral patterns, are associated with these three romantic styles.[19]
Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that Toshiba Satellite L300 Keyboard
as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act in a manner similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.[20]
Since the lust and attraction stages areToshiba Satellite A300-ST3511 Keyboard
both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding that promotes relationships lasting for many years and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin to a greater degree than short-term relationships have.[20] Enzo Emanuele and coworkers reported the protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, Acer Aspire 5336 Keyboard
but these return to previous levels after one year.[21]
Psychological basis
Further information: Human bonding
Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is a form in which two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives, IBM ThinkPad T43 Keyboard
and is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is permanent. The last and most common form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components. Non-love does not include any of these components. Liking only includes intimacy. Infatuated love only includes passion. Empty love only includes commitment. Dell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
Romantic love includes both intimacy and passion. Companionate love includes intimacy and commitment. Fatuous love includes passion and commitment. Lastly, consummate love includes all three. [22]American psychologist Zick Rubin sought to define love by psychometrics in the 1970s. His work states that three factors constitute love: attachment, caring, and intimacy.[23]
Grandmother and grandchild, Sri Lanka
Following developments in electrical HP Mini 210-2180ca Keyboard
theories such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract." Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating has generally found this not to be true when it comes to character and personality—people tend to like people similar to themselves. However, in a few unusual and specific domains, such as immune systems, it seems that humans prefer others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with an orthogonal immune system), since this will lead to a baby that has the best of both worlds.[25] In recent years, various humanSony 81-31105003-02 Keyboard
bonding theories have been developed, described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and affinities. Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose work in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the "concern for the spiritual growth of another," and simple narcissism.[26] In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.
Psychologist Erich Fromm maintained in his book "The art of loving" that love is not merely a feeling but is also actions, and that in fact, Acer eMachines G730G Keyboard
the "feeling" of love is superficial in comparison to ones commitment to love via a series of loving actions over time.[12] In this sense, Fromm held that love is ultimately not a feeling at all, but rather is a commitment to, and adherence to, loving actions towards another, ones self, or many others, over a sustained duration.[12] Fromm also described Love as a conscious choice that in its early stages might originate as an involuntary feeling, but which then later no longer depends on those feelings, but rather depends only on conscious commitment. HP Envy 15-1050nr Keyboard
©Evolutionary basis
Evolutionary psychology has attempted to provide various reasons for love as a survival tool. Humans are dependent on parental help for a large portion of their lifespans comparative to other mammals. Love has therefore been seen as a mechanism to promote parental support of children for this extended time period. Another factor may be that sexually transmitted diseases can cause, among other effects, Toshiba Satellite U305-S7432 Keyboard
permanently reduced fertility, injury to the fetus, and increase complications during childbirth. This would favor monogamous relationships over polygamy.[27]
Comparison of scientific models
Biological models of love tend to see it as a mammalian drive, similar to hunger or thirst.[18] Psychology sees love as more of a social and cultural phenomenon. There are probably elements of truth in both views. Certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin), neurotrophins (such as NGF), and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by their conceptions of love. The conventional view in biologySony VAIO VGN-N38E/W Keyboard
is that there are two major drives in love: sexual attraction and attachment. Attachment between adults is presumed to work on the same principles that lead an infant to become attached to its mother. The traditional psychological view sees love as being a combination of companionate love and passionate love. Passionate love is intense longing, and is often accompanied by physiological arousal (shortness of breath, rapid heart rate); companionate love is affection and a feeling of intimacy not HP Pavilion dm3 Keyboard
accompanied by physiological arousal.
Cultural views
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2012)
Ancient Greek
Greek distinguishes several different senses in which the word "love" is used. For example, Ancient Greek has the words philia, eros, agape, storge, and xenia. However, with Greek (as with many other languages), it has been historically difficult to separate the meanings of these words totally. At the same time, the Ancient Greek text of the Bible has examples of the verb agapo having the same meaning as phileo. IBM Thinkpad T61P Keyboard
Agape (ἀγάπη agápē) means love in modern-day Greek. The term s'agapo means I love you in Greek. The word agapo is the verb I love. It generally refers to a "pure," ideal type of love, rather than the physical attraction suggested by eros. However, there are some examples of agape used to mean the same as eros. It has also been translated as "love of the soul."
Eros (ἔρως érōs) (from the Greek deity Eros) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Greek word erota means in love. Plato refined his own definition. Toshiba Satellite L450 Keyboard
Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by eros. Some translations list it as "love of the body."
Philia (φιλία philía), a dispassionate virtuous love, Compaq Presario C500 Keyboard
was a concept addressed and developed by Aristotle.[citation needed] It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Philia is motivated by practical reasons; one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship. It can also mean "love of the mind."
Storge (στοργή storgē) is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.
Xenia (ξενία xenía), hospitality, was an extremely important practice in Ancient Greece. It was an almost ritualized friendship formed between a HP Pavilion G6-1212TX Keyboard
host and his guest, who could previously have been strangers. The host fed and provided quarters for the guest, who was expected to repay only with gratitude. The importance of this can be seen throughout Greek mythology—in particular, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
Ancient Roman (Latin)
The Latin language has several different verbs corresponding to the English word "love." amō is the basic verb meaning I love, with the infinitive amare (“to love”) as it still is in Italian today. The Romans used it both in an affectionate sense as well as in a romantic or sexual sense. From this verb come amans—a lover, amator, "professional lover, HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
" often with the accessory notion of lechery—and amica, "girlfriend" in the English sense, often as well being applied euphemistically to a prostitute. The corresponding noun is amor (the significance of this term for the Romans is well illustrated in the fact, that the name of the City, Rome—in Latin: Roma—can be viewed as an anagram for amor, which was used as the secret name of the City in wide circles in ancient times),[28] which is also used in the plural form to indicate love affairs or sexual adventures. Dell NSK-D8001 Keyboard
This same root also produces amicus—"friend"—and amicitia, "friendship" (often based to mutual advantage, and corresponding sometimes more closely to "indebtedness" or "influence"). Cicero wrote a treatise called On Friendship (de Amicitia), which discusses the notion at some length. Ovid wrote a guide to dating called Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), which addresses, in depth, everything from extramarital affairs to overprotective parents.
Latin sometimes uses amāre where English would simply say to like. This notion, however, is much more generally expressed in Latin by placere or delectāre, which are used more colloquially, the latter used frequently in the love poetry of Catullus. Diligere often has the notion "to be affectionate for," "to esteem," and rarely if ever is used for romantic love. This word would be appropriate to describe the friendship of two men. Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
The corresponding noun diligentia, however, has the meaning of "diligence" or "carefulness," and has little semantic overlap with the verb. Observare is a synonym for diligere; despite the cognate with English, this verb and its corresponding noun, observantia, often denote "esteem" or "affection." Caritas is used in Latin translations of the Christian Bible to mean "charitable love"; this meaning, however, is not found in Classical pagan Roman literature. As it arises from a conflation with a Greek word, there iToshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
s no corresponding verb.
Chinese and other Sinic cultures
"Ai," the traditional Chinese character for love (愛) consists of a heart (middle) inside of "accept," "feel," or "perceive," which shows a graceful emotion. It can also be interpreted as a hand offering ones heart to another hand.
Two philosophical underpinnings of love exist in the Chinese tradition, one from Confucianism which emphasized actions and duty while the other came from Mohism which championed a universal love. A core concept to ConfucianismThinkPad Edge E520s
is Ren ("benevolent love", 仁), which focuses on duty, action and attitude in a relationship rather than love itself. In Confucianism, one displays benevolent love by performing actions such as filial piety from children, kindness from parent, loyalty to the king and so forth.
The concept of Ai (愛) was developed by the Chinese philosopher Mozi in the 4th century BC in reaction to Confucianism's benevolent love. Toshiba Satellite A305-S6839 Keyboard
Mozi tried to replace what he considered to be the long-entrenched Chinese over-attachment to family and clan structures with the concept of "universal love" (jiān'ài, 兼愛). In this, he argued directly against Confucians who believed that it was natural and correct for people to care about different people in different degrees. Mozi, by contrast, believed people in principle should care for all people equally. Mohism stressed that rather than adopting different attitudes towards different people, love should be unconditional Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
and offered to everyone without regard to reciprocation, not just to friends, family and other Confucian relations. Later in Chinese Buddhism, the term Ai (愛) was adopted to refer to a passionate caring love and was considered a fundamental desire. In Buddhism, Ai was seen as capable of being either selfish or selfless, the latter being a key element towards enlightenment.
In contemporary Chinese, Ai (愛) is often used as the equivalent of the Western concept of love. Ai is used as both a verb (e.g. wo ai ni 我愛你, Sony VAIO VGN-N130G/W Keyboard
or "I love you") and a noun (such as aiqing 愛情, or "romantic love"). However, due to the influence of Confucian Ren, the phrase ‘Wo ai ni’ (I love you) carries with it a very specific sense of responsibility, commitment and loyalty. Instead of frequently saying "I love you" as in some Western societies, the Chinese are more likely to express feelings of affection in a more casual way. Consequently, "I like you" (Wo xihuan ni, 我喜欢你) is a more common way of expressing affection in Chinese; it is more playful and less serious.[29] This is also true in Japanese (suki da, 好きだ). The Chinese are also more likely to say HP Pavilion G6-1135TX Keyboard
"I love you" in English or other foreign languages than they would in their mother tongue.
Persian
Rumi, Hafiz and Sa'di are icons of the passion and love that the Persian culture and language present. The Persian word for love is eshgh[citation needed], derived from the Arabic ishq, however is considered by most to be too stalwart a term for interpersonal love and is more commonly substituted for 'doost dashtan' ('liking')[citation needed]. In the Persian culture, everything is encompassed by love and all is for love, starting from loving friends and family, husbands and wives, and eventually reaching the divine love that is the ultimate goal in life. Over seven centuries ago, Sa'di wrotAcer PK130AE3000 Keyboard
The children of Adam are limbs of one body Having been created of one essence. When the calamity of time afflicts one limb The other limbs cannot remain at rest. If you have no sympathy for the troubles of others You are not worthy to be called by the name of "man."
Japanese
Ohatsu and Tokubei, characters of Sonezaki Shinjū
In Japanese Buddhism, ai (愛) is passionate caring love, and a fundamental desire. It can develop towards either selfishness or selflessnessCompaq Presario CQ56-140SI Keyboard
and enlightenment. Amae (甘え), a Japanese word meaning "indulgent dependence," is part of the child-rearing culture of Japan. Japanese mothers are expected to hug and indulge their children, and children are expected to reward their mothers by clinging and serving. Some sociologists have suggested that Japanese social interactions in later life are modeled on the mother-child amae.
In Turkish, the word "love" comes up with several meanings. A person can love a god, a person, parents, or family. But that person canHP Pavilion dv6-2160es Keyboard
"love" just one special person, which they call the word "aşk." Aşk is a feeling for to love, or being "in love" (Aşık), as it still is in Turkish today. The Turks used this word just for their loves in a romantic or sexual sense. If a Turk says that he is in love (Aşık) with somebody, it is not a love that a person can feel for his or her parents; Sony Vaio PCG-K34FP Keyboard
it is just for one person, and it indicates a huge infatuation. The word is also common for Turkic languages, such
Abrahamic religions
The Christian understanding is that love comes from God. The love of man and woman—eros in Greek—and the unselfish love of others (agape), are often contrasted as "ascending" and "descending" love, respectively, HP Envy 15-1067nr Keyboard
but are ultimately the same thing.[30]
There are several Greek words for "love" that are regularly referred to in Christian circles.
Agape: In the New Testament, agapē is charitable, selfless, altruistic, and unconditional. It is parental love, seen as creating goodness in the world; it is the way God is seen to love humanity, and it is seen as the kind of love that Christians aspire to have for one another.
Phileo: Also used in the New Testament, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
phileo is a human response to something that is found to be delightful. Also known as "brotherly love."
Two other words for love in the Greek language, eros (sexual love) and storge (child-to-parent love), were never used in the New Testament.
Christians believe that to Love God with all your heart, mind, and strength and Love your neighbor as yourself are the two most important things in life (the greatest commandment of the Jewish Torah, according to Jesus; cf. Gospel of Mark chapter 12, verses 28–34). Saint Augustine summarized this when he wrote "Love God, Sony VAIO VGN-SZ110 Keyboard
and do as thou wilt."
Sacred Love Versus Profane Love (1602–03) by Giovanni Baglione. Intended as an attack on his hated enemy the artist Caravaggio, it shows a boy (hinting at Caravaggio's homosexuality) on one side, a devil with Caravaggio's face on the other, and between an angel representing pure, meaning non-erotic, love.
The Apostle Paul glorified love as the most important virtue of all. Describing love in the famous poem in 1 Corinthians, he wrote, "Love is patient, love is kind. Gateway MT6730 Keyboard
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres." (1 Cor. 13:4–7, NIV)
The Apostle John wrote, "Sony VAIO VPC-F13 Keyboard
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:16–17, NIV) John also wrote, "Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:7–8, NIV)
Saint Augustine says that one must be able to decipher the difference between love and lust. Lust, according to Saint Augustine, HP Mini 110-1049TU Keyboard
is an overindulgence, but to love and be loved is what he has sought for his entire life. He even says, “I was in love with love.” Finally, he does fall in love and is loved back, by God. Saint Augustine says the only one who can love you truly and fully is God, because love with a human only allows for flaws such as “jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and contention.” According to Saint Augustine, to love God is “to attain the peace which is yours.” (Saint Augustine's Confessions)
Christian theologians see God as the source of love, Sony VAIO VGN-NW51FB/N Keyboard
which is mirrored in humans and their own loving relationships. Influential Christian theologian C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Four Loves. Benedict XVI wrote his first encyclical on "God is love". He said that a human being, created in the image of God, who is love, is able to practice love; to give himself to God and others (agape) and by receiving and experiencing God's love in contemplation (eros). This life of love, according to him, is the life of the saints such as Teresa of Calcutta and the Blessed Virgin Mary and is the direction Christians take when they believe that God loves them.[30] Sony VAIO VGN-NW350F Keyboard
In Christianity the practical definition of love is best summarised by St. Thomas Aquinas, who defined love as "to will the good of another," or to desire for another to succeed.[10] This is the explanation of the Christian need to love others, including their enemies. As Thomas Aquinas explains, Christian love is motivated by the need to see others succeed in life, to be good people.
In Hebrew, Ahava is the most commonly used term for both interpersonal love and love between God and God's creations. Sony VAIO VGN-CS15GN/B Keyboard
Chesed, often translated as loving-kindness, is used to describe many forms of love between human beings.
The commandment to love other people is given in the Torah, which states, "Love your neighbor like yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). The Torah's commandment to love God "with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5) is taken by the Mishnah (a central text of the Jewish oral law) to refer to good deeds, willingness to sacrifice one's life rather than commit certain serious transgressions, willingness to sacrifice all of one's possessions, and being grateful to the Lord despite adversity Sony VAIO VGN-FS990 Keyboard
(tractate Berachoth 9:5). Rabbinic literature differs as to how this love can be developed, e.g., by contemplating divine deeds or witnessing the marvels of nature. As for love between marital partners, this is deemed an essential ingredient to life: "See life with the wife you love" (Ecclesiastes 9:9). The biblical book Song of Solomon is considered a romantically phrased metaphor of love between God and his people, but in its plain reading, reads like a love song. The 20th-century Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer DesslerHP Pavilion G4-1000 Series Keyboard
is frequently quoted as defining love from the Jewish point of view as "giving without expecting to take" (from his Michtav me-Eliyahu, Vol. 1).
Love encompasses the Islamic view of life as universal brotherhood that applies to all who hold faith. Amongst the 99 names of God (Allah), there is the name Al-Wadud, or "the Loving One," which is found in Surah [Quran 11:90] as well as Surah [Quran 85:14]. God is also referenced at the beginning of every chapter in the Qur'an as Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim, or the "Most Compassionate" and the "Most Merciful", SamsungNP-N145-JP04 Keyboard
indicating that nobody is more loving, compassionate and benevolent than God. The Qur'an refers to God as being "full of loving kindness."
The Qur'an exhorts Muslim believers to treat all people, those who have not persecuted them, with birr or "deep kindness" as stated in Surah [Quran 6:8-9]. Birr is also used by the Qur'an in describing the love and kindness that children must show to their parents.
Ishq, or divine love, is the emphasis of Sufism in the Islamic tradition. Practitioners of Sufism believe that love is a projection of the essence of God to the universe. God desires to recognize beauty, and as if one looks at a mirror to see oneself, God "looks" at himself within the dynamics of nature. Since everything is a reflection of God, Acer Aspire 3000 Keyboard
the school of Sufism practices to see the beauty inside the apparently ugly. Sufism is often referred to as the religion of love.[citation needed] God in Sufism is referred to in three main terms, which are the Lover, Loved, and Beloved, with the last of these terms being often seen in Sufi poetry. A common viewpoint of Sufism is that through love, humankind can get back to its inherent purity and grace. The saints of Sufism are infamous for being "drunk" due to their love of God; hence, the constant reference to wine in Sufi poetry and music.[31]
In Buddhism, Kāma is sensuous, sexual love. Compaq Presario CQ56-112SL Keyboard
It is an obstacle on the path to enlightenment, since it is selfish. Karuṇā is compassion and mercy, which reduces the suffering of others. It is complementary to wisdom and is necessary for enlightenment. Adveṣa and mettā are benevolent love. This love is unconditional and requires considerable self-acceptance. This is quite different from ordinary love, which is usually about attachment and sex and which rarely occurs without self-interest. Instead, in Buddhism it refers to detachment and unselfish interest in others' welfare.
The Bodhisattva idealDell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
in Mahayana Buddhism involves the complete renunciation of oneself in order to take on the burden of a suffering world. The strongest motivation one has in order to take the path of the Bodhisattva is the idea of salvation within unselfish, altruistic love for all sentient beings.
Hinduism
Kama (left) with Rati on a temple wall of Chennakesava Temple, Belur
In Hinduism, kāma is pleasurable, sexual love, personified by the god Kamadeva. For many Hindu schools, it is the third end (Kama) Sony VAIO VGN-NW270F Keyboard
in life. Kamadeva is often pictured holding a bow of sugar cane and an arrow of flowers; he may ride upon a great parrot. He is usually accompanied by his consort Rati and his companion Vasanta, lord of the spring season. Stone images of Kamadeva and Rati can be seen on the door of the Chennakeshava temple at Belur, in Karnataka, India. Maara is another name for kāma.
In contrast to kāma, prema – or prem – refers to elevated love. Karuna is compassion and mercy, which impels one to help reduce the suffering of others. HP Mini 210-2103tu Keyboard
Bhakti is a Sanskrit term, meaning "loving devotion to the supreme God." A person who practices bhakti is called a bhakta. Hindu writers, theologians, and philosophers have distinguished nine forms of bhakti, which can be found in the Bhagavata Purana and works by Tulsidas. The philosophical work Narada Bhakti Sutras, written by an unknown author (presumed to be Narada), distinguishes eleven forms of love.
In certain Vaishnava sects within Hinduism, attaining unaldulterated, unconditional and incessant love for Godhead is considered the foremost goal of life. 3000 Y510a 15303
Gaudiya Vaishnavas who worship Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the cause of all causes consider Love for Godhead (Prema) to act in two ways: sambhoga and vipralambha (union and separation) — two opposites .[32]
In the condition of separation, there is an acute yearning for being with the beloved and in the condition of union there is supreme happiness and nectarean. Gaudiya Vaishnavas consider that Krishna-prema (Love for Godhead) is not fire but that it still burns away one's material desires. They consider that Kṛṣṇa-prema is not a weapon, Sony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard
but it still pierces the heart. It is not water, but it washes away everything — one's pride, religious rules, and one's shyness. Krishna-prema is considered to make one drown in the ocean of transcendental ecstasy and pleasure. The love of Radha, a cowherd girl, for Krishna is often cited as the supreme example of love for Godhead by Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Radha is considered to be the internal potency of Krishna, and is the supreme lover of Godhead. Her example of love is considered to be beyond the understanding of material realm as it surpasses any form of selfish love or lust that is visibile in the material world. Sony Vaio PCG-K415B Keyboard
The reciprocal love between Radha (the supreme lover) and Krishna (God as the Supremely Loved) is the subject of many poetic compositions in India such as the Gita Govinda and Hari Bhakti Shuddhodhaya.
In the Bhakti tradition within Hinduism, it is believed that execution of devotional service to God leads to the development of Love for God (taiche bhakti-phale krsne prema upajaya), and as love for God increases in the heart, the more one becomes free from material contamination (krishna-prema asvada haile, bhava nasa paya). Acer Aspire One D150-1322 Keyboard
Being perfectly in love with God or Krishna makes one perfectly free from material contamination. and this is the ultimate way of salvation or liberation. In this tradition, salvation or liberation is considered inferior to love, and just an incidental by-product. Being absorbed in Love for God is considered to be the perfection of life. Political views
Free love
Main article: Free love
The term free love has been used [34] to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, HP Pavilion dv6-3104st Keyboard
birth control, and adultery. It claimed that such issues were the concern of the people involved, and no one else.[35]
Much of the free-love tradition is an offshoot of anarchism, and reflects a civil libertarian philosophy that seeks freedom from state regulation and church interference in personal relationships. According to this concept, the free unions of adults are legitimate relations which should be respected by all third parties whether they are emotional or sexual relations. In addition, some free-love writing has argued that both men and women have the right to sexual pleasure. In the Victorian era, SamsungN140 Keyboard
this was a radical notion. Later, a new theme developed, linking free love with radical social change, and depicting it as a harbinger of a new anti-authoritarian, anti-repressive sensibility.[36]
Many people in the early 19th century believed that marriage was an important aspect of life to "fulfill earthly human happiness." Middle-class Americans wanted the home to be a place of stability in an uncertain world. 3000 Y510
This mentality created a vision on strongly defined gender roles, which led to the advancement of the free love movement.[37]
While the phrase free love is often associated with promiscuity in the popular imagination, especially in reference to the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, historically the free-love movement has not advocated multiple sexual partners or short-term sexual relationships. Rather, it has argued that love relations that are freely entered into should not be regulated by law.
The term "sex radical" is also used interchangeably with the term "free lover", Compaq Presario CQ56-120SM Keyboard
and was the preferred term by advocates because of the negative connotations of "free love".[citation needed] By whatever name, advocates had two strong beliefs: opposition to the idea of forceful sexual activity in a relationship and advocacy for a woman to use her body in any way that she pleases.
Laws of particular concern to free love movements have included those that prevent an unmarried couple from living together, and those that regulate adultery and divorce, as well as age of consent, birth control, homosexuality, abortion, HP 636376-001 Keyboard
and sometimes prostitution; although not all free love advocates agree on these issues. The abrogation of individual rights in marriage is also a concern—for example, some jurisdictions do not recognize spousal rape or treat it less seriously than non-spousal rape. Free-love movements since the 19th century have also defended the right to publicly discuss sexuality and have battled obscenity laws.
Philosophical views
Main article: HP Mini 210-2004sa Keyboard
Philosophy of love
Philosophy of love is the field of social philosophy and ethics which attempts to explain the nature of love. The philosophical investigation of love includes the tasks of distinguishing between the various kinds of personal love; asking if and how love is/can be justified; asking what the value of love is; and what impact love has on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved.
There are many different theories which attempt to explain what love is, and what function it serves. It would be very difficult to explain love to a hypothetical person who had not himself or herself experienced love or being loved. In fact, HP 633183-001 Keyboard
to such a person love would appear to be quite strange if not outright irrational behavior. Among the prevailing types of theories that attempt to account for the existence of love there are: psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider love to be very healthy behavior; there are evolutionary theories which hold that love is part of the process of natural selection; there are spiritual theories which may, for instance consider love to be a gift from God; there are also theories that consider love to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience. Acer MP-07A23U4-442 Keyboard
Ancient Greece
Friendship was a topic of moral philosophy which was greatly discussed by Plato, Aristotle, and Stoics. This was less discussed in the modern era, until the re-emergence of contextualist and feminist approaches to ethics.[2] Openness in friendship was seen as an enlargement of the self; Aristotle wrote, "The excellent person is related to his friend in the same way as he is related to himself, since a friend is another self; and therefore, just as his own being is choiceworthy him, the friend's being is choice-worthy for Sony VGN-FE31B Keyboard
him in the same or a similar way."[3] In Ancient Greek, the same word was used for "friend" and "lover".[4]
In Islamic culture, friendship, also known as companionship, is taken seriously and numerous important attributes of a worthwhile friend have emerged in Islamic media. These include, for both men ("brothers") and women ("sisters"): The notion of a righteous (or "Saalih") person, who can appropriately delineate between that which is "good" and that which is "evil", has appeared prominently; concordance with the perspectives and knowledge of other Islamic companions is considered to be important; forgiveness regarding mistakes and loyalty between friends is emphasized; and, a "love for the sake of Allah"Acer eMachines G730 Keyboard
is considered to be a relationship of the highest significance between two humans.[5]
The view of the Islamic culture is to keep the relationships between boys and girls to a minimum; on the other hand, however, the only opportunity for a prudent relationship between boys and girls is when they have a serious plan for marriage. Beyond the limits of the family and religious marriage (See Mahram), virtually all emotional, intimate and love relations are despicable and religiously unlawful or a path to pave the way towards great sins. In the past there had been a social acceptance relying the local and traditional criteria which could practically lead to timely marriage at the beginning of puberty; Sony VGN-FE28H Keyboard
given the above, the main question is how it is possible to regulate the time gap which exists between puberty and the time of marriage, under the present circumstances where as a result of the expanded network of relationships, the society encounters reduced age of puberty and increased age of marriage. The theory of islamic friendship[6] seeks to seek feasibility of a regulated management of the period between puberty and the time of permanent marriage, and that upon the theory of Islamic friendship.
In Central Asia, male friendships tend to be reserved and respectful in nature. They may use nicknames and diminutive IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X41 Tablet Keyboard
forms of their first names.
[edit] Near East-Middle East
It is believed that in some parts of the Near East-Middle East, friendship has been described as more demanding when compared with other cultures; friends are people who respect each other, regardless of shortcomings, and who will make personal sacrifices in order to assist another friend, without considering the experience an imposition.[7]
Many Arabian people perceive friendship in serious terms, HP G72-b66US Keyboard
and will deeply consider personal attributes such as social influence and the nature of a person's character before engaging in such a relationship.[7]
Germans typically have relatively few friends, although friendships that do develop typically last a lifetime, as loyalty is held in high regard. Germans may appear aloof to people from other countries, as they tend to be cautious and keep their distance when it comes to meeting new people. The development from becoming an acquaintance to a friend can take several months.
In Russia, one typically accords very few people the status of "friend". These friendships, however, make up in intensity what they lack in number. Toshiba Satellite L505D-S5996 Keyboard
[citation needed] Friends are entitled to call each other by their first names alone and to use diminutives. A norm of polite behavior is addressing acquaintances by full first name plus patronymic. Acquaintances could include relationships that elsewhere would be qualified as real friendships, such as long-standing workplace relationships, or neighbors with whom one shares an occasional meal or a customary drink. HP Pavilion G6-1227TU Keyboard
Americans also use the term “friend” very freely, referring to someone they have known for a few weeks as a friend, perhaps for lack of a term for someone who is more than an acquaintance but less than a friend (Copeland, 2001). The rise of social networking websites, initially with friendster, followed by others like myspace and facebook, which popularized the concept of "Friend requests", also diluted the traditional meaning of "friend" due to the casual way that many users accept friend requests from people who they have met only once or none at all, whom, once the request is accepted, goes HP Pavilion HDX9050EF Keyboard
into the first person's "friend list". In the contemporary social media world, "friend" is used in a very casual, low-relationship threshold, manner.
[edit] Decline of friendships in the U.S.
The friendship bracelet is an American example of the exchange of small tokens of friendship.
According to a study documented in the June 2006 issue of the journal American Sociological Review, Americans are thought to be suffering a loss in the quality and quantity of close friendships since at least 1985.[8][9] Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
The study states that 25% of Americans have no close confidants and that the average total number of confidants per person has dropped from four to two.
According to the study:
The percentage of Americans who had at least one confidant not connected to them through kinship dropped from 80% to 57%.
Americans' dependence for close contact on a partner or spouse went up from 5% to 9%.
Research has found a link between fewer friendships (especially in quality) and psychological regression.
In recent times, it is suggested that modern American friendships have lost the force and importance they had in antiquity. C.S. Lewis, Sony VGN-FE865E Keyboard
for example, in his The Four Loves, writes:
To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few 'friends'. But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as 'friendships', show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philía which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that AmicitiaAsus A8A Keyboard
on which Cicero wrote a book.[10]
Likewise, Paul Halsall claims that:
The intense emotional and affective relationships described in the past as "non-sexual" cannot be said to exist today: modern heterosexual men can be buddies, but unless drunk they cannot touch each other, or regularly sleep together. They cannot affirm that an emotional affective relationship with another man is the centrally important relationship in their lives. It is not going too far, is it, to claim that friendship –Gateway 4028GZ Keyboard
if used to translate Greek philia or Latin amicitia – hardly exists among heterosexual men in modern Western society.
Mark McLelland, writing in the Western Buddhist Review under his Buddhist name of Dharmachari Jñanavira (Article), more directly points to homophobia being at the root of a modern decline in the western tradition of friendship.
Hence, in a cultural context where homosexual desire has for centuries been considered sinful, unnatural and a great evil, the experience of homoerotic desire can be very traumatic for some individuals and severelyThinkpad T520
limit the potential for same-sex friendship. The Danish sociologist Henning Bech, for instance, writes of the anxiety which often accompanies developing intimacy between male friends:
The more one has to assure oneself that one's relationship with another man is not homosexual, the more conscious one becomes that it might be, and the more necessary it becomes to protect oneself against it. The result is that friendship gradually becomes impossible.
Their opinion that fear of being, or being seen as, Sony Vaio PCG-K33 Keyboard
homosexual has killed off western man's ability to form close friendships with other men is shared by Japanese psychologist Doi Takeo, who claims that male friendships in American society are fraught with homosexual anxiety and thus homophobia is a limiting factor stopping men from establishing deep friendships with other men. The suggestion that friendship contains an ineluctable element of erotic desire is not new, but has been advanced by students of friendship ever since the time of the ancient Greeks, where it comes up in the writings of Plato. More recently, the Austrian philosopher Otto WeiningerToshiba Satellite L775-S7248 Keyboard
claimed that:
There is no friendship between men that has not an element of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility. (Sex and Character, 1903) Toshiba Satellite L655-S5100 KeyboardToshiba Satellite L655-S5100 Keyboard
Recent western scholarship in gender theory and feminism concurs, as reflected in the writings of Eve Sedgwick in her The Epistemology of the Closet, and Jonathan Dollimore in his Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault.
Divorce also contributes to the decline in friendship among Americans. “In international comparisons, the divorce rate in the United States is higher than that of 34 other countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia (Newman & Newman, 2012 pg. 475).” With the divorce rate being so high, many couples end up losing friends through the process. This is because certain friendsSony VGN-FE780G Keyboard
side with one member of the relationship and therefore lose the other friend.
Friendship and Technology: Another reason for the decline in friendships in the U.S. is due to technology. Ethan J. Leib, author of the book Friend vs. Friend and law professor at the University of California-Hastings suggests that longer hours of work and a large amount of online communication such as e-mail and excel take away from personal communication and thus make it much harder to form friendships even in the work place. HP G42-468TU Keyboard
Other aspects of technology including Facebook and Twitter also decrease the amount of personal communication in everyday life. These technological advances make it hard to feel emotionally connected to a friend (Newman & Newman) (Berry, 2012) (Freeman, 2011).
In the sequence of the emotional development of the individual, friendships come after parental bonding and before the pair bonding engaged in at the approach of maturity. In the intervening period between the end of early childhood and the onset of full adulthood, friendships are often the most important relationships in the emotionalHP Envy 15-1015tx Keyboard
life of the adolescent and are often more intense than relationships later in life.[11] However, making friends seems to trouble a lot of people; having no friends can be emotionally damaging in some cases.[12]
A study by researchers from Purdue University found that post-secondary-education friendships (e.g., college, university) last longer than the friendships before it.[13]
Children with disorders such as High-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome usually have some difficulty forming friendships. This is due to the autistic nature of some of their symptoms, which include, but are not limited to, Compaq Presario C709LA Keyboard
preferring routine actions to change, obsessive interests and rituals, and usually lacking good social skills. This does not mean that they are not able to form friendships, however. With time, moderation, and proper instruction, they are able to form friendships after realizing their own strengths and weaknesses. Children with ADHD may not have difficulty forming friendships, but they may have a hard time keeping friendships because of impulsive behaviour and hyperactivity. Children with inattentive ADD may not have as much HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
trouble keeping and maintaining friendships, but inattentiveness may make it more difficult. Children with conditions such as Asperger's syndrome may find it easier to form a strong friendship with a child who has a condition such as ADHD due to similar interests and behaviours.[citation needed].
[edit] Friendship Quality
(Berndt, 2002). -Children prize friendships that are high in prosocial behavior, intimacy, and other positive features. -Children are troubled by friendships that are high in conflicts, dominance, rivalry, and other negative features. Acer Aspire 7751 Keyboard
-Friendships are high in quality when they have high levels of positive features and low levels of negative features. -High-quality friendships have often been assumed to have positive effects on many aspects of children’s social development. -The direct effects of friendship quality appear to be quite specific. -Having friendships high in positive features enhances children’s success in the social world of peers, but it apparently does not affect children’s general self-esteem. These findings are surprising because numerous studies with adults suggestHP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
that friendships and other supportive relationships enhance many aspects of adults’ physical and mental health, including their self-esteem -High-quality friendships may also have indirect effects on children’s social development. Most theories of social influence include some form of the hypothesis that children are more strongly influenced by their friends’ characteristics the higher the quality of those friendships.
Quality of Friendship
Friendship is “Life Enhancing” (Helm, 2012). By engaging in activities with friends, pleasure and happiness are intensified. The quality of friendships relates to happiness because friendship “provides a context where basic needs are Sony VAIO PCG-FRV26 Keyboard
satisfied” (Demir, 2010). By experiencing a good quality of friendship, the individual is led to feel more comfortable with who they are as a person. Ultimately, good quality friendships connect with the meaning of life satisfaction. Higher friendship quality directly contributes to self-esteem, self-confidence, and social development (Berndt, 2002).
Quality of Friendship: Two Dimensions0A62075
Friendship has two dimensions (Demir, 2007). The two dimension include: quality and conflict. The quality of friendship is important for a persons well being and it contributes to the closeness of friends. Within the quality of friendship, it is important to have healthy and interesting interaction. This type of interaction leads to a higher quality of friendship. The second dimension is conflict, which connects with the quality of friendships. High quality friendships have great ways of resolving conflict which ultimately HP Pavilion G6-1209TX Keyboard
leads to a stronger and healthier relationship.
[edit] Friendship development through childhood
At the early school age, friendships are based on the sharing of toys and objects and the enjoyment that is received from performing activities together. Friendships at this age are maintained through affection, sharing, and creative play time. Sharing is hard for children at this age level as they are very self-oriented. However, children are likely to share more with someone they consider to be a friend than with someone who is just a peer (Newman & Newman, 2012).
As a child moves from early school age to middle childhood, HP Pavilion DV7-4061 Keyboard
they face the developmental task of friendship. At this stage in life, children become less individualized and more aware of others. They begin to see their friends point of view and have fun playing in groups of peers who have the same interests as them. They also experience peer rejection as they move through the middle childhood years. It is important to teach a child that it is natural to sometimes be unaccepted by others but to remain positive about the friends they still have. Establishing good friendships at a young age helps a child to be better acclimated in society later on in their life (Newman & Newman, 2012). HP Pavilion dv6-2160ep Keyboard
In a 1974 study,[14] Bigelow and La Gaipa, in one of the first studies conducted regarding children's friendships, found that expectations of a best friend become increasingly complex as a child gets older. The study investigated the criteria for "best friend" in a sample of 480 children between the ages of six and fourteen years of age.
Their findings highlighted three stages of the development of friendship expectations.
First stage: emphasised shared activities and the importance of geographical closeness.
Second stage: emphasised sharing, loyalty and commitment. Toshiba Satellite U305-S2808 KeyboardToshiba Satellite U305-S2808 Keyboard
Third stage: revealed growing importance of similar attitudes, values and interests.
The Study of Friendships in Adolescent Development
Friendships in adolescent development include positive influences on how they act, feel, and think, and also problematic aspects including negative peer pressure. Which one is more prominent? To find out one needs to consider the characteristics of friends and how these friendships form. A study was conducted by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health where 9,234 American adolescents were examined to determine how their engagement in problem behavior (stealing, fighting, sexual activity, Toshiba Satellite U305 Keyboard
truancy) was related to the kinds of friends they had and to the peer networks and schools in which these friendships were located. Findings revealed that adolescents were less likely to engage in problem behavior when their friends did well in school, participated in school activities, avoided drinking and had good mental health. Also, these positive characteristics are greater when done together within the social group. How adolescents are affected by friendships could be shaped by their location in their group. For example, the one who is most central to their peer networks were the most influenced by their friends. Sony VAIO VGN-SZ750N Keyboard
Results also found that adolescents have less problematic behavior when they attended schools with similar characteristics to their friends (friends who did well at school at an academically rigorous school). Ones that engaged in more problem behavior resulted from friends with opposing characteristics to the school (friends who drank at an academically rigorous school). Thus, whether adolescents were influenced by their friends to engage in problem behavior depended on how much they were exposed to these friends and whether they and their friendship groups “fit in” at school.
Friendships in Adulthood Sony VAIO PCG-FX776 Keyboard
(Fowler) Just like adolescents, relationships with friends are important to older adults. Friends contribute to our satisfaction, give us a sense of belonging, competence, and self-worth. Friendship involves: - Enjoyment - spending time doing things together and sharing life experiences. - Trust — believing that our friends act on our behalf. - Respect and understanding — believing that our friends have the right to their own opinions. - Mutual assistance — helping and supporting our friends and having them help us. Toshiba Satellite L40-17S Keyboard
- Confiding — sharing confidential matters with our friends.
Types of Friendships Friends are people we know and trust, and who are special to us socially and emotionally. Friends are usually chosen among people who are considered the same as us. The people adults select as friends tend to be those who: - we have grown up with - have similar occupations - have children the same age - have similar interests - are the same general age and the same gender
The majority of adults have three or more closeCompaq Presario CQ50-142US Keyboard
friends and more than half of adults have ten or more friends. Men and women have the same number of friends, however, women are likely to confide more in friendships than men. Men tend to enjoy activities or discuss and practice special skills. Adults also often make friends based on who their children are friends with. Many times, parents within a neighborhood are all friends because they are around each other so much because of their children. Parents will also often make friends with other parents on their children’s sports teams for the same reason. Not all adult acquaintances will end up in the friendship stage, IBM ThinkPad T41 2374 Keyboard
however, it is likely that some will share commonalities and form a deeper relationship (Newman & Newman, 2012).
With life events such as marriage, parenthood, and accelerated career development, young adulthood merges into middle adulthood. Following marriage, both women and men report having fewer cross-gender friends. This may be due to suspicion and jealousy, and spouses spend most of their free time together rather than separately Sony VAIO VGN-AR130G Keyboard
in social situations that might lead to cross-sex friendship formation. Also, when people marry they generally become more dependent on spouses and less so on friends for meeting social needs (Friendships, 2012). Acer Aspire 7540G Keyboard
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, searchSony VGN-FE31H Keyboard
For other uses, see Love (disambiguation).
Archetypal lovers Romeo and Juliet portrayed by Frank Dicksee
Love is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment.[1] Love is also a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection —"the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another".[2] Love may describe actions towards others or oneself based on compassion or affection.[3] HP G72-b09EG Keyboard
In English, love refers to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from pleasure ("I loved that meal") to interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). "Love" may refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, to the platonic love that defines friendship,[4] or to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love[5], Sony KFRMBA152A Keyboard
or to a concept of love that encompasses all of those feelings. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.
Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.[6]
Love may be understood as part of the survival instinct, Acer 9Z.N3K82.01D Keyboard
a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species.[7]
The word "love" can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts. Often, other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that English relies mainly on "love" to encapsulate; one example is the plurality of Greek words for "love." Cultural differences in conceptualizing Compaq Mini 701ES Keyboard
love thus make it doubly difficult to establish any universal definition.[8]
Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't love. As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is sometimes contrasted with friendship, Acer KB.I100A.026 Keyboard
although the word love is often applied to close friendships.
Fraternal love (Prehispanic sculpture from 250–900 A.D., of Huastec origin). Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.
When discussed in the abstract, love usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience felt by a person for another person. Love often involves caring for or identifying with a person or thing (cf. vulnerability and care theory of love), including oneself (cf. narcissism). In addition to cross-cultural differences in understanding love, Asus F5 Keyboard
ideas about love have also changed greatly over time. Some historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages, although the prior existence of romantic attachments is attested by ancient love poetry.[9]
Because of the complex and abstract nature of love, discourse on love is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating cliché, and there are a number of common proverbs regarding love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love". St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defines love as "to will the good of another." ThinkPad T410s-2924
[10] Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value," as opposed to relative value. Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said that love is "to be delighted by the happiness of another."[11]
Love is sometimes referred to as being the "international language", overriding cultural and linguistic divisions.
Impersonal love
A person canAcer Aspire 4736ZG Keyboard
be said to love an object, principle, or goal if they value it greatly and are deeply committed to it. Similarly, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers' "love" of their cause may sometimes be born not of interpersonal love, but impersonal love coupled with altruism and strong spiritual or political convictions.[12] People can also "love" material objects, animals, or activities if they invest themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with those things. If sexual passion is also involved, this condition is called paraphilia. HP Mini 110-3115tu Keyboard
[13]
Interpersonal love
Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings. It is a more potent sentiment than a simple liking for another. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love that are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with interpersonal relationships.[12] Such love might exist between family members, friends, and couples. There are also a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania.
Pair of Lovers. 1480-1485 HP 491274-031 Keyboard
Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love.
People with histrionic personality disorder and narcissism may have a limited or minimal capability for experiencing love.[14][15][16][17]
Biological basisThinkPad Edge E520
Main article: Biological basis of love
Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst.[18] Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust is the feeling of sexual desire; romantic attraction determines what partners mates find attractive and pursue, conserving time and energy by choosing; and attachment involves sharing a home, parental duties, mutual defense, and in humans involves feelings of safety and security.[19] Three distinct neural circuitries, including neurotransmitters, Compaq Presario CQ57-315NR Keyboard
and also three behavioral patterns, are associated with these three romantic styles.[19]
Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that Toshiba Satellite L300 Keyboard
as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act in a manner similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.[20]
Since the lust and attraction stages areToshiba Satellite A300-ST3511 Keyboard
both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding that promotes relationships lasting for many years and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin to a greater degree than short-term relationships have.[20] Enzo Emanuele and coworkers reported the protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, Acer Aspire 5336 Keyboard
but these return to previous levels after one year.[21]
Psychological basis
Further information: Human bonding
Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is a form in which two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives, IBM ThinkPad T43 Keyboard
and is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is permanent. The last and most common form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components. Non-love does not include any of these components. Liking only includes intimacy. Infatuated love only includes passion. Empty love only includes commitment. Dell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
Romantic love includes both intimacy and passion. Companionate love includes intimacy and commitment. Fatuous love includes passion and commitment. Lastly, consummate love includes all three. [22]American psychologist Zick Rubin sought to define love by psychometrics in the 1970s. His work states that three factors constitute love: attachment, caring, and intimacy.[23]
Grandmother and grandchild, Sri Lanka
Following developments in electrical HP Mini 210-2180ca Keyboard
theories such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract." Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating has generally found this not to be true when it comes to character and personality—people tend to like people similar to themselves. However, in a few unusual and specific domains, such as immune systems, it seems that humans prefer others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with an orthogonal immune system), since this will lead to a baby that has the best of both worlds.[25] In recent years, various humanSony 81-31105003-02 Keyboard
bonding theories have been developed, described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and affinities. Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose work in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the "concern for the spiritual growth of another," and simple narcissism.[26] In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.
Psychologist Erich Fromm maintained in his book "The art of loving" that love is not merely a feeling but is also actions, and that in fact, Acer eMachines G730G Keyboard
the "feeling" of love is superficial in comparison to ones commitment to love via a series of loving actions over time.[12] In this sense, Fromm held that love is ultimately not a feeling at all, but rather is a commitment to, and adherence to, loving actions towards another, ones self, or many others, over a sustained duration.[12] Fromm also described Love as a conscious choice that in its early stages might originate as an involuntary feeling, but which then later no longer depends on those feelings, but rather depends only on conscious commitment. HP Envy 15-1050nr Keyboard
©Evolutionary basis
Evolutionary psychology has attempted to provide various reasons for love as a survival tool. Humans are dependent on parental help for a large portion of their lifespans comparative to other mammals. Love has therefore been seen as a mechanism to promote parental support of children for this extended time period. Another factor may be that sexually transmitted diseases can cause, among other effects, Toshiba Satellite U305-S7432 Keyboard
permanently reduced fertility, injury to the fetus, and increase complications during childbirth. This would favor monogamous relationships over polygamy.[27]
Comparison of scientific models
Biological models of love tend to see it as a mammalian drive, similar to hunger or thirst.[18] Psychology sees love as more of a social and cultural phenomenon. There are probably elements of truth in both views. Certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin), neurotrophins (such as NGF), and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by their conceptions of love. The conventional view in biologySony VAIO VGN-N38E/W Keyboard
is that there are two major drives in love: sexual attraction and attachment. Attachment between adults is presumed to work on the same principles that lead an infant to become attached to its mother. The traditional psychological view sees love as being a combination of companionate love and passionate love. Passionate love is intense longing, and is often accompanied by physiological arousal (shortness of breath, rapid heart rate); companionate love is affection and a feeling of intimacy not HP Pavilion dm3 Keyboard
accompanied by physiological arousal.
Cultural views
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2012)
Ancient Greek
Greek distinguishes several different senses in which the word "love" is used. For example, Ancient Greek has the words philia, eros, agape, storge, and xenia. However, with Greek (as with many other languages), it has been historically difficult to separate the meanings of these words totally. At the same time, the Ancient Greek text of the Bible has examples of the verb agapo having the same meaning as phileo. IBM Thinkpad T61P Keyboard
Agape (ἀγάπη agápē) means love in modern-day Greek. The term s'agapo means I love you in Greek. The word agapo is the verb I love. It generally refers to a "pure," ideal type of love, rather than the physical attraction suggested by eros. However, there are some examples of agape used to mean the same as eros. It has also been translated as "love of the soul."
Eros (ἔρως érōs) (from the Greek deity Eros) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Greek word erota means in love. Plato refined his own definition. Toshiba Satellite L450 Keyboard
Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by eros. Some translations list it as "love of the body."
Philia (φιλία philía), a dispassionate virtuous love, Compaq Presario C500 Keyboard
was a concept addressed and developed by Aristotle.[citation needed] It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Philia is motivated by practical reasons; one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship. It can also mean "love of the mind."
Storge (στοργή storgē) is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.
Xenia (ξενία xenía), hospitality, was an extremely important practice in Ancient Greece. It was an almost ritualized friendship formed between a HP Pavilion G6-1212TX Keyboard
host and his guest, who could previously have been strangers. The host fed and provided quarters for the guest, who was expected to repay only with gratitude. The importance of this can be seen throughout Greek mythology—in particular, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
Ancient Roman (Latin)
The Latin language has several different verbs corresponding to the English word "love." amō is the basic verb meaning I love, with the infinitive amare (“to love”) as it still is in Italian today. The Romans used it both in an affectionate sense as well as in a romantic or sexual sense. From this verb come amans—a lover, amator, "professional lover, HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
" often with the accessory notion of lechery—and amica, "girlfriend" in the English sense, often as well being applied euphemistically to a prostitute. The corresponding noun is amor (the significance of this term for the Romans is well illustrated in the fact, that the name of the City, Rome—in Latin: Roma—can be viewed as an anagram for amor, which was used as the secret name of the City in wide circles in ancient times),[28] which is also used in the plural form to indicate love affairs or sexual adventures. Dell NSK-D8001 Keyboard
This same root also produces amicus—"friend"—and amicitia, "friendship" (often based to mutual advantage, and corresponding sometimes more closely to "indebtedness" or "influence"). Cicero wrote a treatise called On Friendship (de Amicitia), which discusses the notion at some length. Ovid wrote a guide to dating called Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), which addresses, in depth, everything from extramarital affairs to overprotective parents.
Latin sometimes uses amāre where English would simply say to like. This notion, however, is much more generally expressed in Latin by placere or delectāre, which are used more colloquially, the latter used frequently in the love poetry of Catullus. Diligere often has the notion "to be affectionate for," "to esteem," and rarely if ever is used for romantic love. This word would be appropriate to describe the friendship of two men. Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
The corresponding noun diligentia, however, has the meaning of "diligence" or "carefulness," and has little semantic overlap with the verb. Observare is a synonym for diligere; despite the cognate with English, this verb and its corresponding noun, observantia, often denote "esteem" or "affection." Caritas is used in Latin translations of the Christian Bible to mean "charitable love"; this meaning, however, is not found in Classical pagan Roman literature. As it arises from a conflation with a Greek word, there iToshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
s no corresponding verb.
Chinese and other Sinic cultures
"Ai," the traditional Chinese character for love (愛) consists of a heart (middle) inside of "accept," "feel," or "perceive," which shows a graceful emotion. It can also be interpreted as a hand offering ones heart to another hand.
Two philosophical underpinnings of love exist in the Chinese tradition, one from Confucianism which emphasized actions and duty while the other came from Mohism which championed a universal love. A core concept to ConfucianismThinkPad Edge E520s
is Ren ("benevolent love", 仁), which focuses on duty, action and attitude in a relationship rather than love itself. In Confucianism, one displays benevolent love by performing actions such as filial piety from children, kindness from parent, loyalty to the king and so forth.
The concept of Ai (愛) was developed by the Chinese philosopher Mozi in the 4th century BC in reaction to Confucianism's benevolent love. Toshiba Satellite A305-S6839 Keyboard
Mozi tried to replace what he considered to be the long-entrenched Chinese over-attachment to family and clan structures with the concept of "universal love" (jiān'ài, 兼愛). In this, he argued directly against Confucians who believed that it was natural and correct for people to care about different people in different degrees. Mozi, by contrast, believed people in principle should care for all people equally. Mohism stressed that rather than adopting different attitudes towards different people, love should be unconditional Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
and offered to everyone without regard to reciprocation, not just to friends, family and other Confucian relations. Later in Chinese Buddhism, the term Ai (愛) was adopted to refer to a passionate caring love and was considered a fundamental desire. In Buddhism, Ai was seen as capable of being either selfish or selfless, the latter being a key element towards enlightenment.
In contemporary Chinese, Ai (愛) is often used as the equivalent of the Western concept of love. Ai is used as both a verb (e.g. wo ai ni 我愛你, Sony VAIO VGN-N130G/W Keyboard
or "I love you") and a noun (such as aiqing 愛情, or "romantic love"). However, due to the influence of Confucian Ren, the phrase ‘Wo ai ni’ (I love you) carries with it a very specific sense of responsibility, commitment and loyalty. Instead of frequently saying "I love you" as in some Western societies, the Chinese are more likely to express feelings of affection in a more casual way. Consequently, "I like you" (Wo xihuan ni, 我喜欢你) is a more common way of expressing affection in Chinese; it is more playful and less serious.[29] This is also true in Japanese (suki da, 好きだ). The Chinese are also more likely to say HP Pavilion G6-1135TX Keyboard
"I love you" in English or other foreign languages than they would in their mother tongue.
Persian
Rumi, Hafiz and Sa'di are icons of the passion and love that the Persian culture and language present. The Persian word for love is eshgh[citation needed], derived from the Arabic ishq, however is considered by most to be too stalwart a term for interpersonal love and is more commonly substituted for 'doost dashtan' ('liking')[citation needed]. In the Persian culture, everything is encompassed by love and all is for love, starting from loving friends and family, husbands and wives, and eventually reaching the divine love that is the ultimate goal in life. Over seven centuries ago, Sa'di wrotAcer PK130AE3000 Keyboard
The children of Adam are limbs of one body Having been created of one essence. When the calamity of time afflicts one limb The other limbs cannot remain at rest. If you have no sympathy for the troubles of others You are not worthy to be called by the name of "man."
Japanese
Ohatsu and Tokubei, characters of Sonezaki Shinjū
In Japanese Buddhism, ai (愛) is passionate caring love, and a fundamental desire. It can develop towards either selfishness or selflessnessCompaq Presario CQ56-140SI Keyboard
and enlightenment. Amae (甘え), a Japanese word meaning "indulgent dependence," is part of the child-rearing culture of Japan. Japanese mothers are expected to hug and indulge their children, and children are expected to reward their mothers by clinging and serving. Some sociologists have suggested that Japanese social interactions in later life are modeled on the mother-child amae.
In Turkish, the word "love" comes up with several meanings. A person can love a god, a person, parents, or family. But that person canHP Pavilion dv6-2160es Keyboard
"love" just one special person, which they call the word "aşk." Aşk is a feeling for to love, or being "in love" (Aşık), as it still is in Turkish today. The Turks used this word just for their loves in a romantic or sexual sense. If a Turk says that he is in love (Aşık) with somebody, it is not a love that a person can feel for his or her parents; Sony Vaio PCG-K34FP Keyboard
it is just for one person, and it indicates a huge infatuation. The word is also common for Turkic languages, such
Abrahamic religions
The Christian understanding is that love comes from God. The love of man and woman—eros in Greek—and the unselfish love of others (agape), are often contrasted as "ascending" and "descending" love, respectively, HP Envy 15-1067nr Keyboard
but are ultimately the same thing.[30]
There are several Greek words for "love" that are regularly referred to in Christian circles.
Agape: In the New Testament, agapē is charitable, selfless, altruistic, and unconditional. It is parental love, seen as creating goodness in the world; it is the way God is seen to love humanity, and it is seen as the kind of love that Christians aspire to have for one another.
Phileo: Also used in the New Testament, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
phileo is a human response to something that is found to be delightful. Also known as "brotherly love."
Two other words for love in the Greek language, eros (sexual love) and storge (child-to-parent love), were never used in the New Testament.
Christians believe that to Love God with all your heart, mind, and strength and Love your neighbor as yourself are the two most important things in life (the greatest commandment of the Jewish Torah, according to Jesus; cf. Gospel of Mark chapter 12, verses 28–34). Saint Augustine summarized this when he wrote "Love God, Sony VAIO VGN-SZ110 Keyboard
and do as thou wilt."
Sacred Love Versus Profane Love (1602–03) by Giovanni Baglione. Intended as an attack on his hated enemy the artist Caravaggio, it shows a boy (hinting at Caravaggio's homosexuality) on one side, a devil with Caravaggio's face on the other, and between an angel representing pure, meaning non-erotic, love.
The Apostle Paul glorified love as the most important virtue of all. Describing love in the famous poem in 1 Corinthians, he wrote, "Love is patient, love is kind. Gateway MT6730 Keyboard
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres." (1 Cor. 13:4–7, NIV)
The Apostle John wrote, "Sony VAIO VPC-F13 Keyboard
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:16–17, NIV) John also wrote, "Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:7–8, NIV)
Saint Augustine says that one must be able to decipher the difference between love and lust. Lust, according to Saint Augustine, HP Mini 110-1049TU Keyboard
is an overindulgence, but to love and be loved is what he has sought for his entire life. He even says, “I was in love with love.” Finally, he does fall in love and is loved back, by God. Saint Augustine says the only one who can love you truly and fully is God, because love with a human only allows for flaws such as “jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and contention.” According to Saint Augustine, to love God is “to attain the peace which is yours.” (Saint Augustine's Confessions)
Christian theologians see God as the source of love, Sony VAIO VGN-NW51FB/N Keyboard
which is mirrored in humans and their own loving relationships. Influential Christian theologian C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Four Loves. Benedict XVI wrote his first encyclical on "God is love". He said that a human being, created in the image of God, who is love, is able to practice love; to give himself to God and others (agape) and by receiving and experiencing God's love in contemplation (eros). This life of love, according to him, is the life of the saints such as Teresa of Calcutta and the Blessed Virgin Mary and is the direction Christians take when they believe that God loves them.[30] Sony VAIO VGN-NW350F Keyboard
In Christianity the practical definition of love is best summarised by St. Thomas Aquinas, who defined love as "to will the good of another," or to desire for another to succeed.[10] This is the explanation of the Christian need to love others, including their enemies. As Thomas Aquinas explains, Christian love is motivated by the need to see others succeed in life, to be good people.
In Hebrew, Ahava is the most commonly used term for both interpersonal love and love between God and God's creations. Sony VAIO VGN-CS15GN/B Keyboard
Chesed, often translated as loving-kindness, is used to describe many forms of love between human beings.
The commandment to love other people is given in the Torah, which states, "Love your neighbor like yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). The Torah's commandment to love God "with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5) is taken by the Mishnah (a central text of the Jewish oral law) to refer to good deeds, willingness to sacrifice one's life rather than commit certain serious transgressions, willingness to sacrifice all of one's possessions, and being grateful to the Lord despite adversity Sony VAIO VGN-FS990 Keyboard
(tractate Berachoth 9:5). Rabbinic literature differs as to how this love can be developed, e.g., by contemplating divine deeds or witnessing the marvels of nature. As for love between marital partners, this is deemed an essential ingredient to life: "See life with the wife you love" (Ecclesiastes 9:9). The biblical book Song of Solomon is considered a romantically phrased metaphor of love between God and his people, but in its plain reading, reads like a love song. The 20th-century Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer DesslerHP Pavilion G4-1000 Series Keyboard
is frequently quoted as defining love from the Jewish point of view as "giving without expecting to take" (from his Michtav me-Eliyahu, Vol. 1).
Love encompasses the Islamic view of life as universal brotherhood that applies to all who hold faith. Amongst the 99 names of God (Allah), there is the name Al-Wadud, or "the Loving One," which is found in Surah [Quran 11:90] as well as Surah [Quran 85:14]. God is also referenced at the beginning of every chapter in the Qur'an as Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim, or the "Most Compassionate" and the "Most Merciful", SamsungNP-N145-JP04 Keyboard
indicating that nobody is more loving, compassionate and benevolent than God. The Qur'an refers to God as being "full of loving kindness."
The Qur'an exhorts Muslim believers to treat all people, those who have not persecuted them, with birr or "deep kindness" as stated in Surah [Quran 6:8-9]. Birr is also used by the Qur'an in describing the love and kindness that children must show to their parents.
Ishq, or divine love, is the emphasis of Sufism in the Islamic tradition. Practitioners of Sufism believe that love is a projection of the essence of God to the universe. God desires to recognize beauty, and as if one looks at a mirror to see oneself, God "looks" at himself within the dynamics of nature. Since everything is a reflection of God, Acer Aspire 3000 Keyboard
the school of Sufism practices to see the beauty inside the apparently ugly. Sufism is often referred to as the religion of love.[citation needed] God in Sufism is referred to in three main terms, which are the Lover, Loved, and Beloved, with the last of these terms being often seen in Sufi poetry. A common viewpoint of Sufism is that through love, humankind can get back to its inherent purity and grace. The saints of Sufism are infamous for being "drunk" due to their love of God; hence, the constant reference to wine in Sufi poetry and music.[31]
In Buddhism, Kāma is sensuous, sexual love. Compaq Presario CQ56-112SL Keyboard
It is an obstacle on the path to enlightenment, since it is selfish. Karuṇā is compassion and mercy, which reduces the suffering of others. It is complementary to wisdom and is necessary for enlightenment. Adveṣa and mettā are benevolent love. This love is unconditional and requires considerable self-acceptance. This is quite different from ordinary love, which is usually about attachment and sex and which rarely occurs without self-interest. Instead, in Buddhism it refers to detachment and unselfish interest in others' welfare.
The Bodhisattva idealDell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
in Mahayana Buddhism involves the complete renunciation of oneself in order to take on the burden of a suffering world. The strongest motivation one has in order to take the path of the Bodhisattva is the idea of salvation within unselfish, altruistic love for all sentient beings.
Hinduism
Kama (left) with Rati on a temple wall of Chennakesava Temple, Belur
In Hinduism, kāma is pleasurable, sexual love, personified by the god Kamadeva. For many Hindu schools, it is the third end (Kama) Sony VAIO VGN-NW270F Keyboard
in life. Kamadeva is often pictured holding a bow of sugar cane and an arrow of flowers; he may ride upon a great parrot. He is usually accompanied by his consort Rati and his companion Vasanta, lord of the spring season. Stone images of Kamadeva and Rati can be seen on the door of the Chennakeshava temple at Belur, in Karnataka, India. Maara is another name for kāma.
In contrast to kāma, prema – or prem – refers to elevated love. Karuna is compassion and mercy, which impels one to help reduce the suffering of others. HP Mini 210-2103tu Keyboard
Bhakti is a Sanskrit term, meaning "loving devotion to the supreme God." A person who practices bhakti is called a bhakta. Hindu writers, theologians, and philosophers have distinguished nine forms of bhakti, which can be found in the Bhagavata Purana and works by Tulsidas. The philosophical work Narada Bhakti Sutras, written by an unknown author (presumed to be Narada), distinguishes eleven forms of love.
In certain Vaishnava sects within Hinduism, attaining unaldulterated, unconditional and incessant love for Godhead is considered the foremost goal of life. 3000 Y510a 15303
Gaudiya Vaishnavas who worship Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the cause of all causes consider Love for Godhead (Prema) to act in two ways: sambhoga and vipralambha (union and separation) — two opposites .[32]
In the condition of separation, there is an acute yearning for being with the beloved and in the condition of union there is supreme happiness and nectarean. Gaudiya Vaishnavas consider that Krishna-prema (Love for Godhead) is not fire but that it still burns away one's material desires. They consider that Kṛṣṇa-prema is not a weapon, Sony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard
but it still pierces the heart. It is not water, but it washes away everything — one's pride, religious rules, and one's shyness. Krishna-prema is considered to make one drown in the ocean of transcendental ecstasy and pleasure. The love of Radha, a cowherd girl, for Krishna is often cited as the supreme example of love for Godhead by Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Radha is considered to be the internal potency of Krishna, and is the supreme lover of Godhead. Her example of love is considered to be beyond the understanding of material realm as it surpasses any form of selfish love or lust that is visibile in the material world. Sony Vaio PCG-K415B Keyboard
The reciprocal love between Radha (the supreme lover) and Krishna (God as the Supremely Loved) is the subject of many poetic compositions in India such as the Gita Govinda and Hari Bhakti Shuddhodhaya.
In the Bhakti tradition within Hinduism, it is believed that execution of devotional service to God leads to the development of Love for God (taiche bhakti-phale krsne prema upajaya), and as love for God increases in the heart, the more one becomes free from material contamination (krishna-prema asvada haile, bhava nasa paya). Acer Aspire One D150-1322 Keyboard
Being perfectly in love with God or Krishna makes one perfectly free from material contamination. and this is the ultimate way of salvation or liberation. In this tradition, salvation or liberation is considered inferior to love, and just an incidental by-product. Being absorbed in Love for God is considered to be the perfection of life. Political views
Free love
Main article: Free love
The term free love has been used [34] to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, HP Pavilion dv6-3104st Keyboard
birth control, and adultery. It claimed that such issues were the concern of the people involved, and no one else.[35]
Much of the free-love tradition is an offshoot of anarchism, and reflects a civil libertarian philosophy that seeks freedom from state regulation and church interference in personal relationships. According to this concept, the free unions of adults are legitimate relations which should be respected by all third parties whether they are emotional or sexual relations. In addition, some free-love writing has argued that both men and women have the right to sexual pleasure. In the Victorian era, SamsungN140 Keyboard
this was a radical notion. Later, a new theme developed, linking free love with radical social change, and depicting it as a harbinger of a new anti-authoritarian, anti-repressive sensibility.[36]
Many people in the early 19th century believed that marriage was an important aspect of life to "fulfill earthly human happiness." Middle-class Americans wanted the home to be a place of stability in an uncertain world. 3000 Y510
This mentality created a vision on strongly defined gender roles, which led to the advancement of the free love movement.[37]
While the phrase free love is often associated with promiscuity in the popular imagination, especially in reference to the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, historically the free-love movement has not advocated multiple sexual partners or short-term sexual relationships. Rather, it has argued that love relations that are freely entered into should not be regulated by law.
The term "sex radical" is also used interchangeably with the term "free lover", Compaq Presario CQ56-120SM Keyboard
and was the preferred term by advocates because of the negative connotations of "free love".[citation needed] By whatever name, advocates had two strong beliefs: opposition to the idea of forceful sexual activity in a relationship and advocacy for a woman to use her body in any way that she pleases.
Laws of particular concern to free love movements have included those that prevent an unmarried couple from living together, and those that regulate adultery and divorce, as well as age of consent, birth control, homosexuality, abortion, HP 636376-001 Keyboard
and sometimes prostitution; although not all free love advocates agree on these issues. The abrogation of individual rights in marriage is also a concern—for example, some jurisdictions do not recognize spousal rape or treat it less seriously than non-spousal rape. Free-love movements since the 19th century have also defended the right to publicly discuss sexuality and have battled obscenity laws.
Philosophical views
Main article: HP Mini 210-2004sa Keyboard
Philosophy of love
Philosophy of love is the field of social philosophy and ethics which attempts to explain the nature of love. The philosophical investigation of love includes the tasks of distinguishing between the various kinds of personal love; asking if and how love is/can be justified; asking what the value of love is; and what impact love has on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved.
There are many different theories which attempt to explain what love is, and what function it serves. It would be very difficult to explain love to a hypothetical person who had not himself or herself experienced love or being loved. In fact, HP 633183-001 Keyboard
to such a person love would appear to be quite strange if not outright irrational behavior. Among the prevailing types of theories that attempt to account for the existence of love there are: psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider love to be very healthy behavior; there are evolutionary theories which hold that love is part of the process of natural selection; there are spiritual theories which may, for instance consider love to be a gift from God; there are also theories that consider love to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience. Acer MP-07A23U4-442 Keyboard
Ancient Greece
Friendship was a topic of moral philosophy which was greatly discussed by Plato, Aristotle, and Stoics. This was less discussed in the modern era, until the re-emergence of contextualist and feminist approaches to ethics.[2] Openness in friendship was seen as an enlargement of the self; Aristotle wrote, "The excellent person is related to his friend in the same way as he is related to himself, since a friend is another self; and therefore, just as his own being is choiceworthy him, the friend's being is choice-worthy for Sony VGN-FE31B Keyboard
him in the same or a similar way."[3] In Ancient Greek, the same word was used for "friend" and "lover".[4]
In Islamic culture, friendship, also known as companionship, is taken seriously and numerous important attributes of a worthwhile friend have emerged in Islamic media. These include, for both men ("brothers") and women ("sisters"): The notion of a righteous (or "Saalih") person, who can appropriately delineate between that which is "good" and that which is "evil", has appeared prominently; concordance with the perspectives and knowledge of other Islamic companions is considered to be important; forgiveness regarding mistakes and loyalty between friends is emphasized; and, a "love for the sake of Allah"Acer eMachines G730 Keyboard
is considered to be a relationship of the highest significance between two humans.[5]
The view of the Islamic culture is to keep the relationships between boys and girls to a minimum; on the other hand, however, the only opportunity for a prudent relationship between boys and girls is when they have a serious plan for marriage. Beyond the limits of the family and religious marriage (See Mahram), virtually all emotional, intimate and love relations are despicable and religiously unlawful or a path to pave the way towards great sins. In the past there had been a social acceptance relying the local and traditional criteria which could practically lead to timely marriage at the beginning of puberty; Sony VGN-FE28H Keyboard
given the above, the main question is how it is possible to regulate the time gap which exists between puberty and the time of marriage, under the present circumstances where as a result of the expanded network of relationships, the society encounters reduced age of puberty and increased age of marriage. The theory of islamic friendship[6] seeks to seek feasibility of a regulated management of the period between puberty and the time of permanent marriage, and that upon the theory of Islamic friendship.
In Central Asia, male friendships tend to be reserved and respectful in nature. They may use nicknames and diminutive IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X41 Tablet Keyboard
forms of their first names.
[edit] Near East-Middle East
It is believed that in some parts of the Near East-Middle East, friendship has been described as more demanding when compared with other cultures; friends are people who respect each other, regardless of shortcomings, and who will make personal sacrifices in order to assist another friend, without considering the experience an imposition.[7]
Many Arabian people perceive friendship in serious terms, HP G72-b66US Keyboard
and will deeply consider personal attributes such as social influence and the nature of a person's character before engaging in such a relationship.[7]
Germans typically have relatively few friends, although friendships that do develop typically last a lifetime, as loyalty is held in high regard. Germans may appear aloof to people from other countries, as they tend to be cautious and keep their distance when it comes to meeting new people. The development from becoming an acquaintance to a friend can take several months.
In Russia, one typically accords very few people the status of "friend". These friendships, however, make up in intensity what they lack in number. Toshiba Satellite L505D-S5996 Keyboard
[citation needed] Friends are entitled to call each other by their first names alone and to use diminutives. A norm of polite behavior is addressing acquaintances by full first name plus patronymic. Acquaintances could include relationships that elsewhere would be qualified as real friendships, such as long-standing workplace relationships, or neighbors with whom one shares an occasional meal or a customary drink. HP Pavilion G6-1227TU Keyboard
Americans also use the term “friend” very freely, referring to someone they have known for a few weeks as a friend, perhaps for lack of a term for someone who is more than an acquaintance but less than a friend (Copeland, 2001). The rise of social networking websites, initially with friendster, followed by others like myspace and facebook, which popularized the concept of "Friend requests", also diluted the traditional meaning of "friend" due to the casual way that many users accept friend requests from people who they have met only once or none at all, whom, once the request is accepted, goes HP Pavilion HDX9050EF Keyboard
into the first person's "friend list". In the contemporary social media world, "friend" is used in a very casual, low-relationship threshold, manner.
[edit] Decline of friendships in the U.S.
The friendship bracelet is an American example of the exchange of small tokens of friendship.
According to a study documented in the June 2006 issue of the journal American Sociological Review, Americans are thought to be suffering a loss in the quality and quantity of close friendships since at least 1985.[8][9] Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
The study states that 25% of Americans have no close confidants and that the average total number of confidants per person has dropped from four to two.
According to the study:
The percentage of Americans who had at least one confidant not connected to them through kinship dropped from 80% to 57%.
Americans' dependence for close contact on a partner or spouse went up from 5% to 9%.
Research has found a link between fewer friendships (especially in quality) and psychological regression.
In recent times, it is suggested that modern American friendships have lost the force and importance they had in antiquity. C.S. Lewis, Sony VGN-FE865E Keyboard
for example, in his The Four Loves, writes:
To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few 'friends'. But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as 'friendships', show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philía which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that AmicitiaAsus A8A Keyboard
on which Cicero wrote a book.[10]
Likewise, Paul Halsall claims that:
The intense emotional and affective relationships described in the past as "non-sexual" cannot be said to exist today: modern heterosexual men can be buddies, but unless drunk they cannot touch each other, or regularly sleep together. They cannot affirm that an emotional affective relationship with another man is the centrally important relationship in their lives. It is not going too far, is it, to claim that friendship –Gateway 4028GZ Keyboard
if used to translate Greek philia or Latin amicitia – hardly exists among heterosexual men in modern Western society.
Mark McLelland, writing in the Western Buddhist Review under his Buddhist name of Dharmachari Jñanavira (Article), more directly points to homophobia being at the root of a modern decline in the western tradition of friendship.
Hence, in a cultural context where homosexual desire has for centuries been considered sinful, unnatural and a great evil, the experience of homoerotic desire can be very traumatic for some individuals and severelyThinkpad T520
limit the potential for same-sex friendship. The Danish sociologist Henning Bech, for instance, writes of the anxiety which often accompanies developing intimacy between male friends:
The more one has to assure oneself that one's relationship with another man is not homosexual, the more conscious one becomes that it might be, and the more necessary it becomes to protect oneself against it. The result is that friendship gradually becomes impossible.
Their opinion that fear of being, or being seen as, Sony Vaio PCG-K33 Keyboard
homosexual has killed off western man's ability to form close friendships with other men is shared by Japanese psychologist Doi Takeo, who claims that male friendships in American society are fraught with homosexual anxiety and thus homophobia is a limiting factor stopping men from establishing deep friendships with other men. The suggestion that friendship contains an ineluctable element of erotic desire is not new, but has been advanced by students of friendship ever since the time of the ancient Greeks, where it comes up in the writings of Plato. More recently, the Austrian philosopher Otto WeiningerToshiba Satellite L775-S7248 Keyboard
claimed that:
There is no friendship between men that has not an element of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility. (Sex and Character, 1903) Toshiba Satellite L655-S5100 KeyboardToshiba Satellite L655-S5100 Keyboard
Recent western scholarship in gender theory and feminism concurs, as reflected in the writings of Eve Sedgwick in her The Epistemology of the Closet, and Jonathan Dollimore in his Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault.
Divorce also contributes to the decline in friendship among Americans. “In international comparisons, the divorce rate in the United States is higher than that of 34 other countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia (Newman & Newman, 2012 pg. 475).” With the divorce rate being so high, many couples end up losing friends through the process. This is because certain friendsSony VGN-FE780G Keyboard
side with one member of the relationship and therefore lose the other friend.
Friendship and Technology: Another reason for the decline in friendships in the U.S. is due to technology. Ethan J. Leib, author of the book Friend vs. Friend and law professor at the University of California-Hastings suggests that longer hours of work and a large amount of online communication such as e-mail and excel take away from personal communication and thus make it much harder to form friendships even in the work place. HP G42-468TU Keyboard
Other aspects of technology including Facebook and Twitter also decrease the amount of personal communication in everyday life. These technological advances make it hard to feel emotionally connected to a friend (Newman & Newman) (Berry, 2012) (Freeman, 2011).
In the sequence of the emotional development of the individual, friendships come after parental bonding and before the pair bonding engaged in at the approach of maturity. In the intervening period between the end of early childhood and the onset of full adulthood, friendships are often the most important relationships in the emotionalHP Envy 15-1015tx Keyboard
life of the adolescent and are often more intense than relationships later in life.[11] However, making friends seems to trouble a lot of people; having no friends can be emotionally damaging in some cases.[12]
A study by researchers from Purdue University found that post-secondary-education friendships (e.g., college, university) last longer than the friendships before it.[13]
Children with disorders such as High-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome usually have some difficulty forming friendships. This is due to the autistic nature of some of their symptoms, which include, but are not limited to, Compaq Presario C709LA Keyboard
preferring routine actions to change, obsessive interests and rituals, and usually lacking good social skills. This does not mean that they are not able to form friendships, however. With time, moderation, and proper instruction, they are able to form friendships after realizing their own strengths and weaknesses. Children with ADHD may not have difficulty forming friendships, but they may have a hard time keeping friendships because of impulsive behaviour and hyperactivity. Children with inattentive ADD may not have as much HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
trouble keeping and maintaining friendships, but inattentiveness may make it more difficult. Children with conditions such as Asperger's syndrome may find it easier to form a strong friendship with a child who has a condition such as ADHD due to similar interests and behaviours.[citation needed].
[edit] Friendship Quality
(Berndt, 2002). -Children prize friendships that are high in prosocial behavior, intimacy, and other positive features. -Children are troubled by friendships that are high in conflicts, dominance, rivalry, and other negative features. Acer Aspire 7751 Keyboard
-Friendships are high in quality when they have high levels of positive features and low levels of negative features. -High-quality friendships have often been assumed to have positive effects on many aspects of children’s social development. -The direct effects of friendship quality appear to be quite specific. -Having friendships high in positive features enhances children’s success in the social world of peers, but it apparently does not affect children’s general self-esteem. These findings are surprising because numerous studies with adults suggestHP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
that friendships and other supportive relationships enhance many aspects of adults’ physical and mental health, including their self-esteem -High-quality friendships may also have indirect effects on children’s social development. Most theories of social influence include some form of the hypothesis that children are more strongly influenced by their friends’ characteristics the higher the quality of those friendships.
Quality of Friendship
Friendship is “Life Enhancing” (Helm, 2012). By engaging in activities with friends, pleasure and happiness are intensified. The quality of friendships relates to happiness because friendship “provides a context where basic needs are Sony VAIO PCG-FRV26 Keyboard
satisfied” (Demir, 2010). By experiencing a good quality of friendship, the individual is led to feel more comfortable with who they are as a person. Ultimately, good quality friendships connect with the meaning of life satisfaction. Higher friendship quality directly contributes to self-esteem, self-confidence, and social development (Berndt, 2002).
Quality of Friendship: Two Dimensions0A62075
Friendship has two dimensions (Demir, 2007). The two dimension include: quality and conflict. The quality of friendship is important for a persons well being and it contributes to the closeness of friends. Within the quality of friendship, it is important to have healthy and interesting interaction. This type of interaction leads to a higher quality of friendship. The second dimension is conflict, which connects with the quality of friendships. High quality friendships have great ways of resolving conflict which ultimately HP Pavilion G6-1209TX Keyboard
leads to a stronger and healthier relationship.
[edit] Friendship development through childhood
At the early school age, friendships are based on the sharing of toys and objects and the enjoyment that is received from performing activities together. Friendships at this age are maintained through affection, sharing, and creative play time. Sharing is hard for children at this age level as they are very self-oriented. However, children are likely to share more with someone they consider to be a friend than with someone who is just a peer (Newman & Newman, 2012).
As a child moves from early school age to middle childhood, HP Pavilion DV7-4061 Keyboard
they face the developmental task of friendship. At this stage in life, children become less individualized and more aware of others. They begin to see their friends point of view and have fun playing in groups of peers who have the same interests as them. They also experience peer rejection as they move through the middle childhood years. It is important to teach a child that it is natural to sometimes be unaccepted by others but to remain positive about the friends they still have. Establishing good friendships at a young age helps a child to be better acclimated in society later on in their life (Newman & Newman, 2012). HP Pavilion dv6-2160ep Keyboard
In a 1974 study,[14] Bigelow and La Gaipa, in one of the first studies conducted regarding children's friendships, found that expectations of a best friend become increasingly complex as a child gets older. The study investigated the criteria for "best friend" in a sample of 480 children between the ages of six and fourteen years of age.
Their findings highlighted three stages of the development of friendship expectations.
First stage: emphasised shared activities and the importance of geographical closeness.
Second stage: emphasised sharing, loyalty and commitment. Toshiba Satellite U305-S2808 KeyboardToshiba Satellite U305-S2808 Keyboard
Third stage: revealed growing importance of similar attitudes, values and interests.
The Study of Friendships in Adolescent Development
Friendships in adolescent development include positive influences on how they act, feel, and think, and also problematic aspects including negative peer pressure. Which one is more prominent? To find out one needs to consider the characteristics of friends and how these friendships form. A study was conducted by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health where 9,234 American adolescents were examined to determine how their engagement in problem behavior (stealing, fighting, sexual activity, Toshiba Satellite U305 Keyboard
truancy) was related to the kinds of friends they had and to the peer networks and schools in which these friendships were located. Findings revealed that adolescents were less likely to engage in problem behavior when their friends did well in school, participated in school activities, avoided drinking and had good mental health. Also, these positive characteristics are greater when done together within the social group. How adolescents are affected by friendships could be shaped by their location in their group. For example, the one who is most central to their peer networks were the most influenced by their friends. Sony VAIO VGN-SZ750N Keyboard
Results also found that adolescents have less problematic behavior when they attended schools with similar characteristics to their friends (friends who did well at school at an academically rigorous school). Ones that engaged in more problem behavior resulted from friends with opposing characteristics to the school (friends who drank at an academically rigorous school). Thus, whether adolescents were influenced by their friends to engage in problem behavior depended on how much they were exposed to these friends and whether they and their friendship groups “fit in” at school.
Friendships in Adulthood Sony VAIO PCG-FX776 Keyboard
(Fowler) Just like adolescents, relationships with friends are important to older adults. Friends contribute to our satisfaction, give us a sense of belonging, competence, and self-worth. Friendship involves: - Enjoyment - spending time doing things together and sharing life experiences. - Trust — believing that our friends act on our behalf. - Respect and understanding — believing that our friends have the right to their own opinions. - Mutual assistance — helping and supporting our friends and having them help us. Toshiba Satellite L40-17S Keyboard
- Confiding — sharing confidential matters with our friends.
Types of Friendships Friends are people we know and trust, and who are special to us socially and emotionally. Friends are usually chosen among people who are considered the same as us. The people adults select as friends tend to be those who: - we have grown up with - have similar occupations - have children the same age - have similar interests - are the same general age and the same gender
The majority of adults have three or more closeCompaq Presario CQ50-142US Keyboard
friends and more than half of adults have ten or more friends. Men and women have the same number of friends, however, women are likely to confide more in friendships than men. Men tend to enjoy activities or discuss and practice special skills. Adults also often make friends based on who their children are friends with. Many times, parents within a neighborhood are all friends because they are around each other so much because of their children. Parents will also often make friends with other parents on their children’s sports teams for the same reason. Not all adult acquaintances will end up in the friendship stage, IBM ThinkPad T41 2374 Keyboard
however, it is likely that some will share commonalities and form a deeper relationship (Newman & Newman, 2012).
With life events such as marriage, parenthood, and accelerated career development, young adulthood merges into middle adulthood. Following marriage, both women and men report having fewer cross-gender friends. This may be due to suspicion and jealousy, and spouses spend most of their free time together rather than separately Sony VAIO VGN-AR130G Keyboard
in social situations that might lead to cross-sex friendship formation. Also, when people marry they generally become more dependent on spouses and less so on friends for meeting social needs (Friendships, 2012). Acer Aspire 7540G Keyboard
ThinkPad T510-4314
Toshiba Satellite L355-S7905 Keyboard
HP Pavilion dv5-1159se Keyboard
Sony VAIO VGN-AR730E/B Keyboard
HP G56-130SA Keyboard
Acer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Thinkpad T410
HP G72-a30EM Keyboard
A laptop integrates
[1] A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device such as a touchpad (also known as a trackpad) and/or a pointing stick, and speakers into a single unit. A laptop is powered by mains electricity via an AC adapter, and can be used away from an outlet using a rechargeable battery. Laptops are also sometimes called notebook computers, notebooks or netbooks.
Portable computers, Toshiba 48.N5601.001A Keyboard originally monochrome CRT-based and developed into the modern laptops, were originally considered to be a small niche market, mostly for specialized field applications such as the military, accountants and sales representatives. As portable computers became smaller, lighter, cheaper, more powerful and as screens became larger and of better quality, laptops became very widely used for all sorts of purposes, by all sorts of people.
Contents [hide] Toshiba 4h.n7401.001-b Keyboard
1 History
2 Classification
2.1 Desktop replacement
2.2 Subnotebook
2.3 Netbook
2.4 Rugged laptop
2.5 Tablet laptop
3 Components
3.1 Docking stations
3.2 Charging stations
3.3 Standards
4 Advantages
5 Disadvantages
5.1 Performance
5.2 Upgradeability
5.3 Ergonomics and health effects
5.3.1 Wrists
5.3.2 Neck, spinalToshiba 4h.n7401.041-a Keyboard
5.3.3 Possible effect on fertility
5.3.4 Thighs
5.4 Durability
5.4.1 Equipment wear
5.4.2 Parts replacement
5.4.3 Heat and cooling
5.4.4 Battery life
5.5 Security and privacy
6 Major brands and manufacturers
7 Sales
8 Super users
9 Extreme environments
10 AccessoriesToshiba 6037B0017206 Keyboard
11 Used to have features
12 See also
13 References
14 External links
History
Main article: History of laptops
Alan Kay with "Dynabook" prototype
The Epson HX-20Toshiba 6037b0026805 Keyboard
s the personal computer became feasible in the early 1970s, the idea of a portable personal computer followed. A "personal, portable information manipulator" was imagined by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in 1968,[2] and described in his 1972 paper as the "Dynabook".[3]
The IBM SCAMP project (Special Computer APL Machine Portable), was demonstrated in 1973. This prototype was based on the IBM PALM processor (Put All Logic In Microcode or 128 bit).
The IBM 5100, the first commercially available portable computer, appeared in September 1975, and was based on the SCAMP prototype.[4] Toshiba 6037B0028502 Keyboard
As 8-bit CPU machines became widely accepted, the number of portables increased rapidly. The Osborne 1, released in 1981, used the Zilog Z80 and weighed 23.6 pounds (10.7 kg). It had no battery, a 5 in (13 cm) CRT screen, and dual 5.25 in (13.3 cm) single-density floppy drives. In the same year the first laptop-sized portable computer, the Epson HX-20, was announced.[5] The Epson had a LCD screen, a rechargeable battery, Toshiba 6037B0035302 Keyboard and a calculator-size printer in a 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) chassis. Both Tandy/RadioShack and HP also produced portable computers of varying designs during this period.[6][7]
The first laptops using the flip form factor appeared in the early 1980s. The Dulmont Magnum was released in Australia in 1981–82, but was not marketed internationally until 1984–85. The $8,150 ($19,630 today) GRiD Compass 1100, released in 1982, Toshiba 6037B0047802 Keyboardwas used at NASA and by the military among others. The Gavilan SC, released in 1983, was the first computer described as a "laptop" by its manufacturer.[8] From 1983 onward, several new input techniques were developed and included in laptops, including the touchpad (Gavilan SC, 1983), the pointing stick (IBM ThinkPad 700, 1992) and handwriting recognition (Linus Write-Top,[9] 1987). Some CPUs, such as the 1990 Intel i386SL, Toshiba 85 T0017801A Keyboardwere designed to use minimum power to increase battery life of portable computers, and were supported by dynamic power management features such as Intel SpeedStep and AMD PowerNow! in some designs.
Displays reached VGA resolution by 1988 (Compaq SLT/286), and colour screens started becoming a common upgrade in 1991 with increases in resolution and screen size occurring frequently until the introduction of 17"-screen laptops in 2003. Hard drives started to be used in portables, Toshiba 92.N4XBC.A01 Keyboard encouraged by the introduction of 3.5" drives in the late 1980s, and became common in laptops starting with the introduction of 2.5" and smaller drives around 1990; capacities have typically lagged behind physically larger desktop drives. Optical storage, read-only CD-ROM followed by writeable CD and later read-only or writeable DVD and Blu-Ray, became common in laptops soon in the 2000s.
ClassificationToshiba 99.N5682.701 Keyboard
The MacBook Air
The term "laptop" can refer to a number of classes of small portable computers:[10][11]
Full-size Laptop: A laptop large enough to accommodate a "full-size" keyboard (a keyboard with the minimum QWERTY key layout, which is at least 13.5 keys across that are on ¾ (0.750) inch centers, plus some room on both ends for the case). Toshiba 99.N5682.A01 KeyboardThe measurement of at least 11 inches across has been suggested as the threshold for this class.[12] The first laptops were the size of a standard U.S. "A size" notebook sheet of paper (8.5 × 11 inches)[citation needed], but later "A4-size" laptops were introduced, which were the width of a standard ISO 216 A4 sheet of paper (297 mm, or about 11.7 inches), and added a vertical column of keys to the right and wider screens. It can also be laid sideways when not in useToshiba 99.n7482.001 Keyboard.
Netbook: A smaller, lighter, more portable laptop. It is also usually cheaper than a full-size laptop, but has fewer features and less computing power. Smaller keyboards can be more difficult to operate. There is no sharp line of demarcation between netbooks and inexpensive small laptops; some 11.6" models are marketed as netbooks. Since netbook laptops are quite small in size, netbooks typically do not come with an internal optical drive. Toshiba 9J.N5682.001 Keyboard
Tablet PC: these have touch screens. There are "convertable tablets" with a full keyboard where the screen rotates to be used atop the keyboard, and "slate" form-factor machines which are usually touch-screen only (although a few older models feature very small keyboards along the sides of the screen.) Toshiba 9J.N5682.701 Keyboard
Ultra-mobile PC: An ultra-mobile PC (ultra-mobile personal computer or UMPC) is a small form factor version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this direction in 2004 with its Vaio U series, which was however only sold in Asia. Toshiba 9J.N5682.D01 Keyboard
UMPCs are smaller than subnotebooks, have a TFT display measuring (diagonally) about 12.7 to 17.8 cm, and are operated like tablet PCs using a touchscreen or a stylus. There is no clear boundary between subnotebooks and ultra-mobile PCs.
Handheld PC: A Handheld PC, or H/PC for short, is a term for a computer built around a form factor which is smaller than any standard laptop computerToshiba 9J.N5682.N01 Keyboard
. It is sometimes referred to as a Palmtop. The first handheld device compatible with desktop IBM personal computers of the time was the Atari Portfolio of 1989. Another early model was the Poqet PC of 1989 and the Hewlett Packard HP 95LX of 1991. Other DOS compatible hand-held computers also existed.
Rugged: Engineered to operate in tough conditions Toshiba 9j.n7482.201 Keyboard
(mechanical shocks, extreme temperatures, wet and dusty environments, etc.)
Ultrabook: A very thin version of a laptop. They are a higher-end subnotebook "inspired" by Intel.
Desktop replacement
Main article: Desktop replacement computer
A modern laptop, Acer Aspire. Toshiba 9J.N7482.901 Keyboard
A desktop-replacement computer is a laptop that provides all of the capabilities of a desktop computer, with a similar level of performance. Desktop replacements are usually larger and heavier than standard laptops. They contain more powerful components and have a 15" or larger display.[11] They are bulkier and not as portable as other laptops, and their operation time on batteries is typically shorter; they are intended to be used as compact and transportable alternatives to a desktop computer.[11] Toshiba 9j.n7782.001 Keyboard
Some laptops in this class use a limited range of desktop components to provide better performance for the same price at the expense of battery life; a few of those models have no battery.[13]
In the early 2000s, desktops were more powerful, easier to upgrade, and much cheaper than laptops, Toshiba 9J.N9082.001 Keyboard but in later years laptops have become much cheaper and more powerful than before,[14] and most peripherals are available in laptop-compatible USB versions which minimise the need for internal add-on cards. In the second half of 2008, laptops outsold desktops for the first time.
The names "Media Center Laptops" and "Gaming Laptops" are used to describe specialized notebook computers.[10] Toshiba 9J.N9082.A01 Keyboard
Sony VAIO P series subnotebook
Subnotebook
Main article: Subnotebook
A subnotebook or ultraportable is a laptop designed and marketed with an emphasis on portability (small size, Toshiba 9J.N9082.C01 Keyboard low weight and often longer battery life) that retains performance close to that of a standard notebook. Subnotebooks are usually smaller and lighter than standard laptops, weighing between 0.8 and 2 kg (2 to 5 pounds);[10] the battery life can exceed 10 hours[15] when a large battery or an additional battery pack is installed. Since the introduction of netbooks, the line between subnotebooks and higher-end netbooks has been substantially blurred. Toshiba 9J.N9082.E01 Keyboard
To achieve the size and weight reductions, ultraportables use 13" and smaller screens (down to 6.4"), have relatively few ports (but in any case include two or more USB ports), employ expensive components designed for minimal size and best power efficiency, and utilize advanced materials and construction methods. Most subnotebooks achieve a further portability improvement by omitting an optical/removable media drive; Toshiba 9J.N9082.J01 Keyboard
in this case they may be paired with a docking station that contains the drive and optionally more ports or an additional battery.
The term "subnotebook" is reserved to laptops that run general-purpose desktop operating systems such as Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, Toshiba 9J.N9282.801 Keyboard rather than specialized software such as Windows CE, Palm OS or Internet Tablet OS.
At Computex 2011 Intel announced a new class for ultraportables called Ultrabooks. The term is used to describe a highly portable laptop that has strict limits for size, weight, battery life, and have tablet-like features such as instant on functionality. Intel estimates that by the end of 2012, Toshiba 9J.N9282.W01 Keyboard
40 percent of the consumer laptop market segment will be Ultrabooks.[16]
Netbook
Main article: Netbook
Netbooks are laptops that are light-weight, economical, energy-efficient and especially suited for wireless communication and Internet access.[17][18] Hence the name netbook (as "the device excels in web-based computing performance").[19] Toshiba 9J.N99282.D01 Keyboard
With primary focus given to web browsing and e-mailing, netbooks are intended to "rely heavily on the Internet for remote access to web-based applications"[19] and are targeted increasingly at cloud computing users who rely on servers and require a less powerful client computer.[20] A common distinguishing feature is the lack of optical disk (i.e. CD, DVD or Blu-ray) drives. Toshiba 9z.n1y82.001 KeyboardWhile the devices range in size from below 5 inches[21] to over 12,[22] most are between 9 and 11 inches (280 mm) and weigh between 0.9–1.4 kg (2–3 pounds).[19]
Netbooks are mostly sold with light-weight operating systems such as Linux, Windows XP and Windows 7 Starter edition.
Because they are very portable, netbooks have a few disadvantages. Toshiba 9Z.N3D82.001 Keyboard Because the netbooks are thin, the first such products introduced to the market had their primary internal storage in the form of solid-state drives and not hard disks, which are essential to installing very many programs. Hard disk drive technology and form factors have since been adapted to fit into netbooks.
Given their size and use of more rudimentary components compared to notebooks and subnotebooks, Toshiba 9Z.N4WOM.001 Keyboard netbooks also generally have a smaller-capacity hard drive, slower CPU, and a lower-profile RAM capacity.[23]
In 2009, Google announced an operating system called Google Chrome OS for this market.
The big breakthrough for netbook computers did not happen until the weight, diagonal form-factor and price combination of < 1 kg, < 9", < U.S. $400, respectively, became commercially available in around 2008.
Rugged laptopToshiba 9Z.N4WSC.001 Keyboard
Main article: Rugged computer
A Panasonic Toughbook.
A rugged (or ruggedized) laptop is designed to reliably operate in harsh usage conditions such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures, and wet or dusty environments. Rugged laptops are usually designed from scratch, rather than adapted from regular consumer laptop models. Rugged laptops are bulkier, heavier, and much more expensive than regular laptops,[24] and thus are seldom seen in regular consumer use. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
The design features found in rugged laptops include rubber sheeting under the keyboard keys, sealed port and connector covers, passive cooling, superbright displays easily readable in daylight, cases and frames made of magnesium alloys[25] that are much stronger than plastic found in commercial laptops, and solid-state storage devices or hard disc drives that are shock mounted to withstand constant vibrations. Toshiba A000014900 KeyboardRugged laptops are commonly used by public safety services (police, fire and medical emergency), military, utilities, field service technicians, construction, mining and oil drilling personnel. Rugged laptops are usually sold to organizations, rather than individuals, and are rarely marketed via retail channels.
Tablet laptop
See also: Tablet computerToshiba AEBD10IU011-US Keyboard
A tablet laptop with stylus
Typical modern convertible laptops have a complex joint between the keyboard housing and the display permitting the display panel to swivel and then lie flat on the keyboard housing.
Typically, the base of a tablet laptop attaches to the display at a single joint called a swivel hinge or rotating hinge. The joint allows the screen to rotate through 180° and fold down on top of the keyboard to provide a flat writing surface. This design, although the most common, Toshiba AEBD3U00050 Keyboard creates a physical point of weakness on the laptop.
Some manufacturers have attempted to overcome these weak points by adopting innovative methods such as a sliding design in which the screen slides up from the slate-like position and locks into place to provide the laptop mode.
Tablet laptops have the advantage to offer the keyboard and pointing device (usually a trackpad) of older laptops, Toshiba AEBD3U00150-US Keyboard for users who do not use the touchscreen display as the primary method of input. Tablets are also touchscreen.
Components
Main article: Personal computer hardware
Miniaturization: a comparison of a desktop computer motherboard (ATX form factor) to a motherboard from a 13" laptop (2008 unibody Macbook)
Inner view of a Sony VAIO laptop
The basic components of laptops are similar in function to their desktop counterparts, Toshiba AEBL5R00040-UI Keyboard but are miniaturized, adapted to mobile use, and designed for low power consumption. Because of the additional requirements, laptop components are usually slower compared to similarly priced desktop parts. Furthermore, the design bounds on power, size, and cooling of laptops limit the maximum performance of laptop parts compared to that of desktop components.[26]
The following list summarizes the differences and distinguishing features of laptop components in comparison to desktop personal computer parts:[27] Toshiba AEEW30IU018-US Keyboard
Central processing unit (CPU): Laptop CPUs have advanced power-saving features and produce less heat than desktop processors, but are not as powerful.[28] There is a wide range of CPUs designed for laptops available from Intel (Pentium M, Celeron M, Intel Core and Core 2 Duo), AMD (Athlon, Turion 64, and Sempron), VIA Technologies, Transmeta and others. Toshiba G83C0000E510 Keyboard On the non-x86 architectures, Motorola and IBM produced the chips for the former PowerPC-based Apple laptops (iBook and PowerBook). Most laptops have removable CPUs, although some support by the motherboard may be restricted to the specific models.[29] Some laptops uses a desktop processor instead of the laptop version. Those laptops have high performance at the cost of being likely to have overheating problems, Toshiba G83C0000EA10 Keyboard
and having less battery life. In other laptops the CPU is soldered on the motherboard and is non-replaceable.
A SODIMM memory module
Memory (RAM): SO-DIMM memory modules that are usually found in laptops are about half the size of desktop DIMMs.[27] They may be accessible from the bottom of the laptop for ease of upgrading, or placed in locations not intended for user replacement such as between the keyboard and the motherboard. Currently, Toshiba G83c00018610 Keyboard
most midrange laptops are factory equipped with 3–4 GB of DDR2 RAM, while some higher end notebooks feature up to 32 GB of DDR3 memory. Netbooks however, are commonly equipped with only 1 GB of RAM to keep manufacturing costs low.
Expansion cards: A PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) or ExpressCard bay for expansion cards is often present on laptops to allow adding and removing functionality, Toshiba G83C0001K210 Keyboard
even when the laptop is powered on. Some subsystems (such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or a cellular modem) can be implemented as replaceable internal expansion cards, usually accessible under an access cover on the bottom of the laptop. Two popular standards for such cards are MiniPCI and its successor, the PCI Express Mini.[30] Toshiba G83c0003b210 Keyboard
Power supply: Laptops are typically powered by an internal rechargeable battery that is charged using an external power supply, which outputs a DC voltage typically in the range of 7.2– 24 volts. The power supply is usually external, and connected to the laptop through a AC connector cable. It can charge the battery and power the laptop simultaneously; when the battery is fully charged, the laptop continues to run on power supplied by the external power supply. Toshiba G83c0003b710 Keyboard
The charger adds about 400 grams (1 lb) to the overall "transport weight" of the notebook.
Battery: Current laptops utilize lithium ion batteries, with more recent models using the new lithium polymer technology. These two technologies have largely replaced the older nickel metal-hydride batteries. Typical battery life for standard laptops is two to five hours of light-duty use, but may drop to as little as one hour when doing power-intensive tasks. Toshiba G83C0003G110 Keyboard
A battery's performance gradually decreases with time, leading to an eventual replacement in one to three years, depending on the charging and discharging pattern. This large-capacity main battery should not be confused with the much smaller battery nearly all computers use to run the real-time clock and to store the BIOS configuration in the CMOS memory when the computer is off. Lithium-ion batteries do not have a memory effect as older batteries may have. Toshiba G83c0004l410 Keyboard
The memory effect happens when one does not use a battery to its fullest extent, then recharges the battery. Innovations in laptops and batteries have seen new possible matchings which can provide up to a full 24 hours of continued operation, assuming average power consumption levels. An example of this is the HP EliteBook 6930p when used with its ultra-capacity battery.
Video display controller: Toshiba G83c0004lbus Keyboard
On standard laptops the video controller is usually integrated into the chipset to conserve power. This tends to limit the use of laptops for gaming and entertainment, two fields which have constantly escalating hardware demands, and because the integrated chipset is very difficult to upgrade for a standard user, laptops may grow obsolete quickly for use in gaming and entertainment. Toshiba G83C0009W2US Keyboard
[31] Higher-end laptops and desktop replacements in particular often come with dedicated graphics processors on the motherboard or as an internal expansion card. These mobile graphics processors are comparable in performance to mainstream desktop graphic accelerator boards.[32] A few notebooks have switchable graphics with both an integrated and discrete card installed. The user can choose between using integrated graphics when battery life is important and dedicated graphics when demanding applications call for it. This allows for greater flexibility and also conserves power when not required.[33] Toshiba H000001790 Keyboard
Display: Most modern laptops feature 13 inches (33 cm) or larger color active matrix displays based on CCFL or LED lighting with resolutions of 1280×800 (16:10) or 1366 × 768 (16:9) pixels and above. Some models use screens with resolutions common in desktop PCs (for example, 1440×900, 1600×900 and 1680×1050.) Models with LED-based lighting offer lesser power consumption, and often higher brightness. Toshiba H000006820 Keyboard
Netbooks with a 10 inches (25 cm) or smaller screen typically use a resolution of 1024×600, while netbooks and subnotebooks with a 11.6 inches (29 cm) or 12 inches (30 cm) screen use standard notebook resolutions. Having a higher resolution display will allow you to fit more onscreen at a time, thus improving your ability to multitask. A higher resolution in a fixed size display will make items onscreen appear smaller than they would on a lower resolution. Toshiba K000001600 Keyboard
The difference between available display resolutions will often affect the user's experience considerably more than the difference between available processors and available memory, but it is commonly misconceived to be the opposite. 15.6" 1366 × 768 displays and 17.3" 1600 × 900 displays make items onscreen rather large, and tend to have poor image quality due in part to low contrast compared to their higher-resolution counterparts such as 15.6" 1600×900, Toshiba K000009780 Keyboard
15.6" 1920×1080, and 17.3" 1920×1080, because the lower resolution displays are generally more cheaply manufactured. If you as a buyer have a budget that allows you to get a laptop that one of the higher-resolution displays and at the same time suits your needs, and if you don't require the larger text provided by a lower resolution for eyesight-related reasons, then it is commonly recommended that you avoid buying laptops that come with the lower-resolution 15.6" 1366 × 768 displays or 17.3" 1600 × 900 displays. Toshiba K000011870 Keyboard
1366 × 768-resolution displays of sizes 14" and under tend to exhibit the same low-contrast-related poor image quality, but do not make items onscreen as large. 1600 × 900 resolution is occasionally available in sizes of 13.3" and 14", improving multitasking capability, but it is rare for such displays to have noticeably better contrast.
A size comparison of 3.5" and 2.5" hard disk drives
Removable media drives: A DVD/CD reader/writer drive is nearly universal on full-sized models, and is common on thin-and-light models; Toshiba K000016050 Keyboard
it is uncommon on subnotebooks and unknown on netbooks. CD drives are becoming rare, while Blu-ray is becoming more common on notebooks.[34]
Internal storage: Laptop hard disks are physically smaller—2.5 inches (64 mm) or 1.8 inches (46 mm) —compared to desktop 3.5 inches (89 mm) drives. Some newer laptops (usually ultraportables) employ more expensive, Toshiba K000029390 Keyboard
but faster, lighter and power-efficient flash memory-based SSDs instead. Currently, 250 to 500 GB sizes are common for laptop hard disks (64 to 512 GB for SSDs).
Input: A pointing stick, touchpad or both are used to control the position of the cursor on the screen, and an integrated keyboard is used for typing. An external keyboard and/or mouse may be connected using USB or PS/2 port, or Bluetooth (if present). Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
Ports: several USB ports, an external monitor port (VGA, DVI, mini-DisplayPort or HDMI), audio in/out, and an Ethernet network port are found on most laptops. Less common are legacy ports such as a PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, serial port or a parallel port. S-video or composite video ports are more common on consumer-oriented notebooks.
Cooling: Toshiba K000073050 Keyboard
Waste heat from operation is difficult to remove in the compact internal space of a laptop. Early laptops used heat sinks placed directly on the components to be cooled, but when these hot components are deep inside the device, a large space-wasting air duct is needed to exhaust the heat. Modern laptops instead rely on heat pipes to rapidly move waste heat towards the edges of the device, to allow for a much smaller and compact fan and heat sink cooling system. Toshiba K000097450 Keyboard
Waste heat is usually exhausted away from the device operator, towards the rear or sides of the device. Multiple air intake paths are used, because some intakes can be blocked, such as when the device is placed on a soft conforming surface such as a chair cushion. Some designs with metal cases, like Apple's aluminum MacBook Pro and MacBook Air also employ the case of the machine as a "gigantic" heat sink, Toshiba K000097460 Keyboard
and rely on it to pump heat out of the device core.[citation needed]Secondary device temperature monitoring may reduce performance or trigger an emergency shutdown if it is unable to dissipate heat, such as if the laptop were to be left running and placed inside a carrying case. Such a condition has the potential to melt plastics or ignite a fire.
Docking stations
A docking station is a relatively bulky laptop accessory that contains multiple ports, Toshiba K000098730 Keyboard
expansion slots, and bays for fixed or removable drives. A laptop connects and disconnects easily to a docking station, typically through a single large proprietary connector. A port replicator is a simplified docking station that only provides connections from the laptop to input/output ports. Both docking stations and port replicators are intended to be used at a permanent working place (a desk) to offer instant connection to multiple input/output devices and to extend a laptop's capabilities. Toshiba K011126E1 US Keyboard
Docking stations became a common laptop accessory in the early 1990s. The most common use was in a corporate computing environment where the company had standardized on a common network card and this same card was placed into the docking station. These stations were very large and quite expensive. As the need for additional storage and expansion slots became less critical because of the high integration inside the laptop, Toshiba KFRSBA064A Keyboard
port replicators have gained popularity, being a cheaper, often passive device that often simply mates to the connectors on the back of the notebook, or connects via a standardized port such as USB or FireWire.
Charging stations
Laptop charging trolleys, Toshiba KFRSBA114A Keyboard
also known as laptop trolleys or laptop carts, are mobile storage containers to charge laptops, netbooks and tablet computers en masse. The trolleys are predominately used in schools that have replaced their traditional static ICT[35] suites of desktop computers with laptops, but do not have enough plug sockets in their buildings to charge all of the devices.
The trolleys can be wheeled between rooms and classrooms so that anyone in a particular building can access fully charged IT[36] equipment. Toshiba MP-03433US-6984 Keyboard
Laptop charging trolleys are also used to deter and protect against opportunistic and organized theft. Schools, especially those with open plan designs, are often prime targets for thieves and laptops, netbooks and tablets can easily be concealed and removed from buildings. Laptop charging trolleys were designed and constructed to protect against theft. They are generally made out of steel, and the laptops remain locked up while not in use. Toshiba MP-03433US-930 Keyboard
Although the trolleys can be moved between areas in buildings, they can often also be mounted to the floor or walls to prevent thieves walking off with investments, especially overnight.[35]
Standards
In general, components other than the four categories listed above are not intended to be replaceable; a few, such as processors, Toshiba MP-03433US-9301 Keyboard
follow their own standards but are difficult to replace because of other factors (for example, in the case of processors cooling and access limitations can make upgrades very difficult or impossible.)
In particular, motherboards are almost always make and model-specific: locations of ports, and design and placement of internal components are not standard. Toshiba MP-04273US-5281 Keyboard
Those parts are neither interchangeable with parts from other manufacturers (replaceable) nor upgradeable. If broken or damaged, they must be substituted with an exact replacement part. Those users uneducated in the relevant fields are those the most affected by incompatibilities, especially if they attempt to connect their laptops with incompatible hardware or power adapters.
Intel, Asus, Compal, Toshiba MP-06766U4-698 Keyboard
Quanta and some other laptop manufacturers have created the Common Building Block standard for laptop parts to address some of the inefficiencies caused by the lack of standards.
Advantages
Laptop computers are portable and can be used in many locations. Shown here is Vicente Fox using an Apple PowerBook
A woman listening to music on external speakers. Toshiba MP-06863UK-930 Keyboard
Portability is usually the first feature mentioned in any comparison of laptops versus desktop PCs.[37] Physical portability allows that a laptop can be used in many places— not only at home and at the office, but also during commuting and flights, in coffee shops, in lecture halls and libraries, at clients' location or at a meeting room, etc. The portability feature offers several distinct advantages: Toshiba MP-06863US-9308 Keyboard
Productivity: Using a laptop in places where a desktop PC can not be used, and at times that would otherwise be wasted. For example, an office worker managing their e-mails during an hour-long commute by train, or a student doing his/her homework at the university coffee shop during a break between lectures.[38]
Immediacy: Carrying a laptop means having instant access to various information, Toshiba MP-06866GB-6983 Keyboard
personal and work files. Immediacy allows better collaboration between coworkers or students, as a laptop can be flipped open to present a problem or a solution anytime, anywhere.
Up-to-date information: If a person has more than one desktop PC, a problem of synchronization arises: changes made on one computer are not automatically propagated to the others. There are ways to resolve this problem, Toshiba MP-06873US-6983 Keyboard
including physical transfer of updated files (using a USB flash memory stick or CDRs) or using synchronization software over the Internet. However, using a single laptop at both locations avoids the problem entirely, as the files exist in a single location and are always up-to-date.
Connectivity: A proliferation of Wi-Fi wireless networks and cellular broadband data services (HSDPA, EVDO and others) combined with a near-ubiquitous support by laptops[39Toshiba MP-06873US-9204 Keyboard
] means that a laptop can have easy Internet and local network connectivity while remaining mobile. Wi-Fi networks and laptop programs are especially widespread at university campuses.[40]
Other advantages of laptops:
Size: Laptops are smaller than desktop PCs. Toshiba MP-07A23A0-442 Keyboard
This is beneficial when space is at a premium, for example in small apartments and student dorms. When not in use, a laptop can be closed and put away.
Low power consumption: Laptops are several times more power-efficient than desktops. A typical laptop uses 20–90 W, compared to 100–800 W for desktops. This could be particularly beneficial for businesses (which run hundreds of personal computers, Toshiba MP-07A56CU-442 Keyboard
multiplying the potential savings) and homes where there is a computer running 24/7 (such as a home media server, print server, etc.)
Quiet: Laptops are often quieter than desktops, due both to the components (quieter, slower 2.5-inch hard drives) and to less heat production leading to use of fewer and slower cooling fans.
Battery: Toshiba MP-09K53US6698 Keyboard
a charged laptop can continue to be used in case of a power outage and is not affected by short power interruptions and blackouts. A desktop PC needs a UPS to handle short interruptions, blackouts and spikes; achieving on-battery time of more than 20–30 minutes for a desktop PC requires a large and expensive UPS.[41]
All-in-One: designed to be portable, Toshiba MP-09N13US-698 Keyboard
laptops have everything integrated in to the chassis. For desktops (excluding all-in-ones) this is divided into the desktop, keyboard, mouse, display, and optional peripherals such as speakers.
Disadvantages
Compared to desktop PCs, laptops have disadvantages in the following fields:
Performance
While the performance of mainstream desktops and laptops is comparable, and the cost of laptops Toshiba N860-7630-T101-03A Keyboard
has fallen more rapidly than desktops, laptops remain more expensive than desktop PCs at the same performance level.[42] The upper limits of performance of laptops remain much lower than the highest-end desktops (especially "workstation class" machines with two processor sockets), and "bleeding-edge" features usually appear first in desktops and only then, as the underlying technology matures, are adapted to laptops. Toshiba NSK-T4001 Keyboard
However, for Internet browsing and typical office applications, where the computer spends the majority of its time waiting for the next user input, even relatively low-end laptops (such as Netbooks) can be fast enough for some users.[43] As of mid-2010, at the lowest end, the cheapest netbooks—between US$200–300—remain more expensive than the lowest-end desktop computers (around US$200) only when those are priced without a screen/monitor. Once an inexpensive monitor is added, the prices are comparable. Toshiba NSK-T4101 Keyboard
Most higher-end laptops are sufficiently powerful for high-resolution movie playback, some 3D gaming and video editing and encoding. However, laptop processors can be disadvantaged when dealing with higher-end database, maths, engineering, financial software, virtualization, etc. Also, the top-of-the-line mobile graphics processors (GPUs) are significantly behind the top-of-the-line desktop GPUs to a greater degree than the processors, which limits the utility of laptops for high-end 3D gaming and scientific visualization applications. Toshiba NSK-T4301 Keyboard
Some manufacturers work around this performance problem by using desktop CPUs for laptops.[44]
Upgradeability
Upgradeability of laptops is very limited compared to desktops, which are thoroughly standardized. In general, hard drives and memory can be upgraded easily. Optical drives and internal expansion cards may be upgraded if they follow an industry standard, Toshiba NSK-T4701 Keyboard
but all other internal components, including the motherboard, CPU and graphics, are not always intended to be upgradeable. Intel, Asus, Compal, Quanta and some other laptop manufacturers have created the Common Building Block standard for laptop parts to address some of the inefficiencies caused by the lack of standards. Toshiba NSK-T4A01 Keyboard
The reasons for limited upgradeability are both technical and economic. There is no industry-wide standard form factor for laptops; each major laptop manufacturer pursues its own proprietary design and construction, with the result that laptops are difficult to upgrade and have high repair costs. With few exceptions, laptop components can rarely be swapped between laptops of competing manufacturers, or even between laptops from the different product-lines of the same manufacturer. Toshiba NSK-T4D01 Keyboard
Some upgrades can be performed by adding external devices, either USB or in expansion card format such as PC Card. Devices such as sound cards, network adapters, hard and optical drives, and numerous other peripherals are available, but these upgrades usually impair the laptop's portability, because they add cables and boxes to the setup and often have to be disconnected and reconnected when the laptop is on the move. Toshiba NSK-T4N01 Keyboard
Ergonomics and health effects
Wrists
Laptop cooler preventing heating of lap and improving laptop airflow
Because of their small and flat keyboard and trackpad pointing devices, prolonged use of laptops can cause repetitive strain injury.[45] Usage of separate, external ergonomic keyboards and pointing devices is recommended to prevent injury when working for long periods of time; Toshiba NSK-t6001 Keyboard
they can be connected to a laptop easily by USB or via a docking station. Some health standards require ergonomic keyboards at workplaces.
Neck, spinal
The integrated screen often causes users to hunch over for a better view, which can cause neck or spinal injuries. A larger and higher-quality external screen can be connected to almost any laptop to alleviate that and to provide additional screen space for more productive work. Toshiba NSK-T6401 Keyboard
Another solution is to use a computer stand.
For anyone not buying a new screen, a simple method to reduce risk of spinal injury is to position the laptop's screen in a manner that an obtuse angle (more than 90 degrees open) is formed. It is then possible for the neck to remain straight during use of the device.
Possible effect on fertilityToshiba NSK-T6901 Keyboard
A study by State University of New York researchers found that heat generated from laptops can increase the temperature of the lap of male users when balancing the computer on their lap, potentially putting sperm count at risk. The study, which included roughly two dozen men between the ages of 21 and 35, found that the sitting position required to balance a laptop can increase scrotum temperature by as much as 2.1 °C (3.78 °F). However, further research is needed to determine whether this directly affects male sterility.[46] Toshiba NSK-T7001 Keyboard
A 2010 study of 29 males published in Fertility and Sterility found that men who kept their laptops on their laps experienced scrotal hyperthermia (overheating) in which their scrotal temperatures increased by up to 2 °C. The resulting heat increase, which could not be offset by a laptop cushion, may increase male infertility.[47][48][49][50][51]
A common practical solution to this problem is to place the laptop on a Toshiba NSK-TA001 Keyboard
table or desk, or to use a book or pillow between the body and the laptop.[citation needed] Another solution is to obtain a cooling unit for the laptop. These are usually USB powered and consist of a hard thin plastic case housing one, two or three cooling fans – with the entire assembly designed to sit under the laptop in question – which results in the laptop remaining cool to the touch, and greatly reduces laptop heat buildup.[citation needed] Toshiba NSK-TACO1 Keyboard
Thighs
Heat generated from using a laptop on the lap can also cause skin discoloration on the thighs known as "toasted skin syndrome."[52][53][54][55]
Durability
A clogged heat sink on a laptop after 2.5 years of use
Equipment wear
Because of their portability, Toshiba NSK-TAE01 Keyboard
laptops are subject to more wear and physical damage than desktops. Components such as screen hinges, latches, power jacks and power cords deteriorate gradually from ordinary use. A liquid spill onto the keyboard, a rather minor mishap with a desktop system, can damage the internals of a laptop and result in a costly repair. One study found that a laptop is three times more likely to break during the first year of use than a desktop.[56]
Parts replacement
Original external components are expensive, Toshiba NSK-TAJ01 Keyboard
and usually proprietary and non-interchangeable; other parts are inexpensive—a power jack can cost a few dollars—but their replacement may require extensive disassembly and reassembly of the laptop by a technician. Other inexpensive but fragile parts often cannot be purchased separate from larger more expensive components.[57] The repair costs of a failed motherboard or LCD panel often exceed the value of a used laptop.
Heat and coolingToshiba NSK-TAP0U Keyboard
Laptops rely on extremely compact cooling systems involving a fan and heat sink that can fail from blockage caused by accumulated airborne dust and debris. Most laptops do not have any sort of removable dust collection filter over the air intake for these cooling systems, resulting in a system that gradually causes it to conduct more heat and noise as the years pass. Eventually the laptop starts to overheat even at idle load levels. This dust is usually stuck inside where casual cleaning and vacuuming cannot remove it. Toshiba NSK-TB801 Keyboard
Compressed air can dislodge the dust and debris but may not always remove it; after the device is turned on, the loose debris is reapplied to the cooling system by the fans. Instead, a complete disassembly is needed to clean the laptop. Many laptops are difficult to disassemble by the average user and contain components sensitive to electrostatic discharge (ESD).
Battery life
Battery life is limited because the capacity drops with time, eventually requiring replacement after as little as a year. A new battery typically stores enough energy to run the laptop for three to five hours, Toshiba NSK-TBA01 Keyboard
depending on usage, configuration, and power management settings. Yet, as it ages, the battery's energy storage will dissipate progressively until it lasts only a few minutes. The battery is often easily replaceable and a higher capacity model may be obtained for longer life. Replacement batteries can be expensive.
Security and privacy
Main article: Laptop theft
Because they are valuable, common, Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
and portable, laptops are prized targets for theft. The cost of stolen business or personal data, and of the resulting problems (identity theft, credit card fraud, breach of privacy), can be many times the value of the stolen laptop itself. Consequently, physical protection of laptops and the safeguarding of data contained on them are both of great importance.
Most laptops have a Kensington security slot, Toshiba Nsk-tg001 Keyboard
which can be used to tether them to a desk or other immovable object with a security cable and lock. In addition, modern operating systems and third-party software offer disk encryption functionality, which renders the data on the laptop's hard drive unreadable without a key or a pass phrase. Some laptops also now have additional security elements added by the consumer, including eye recognition software and fingerprint scanning components.[58] Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
In Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (Eastern District of Pennsylvania 2010), school-issued laptops loaded with special software afforded two high schools with the capability to take secret webcam shots of their students at home, via their students' laptops.[59][60][61]
Major brands and manufacturers
Major laptop brandsToshiba NSK-TK01D Keyboard
Apple: MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
Acer / Gateway / eMachines / Packard Bell: TravelMate, Extensa, Ferrari and Aspire; Packard Bell Easynote; Chromebook
Asus: Asus Eee, Lamborghini, ASUS G Series(ROG)
Dell: Alienware, Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, Studio, Vostro and XPS
Falcon Northwest: DRX, TLX, I / OToshiba NSK-TN001 Keyboard
Fujitsu: Lifebook
HCL (India): ME Laptop, ME Netbook, Leaptop and MiLeap
Hewlett-Packard / Compaq: HP Pavilion, HP Envy, HP ProBook, HP EliteBook, Compaq Presario
Lenovo: ThinkPad, IdeaPad, and the Essential B and G Series
LG: Xnote
Medion: Akoya (OEM version of MSI Wind)
MSI: E, C, P, G, V, A, X, U series and Wind NetbookToshiba NSK-TN0SC Keyboard
Panasonic: Toughbook, Satellite, Let's Note (Japan only)
Samsung: SENS: N, P, Q, R and X series; Chromebook
Sony: Vaio
TG Sambo (Korea): Averatec, Averatec Buddy
Toshiba: Dynabook, Portege, Tecra, Satellite, Qosmio, Libretto
v t e
Main article: List of laptop brands and manufacturersToshiba NSK-TN0SV Keyboard
There are a multitude of laptop brands and manufacturers; several major brands, offering notebooks in various classes, are listed in the box to the right.
The major brands usually offer good service and support, including well-executed documentation and driver downloads that will remain available for many years after a particular laptop model is no longer produced. Capitalizing on service, support and brand image, Toshiba P000349000 Keyboard
laptops from major brands are more expensive than laptops by smaller brands and ODMs.
Some brands are specializing in a particular class of laptops, such as gaming laptops (Alienware), selling high-performance laptops (HP Envy), netbooks (EeePC) and laptops for children (OLPC).
Many brands, including the major ones, Toshiba P000364900 Keyboard
do not design and do not manufacture their laptops. Instead, a small number of Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) design new models of laptops, and the brands choose the models to be included in their lineup. In 2006, 7 major ODMs manufactured 7 of every 10 laptops in the world, with the largest one (Quanta Computer) having 30% world market share.[62] Therefore, there often are identical models available both from a major label and from a low-profile ODM in-house brand. Toshiba P000373850 Keyboard
Sales
Battery-powered portable computers had just 2% worldwide market share in 1986.[63] However, laptops have become increasingly popular, both for business and personal use.[64] Around 109 million notebook PCs shipped worldwide in 2007, Toshiba P000377360 Keyboard
a growth of 33% compared to 2006.[65] In 2008 it was estimated that 145.9 million notebooks were sold, and that the number would grow in 2009 to 177.7 million.[66] The third quarter of 2008 was the first time when notebook PC shipments exceeded desktops, with 38.6 million units versus 38.5 million units.[64][67][68][69] Toshiba P000388740 Keyboard
For Microsoft Windows systems, the average selling price (ASP) showed a decline in 2008/2009, possibly due to low-cost netbooks, drawing US$689 at U.S. retail in August 2008. In 2009, ASP had further fallen to $602 by January and to $560 in February. While Windows machines fell $129 in these seven months, Mac laptop ASP declined just $12 from $1,524 to $1,512.[70]
Super usersToshiba P000405490 Keyboard
At the end of 2011, 10 percent of mobile users are using up 90 percent of wireless bandwidth, super/extreme users mostly use a laptop with 64 percent share, and that is followed by 33 percent of smartphone users (excluding a few iPad users). According to Ericsson, the super users watch videos 40 percent of the time.[71]
Extreme environments
See also: International Space Station#ComputersToshiba P000411620 Keyboard
The ruggedized Grid Compass computer was used since the early days of the Space Shuttle program. The first commercial laptop used in space was a Macintosh portable in 1991 aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-43.[72][73][74] Mac and other laptop computers continue to be flown aboard manned spaceflights though the only long duration flight certified computer for the International Space Station is the ThinkPad. Toshiba P000422920 Keyboard
[75] As of 2011 over 100 ThinkPads were aboard the ISS. Laptops used aboard the International Space Station and other spaceflights are generally the same ones that can be purchased by the general public but needed modifications are made to allow them to be used safely and effectively in a weightless environment such as updating the cooling systems to function without relying on hot air rising and accommodation for the lower cabin air pressure.[76]
Laptops operating in harsh usage environments and conditions, Toshiba P000436200 Keyboard
such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures and wet or dusty conditions differ from those used in space in that they are custom designed for the task and do not use commercial off-the-shelf hardware.
Accessories
A common accessory for laptops is a laptop sleeve or laptop case, which provides a degree of protection from drops or impacts. Sleeves, which are distinguished by being relatively thin and flexible, are most commonly made of neoprene, Toshiba P000440670 Keyboard
with sturdier ones made of LRPu (low-resilience polyurethane), with some wrapped in ballistic nylon to provide some measure of waterproofing. Bulkier and sturdier cases can be made of metal with polyurethane padding inside, and may have locks, for added security.
Another common accessory is a laptop cooler. This device helps lower the internal temperature of the laptop by using either active or passive methods. Toshiba P000482730 Keyboard
A general active method is plugging a laptop cooler into the laptop and using fans to draw heat away from the laptop. A common passive method is just propping the laptop up on some type of pad so it can receive more air flow.[77]
Used to have features
Features that certain early models of laptops used to have but not available anymore in most recent models of laptops include: Toshiba P000484960 Keyboard
Reset (Cold restart) button in a hole
Instant power off button in a hole
Integrated charger or power adapter inside the laptop
Portable computers, Toshiba 48.N5601.001A Keyboard originally monochrome CRT-based and developed into the modern laptops, were originally considered to be a small niche market, mostly for specialized field applications such as the military, accountants and sales representatives. As portable computers became smaller, lighter, cheaper, more powerful and as screens became larger and of better quality, laptops became very widely used for all sorts of purposes, by all sorts of people.
Contents [hide] Toshiba 4h.n7401.001-b Keyboard
1 History
2 Classification
2.1 Desktop replacement
2.2 Subnotebook
2.3 Netbook
2.4 Rugged laptop
2.5 Tablet laptop
3 Components
3.1 Docking stations
3.2 Charging stations
3.3 Standards
4 Advantages
5 Disadvantages
5.1 Performance
5.2 Upgradeability
5.3 Ergonomics and health effects
5.3.1 Wrists
5.3.2 Neck, spinalToshiba 4h.n7401.041-a Keyboard
5.3.3 Possible effect on fertility
5.3.4 Thighs
5.4 Durability
5.4.1 Equipment wear
5.4.2 Parts replacement
5.4.3 Heat and cooling
5.4.4 Battery life
5.5 Security and privacy
6 Major brands and manufacturers
7 Sales
8 Super users
9 Extreme environments
10 AccessoriesToshiba 6037B0017206 Keyboard
11 Used to have features
12 See also
13 References
14 External links
History
Main article: History of laptops
Alan Kay with "Dynabook" prototype
The Epson HX-20Toshiba 6037b0026805 Keyboard
s the personal computer became feasible in the early 1970s, the idea of a portable personal computer followed. A "personal, portable information manipulator" was imagined by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in 1968,[2] and described in his 1972 paper as the "Dynabook".[3]
The IBM SCAMP project (Special Computer APL Machine Portable), was demonstrated in 1973. This prototype was based on the IBM PALM processor (Put All Logic In Microcode or 128 bit).
The IBM 5100, the first commercially available portable computer, appeared in September 1975, and was based on the SCAMP prototype.[4] Toshiba 6037B0028502 Keyboard
As 8-bit CPU machines became widely accepted, the number of portables increased rapidly. The Osborne 1, released in 1981, used the Zilog Z80 and weighed 23.6 pounds (10.7 kg). It had no battery, a 5 in (13 cm) CRT screen, and dual 5.25 in (13.3 cm) single-density floppy drives. In the same year the first laptop-sized portable computer, the Epson HX-20, was announced.[5] The Epson had a LCD screen, a rechargeable battery, Toshiba 6037B0035302 Keyboard and a calculator-size printer in a 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) chassis. Both Tandy/RadioShack and HP also produced portable computers of varying designs during this period.[6][7]
The first laptops using the flip form factor appeared in the early 1980s. The Dulmont Magnum was released in Australia in 1981–82, but was not marketed internationally until 1984–85. The $8,150 ($19,630 today) GRiD Compass 1100, released in 1982, Toshiba 6037B0047802 Keyboardwas used at NASA and by the military among others. The Gavilan SC, released in 1983, was the first computer described as a "laptop" by its manufacturer.[8] From 1983 onward, several new input techniques were developed and included in laptops, including the touchpad (Gavilan SC, 1983), the pointing stick (IBM ThinkPad 700, 1992) and handwriting recognition (Linus Write-Top,[9] 1987). Some CPUs, such as the 1990 Intel i386SL, Toshiba 85 T0017801A Keyboardwere designed to use minimum power to increase battery life of portable computers, and were supported by dynamic power management features such as Intel SpeedStep and AMD PowerNow! in some designs.
Displays reached VGA resolution by 1988 (Compaq SLT/286), and colour screens started becoming a common upgrade in 1991 with increases in resolution and screen size occurring frequently until the introduction of 17"-screen laptops in 2003. Hard drives started to be used in portables, Toshiba 92.N4XBC.A01 Keyboard encouraged by the introduction of 3.5" drives in the late 1980s, and became common in laptops starting with the introduction of 2.5" and smaller drives around 1990; capacities have typically lagged behind physically larger desktop drives. Optical storage, read-only CD-ROM followed by writeable CD and later read-only or writeable DVD and Blu-Ray, became common in laptops soon in the 2000s.
ClassificationToshiba 99.N5682.701 Keyboard
The MacBook Air
The term "laptop" can refer to a number of classes of small portable computers:[10][11]
Full-size Laptop: A laptop large enough to accommodate a "full-size" keyboard (a keyboard with the minimum QWERTY key layout, which is at least 13.5 keys across that are on ¾ (0.750) inch centers, plus some room on both ends for the case). Toshiba 99.N5682.A01 KeyboardThe measurement of at least 11 inches across has been suggested as the threshold for this class.[12] The first laptops were the size of a standard U.S. "A size" notebook sheet of paper (8.5 × 11 inches)[citation needed], but later "A4-size" laptops were introduced, which were the width of a standard ISO 216 A4 sheet of paper (297 mm, or about 11.7 inches), and added a vertical column of keys to the right and wider screens. It can also be laid sideways when not in useToshiba 99.n7482.001 Keyboard.
Netbook: A smaller, lighter, more portable laptop. It is also usually cheaper than a full-size laptop, but has fewer features and less computing power. Smaller keyboards can be more difficult to operate. There is no sharp line of demarcation between netbooks and inexpensive small laptops; some 11.6" models are marketed as netbooks. Since netbook laptops are quite small in size, netbooks typically do not come with an internal optical drive. Toshiba 9J.N5682.001 Keyboard
Tablet PC: these have touch screens. There are "convertable tablets" with a full keyboard where the screen rotates to be used atop the keyboard, and "slate" form-factor machines which are usually touch-screen only (although a few older models feature very small keyboards along the sides of the screen.) Toshiba 9J.N5682.701 Keyboard
Ultra-mobile PC: An ultra-mobile PC (ultra-mobile personal computer or UMPC) is a small form factor version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this direction in 2004 with its Vaio U series, which was however only sold in Asia. Toshiba 9J.N5682.D01 Keyboard
UMPCs are smaller than subnotebooks, have a TFT display measuring (diagonally) about 12.7 to 17.8 cm, and are operated like tablet PCs using a touchscreen or a stylus. There is no clear boundary between subnotebooks and ultra-mobile PCs.
Handheld PC: A Handheld PC, or H/PC for short, is a term for a computer built around a form factor which is smaller than any standard laptop computerToshiba 9J.N5682.N01 Keyboard
. It is sometimes referred to as a Palmtop. The first handheld device compatible with desktop IBM personal computers of the time was the Atari Portfolio of 1989. Another early model was the Poqet PC of 1989 and the Hewlett Packard HP 95LX of 1991. Other DOS compatible hand-held computers also existed.
Rugged: Engineered to operate in tough conditions Toshiba 9j.n7482.201 Keyboard
(mechanical shocks, extreme temperatures, wet and dusty environments, etc.)
Ultrabook: A very thin version of a laptop. They are a higher-end subnotebook "inspired" by Intel.
Desktop replacement
Main article: Desktop replacement computer
A modern laptop, Acer Aspire. Toshiba 9J.N7482.901 Keyboard
A desktop-replacement computer is a laptop that provides all of the capabilities of a desktop computer, with a similar level of performance. Desktop replacements are usually larger and heavier than standard laptops. They contain more powerful components and have a 15" or larger display.[11] They are bulkier and not as portable as other laptops, and their operation time on batteries is typically shorter; they are intended to be used as compact and transportable alternatives to a desktop computer.[11] Toshiba 9j.n7782.001 Keyboard
Some laptops in this class use a limited range of desktop components to provide better performance for the same price at the expense of battery life; a few of those models have no battery.[13]
In the early 2000s, desktops were more powerful, easier to upgrade, and much cheaper than laptops, Toshiba 9J.N9082.001 Keyboard but in later years laptops have become much cheaper and more powerful than before,[14] and most peripherals are available in laptop-compatible USB versions which minimise the need for internal add-on cards. In the second half of 2008, laptops outsold desktops for the first time.
The names "Media Center Laptops" and "Gaming Laptops" are used to describe specialized notebook computers.[10] Toshiba 9J.N9082.A01 Keyboard
Sony VAIO P series subnotebook
Subnotebook
Main article: Subnotebook
A subnotebook or ultraportable is a laptop designed and marketed with an emphasis on portability (small size, Toshiba 9J.N9082.C01 Keyboard low weight and often longer battery life) that retains performance close to that of a standard notebook. Subnotebooks are usually smaller and lighter than standard laptops, weighing between 0.8 and 2 kg (2 to 5 pounds);[10] the battery life can exceed 10 hours[15] when a large battery or an additional battery pack is installed. Since the introduction of netbooks, the line between subnotebooks and higher-end netbooks has been substantially blurred. Toshiba 9J.N9082.E01 Keyboard
To achieve the size and weight reductions, ultraportables use 13" and smaller screens (down to 6.4"), have relatively few ports (but in any case include two or more USB ports), employ expensive components designed for minimal size and best power efficiency, and utilize advanced materials and construction methods. Most subnotebooks achieve a further portability improvement by omitting an optical/removable media drive; Toshiba 9J.N9082.J01 Keyboard
in this case they may be paired with a docking station that contains the drive and optionally more ports or an additional battery.
The term "subnotebook" is reserved to laptops that run general-purpose desktop operating systems such as Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, Toshiba 9J.N9282.801 Keyboard rather than specialized software such as Windows CE, Palm OS or Internet Tablet OS.
At Computex 2011 Intel announced a new class for ultraportables called Ultrabooks. The term is used to describe a highly portable laptop that has strict limits for size, weight, battery life, and have tablet-like features such as instant on functionality. Intel estimates that by the end of 2012, Toshiba 9J.N9282.W01 Keyboard
40 percent of the consumer laptop market segment will be Ultrabooks.[16]
Netbook
Main article: Netbook
Netbooks are laptops that are light-weight, economical, energy-efficient and especially suited for wireless communication and Internet access.[17][18] Hence the name netbook (as "the device excels in web-based computing performance").[19] Toshiba 9J.N99282.D01 Keyboard
With primary focus given to web browsing and e-mailing, netbooks are intended to "rely heavily on the Internet for remote access to web-based applications"[19] and are targeted increasingly at cloud computing users who rely on servers and require a less powerful client computer.[20] A common distinguishing feature is the lack of optical disk (i.e. CD, DVD or Blu-ray) drives. Toshiba 9z.n1y82.001 KeyboardWhile the devices range in size from below 5 inches[21] to over 12,[22] most are between 9 and 11 inches (280 mm) and weigh between 0.9–1.4 kg (2–3 pounds).[19]
Netbooks are mostly sold with light-weight operating systems such as Linux, Windows XP and Windows 7 Starter edition.
Because they are very portable, netbooks have a few disadvantages. Toshiba 9Z.N3D82.001 Keyboard Because the netbooks are thin, the first such products introduced to the market had their primary internal storage in the form of solid-state drives and not hard disks, which are essential to installing very many programs. Hard disk drive technology and form factors have since been adapted to fit into netbooks.
Given their size and use of more rudimentary components compared to notebooks and subnotebooks, Toshiba 9Z.N4WOM.001 Keyboard netbooks also generally have a smaller-capacity hard drive, slower CPU, and a lower-profile RAM capacity.[23]
In 2009, Google announced an operating system called Google Chrome OS for this market.
The big breakthrough for netbook computers did not happen until the weight, diagonal form-factor and price combination of < 1 kg, < 9", < U.S. $400, respectively, became commercially available in around 2008.
Rugged laptopToshiba 9Z.N4WSC.001 Keyboard
Main article: Rugged computer
A Panasonic Toughbook.
A rugged (or ruggedized) laptop is designed to reliably operate in harsh usage conditions such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures, and wet or dusty environments. Rugged laptops are usually designed from scratch, rather than adapted from regular consumer laptop models. Rugged laptops are bulkier, heavier, and much more expensive than regular laptops,[24] and thus are seldom seen in regular consumer use. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
The design features found in rugged laptops include rubber sheeting under the keyboard keys, sealed port and connector covers, passive cooling, superbright displays easily readable in daylight, cases and frames made of magnesium alloys[25] that are much stronger than plastic found in commercial laptops, and solid-state storage devices or hard disc drives that are shock mounted to withstand constant vibrations. Toshiba A000014900 KeyboardRugged laptops are commonly used by public safety services (police, fire and medical emergency), military, utilities, field service technicians, construction, mining and oil drilling personnel. Rugged laptops are usually sold to organizations, rather than individuals, and are rarely marketed via retail channels.
Tablet laptop
See also: Tablet computerToshiba AEBD10IU011-US Keyboard
A tablet laptop with stylus
Typical modern convertible laptops have a complex joint between the keyboard housing and the display permitting the display panel to swivel and then lie flat on the keyboard housing.
Typically, the base of a tablet laptop attaches to the display at a single joint called a swivel hinge or rotating hinge. The joint allows the screen to rotate through 180° and fold down on top of the keyboard to provide a flat writing surface. This design, although the most common, Toshiba AEBD3U00050 Keyboard creates a physical point of weakness on the laptop.
Some manufacturers have attempted to overcome these weak points by adopting innovative methods such as a sliding design in which the screen slides up from the slate-like position and locks into place to provide the laptop mode.
Tablet laptops have the advantage to offer the keyboard and pointing device (usually a trackpad) of older laptops, Toshiba AEBD3U00150-US Keyboard for users who do not use the touchscreen display as the primary method of input. Tablets are also touchscreen.
Components
Main article: Personal computer hardware
Miniaturization: a comparison of a desktop computer motherboard (ATX form factor) to a motherboard from a 13" laptop (2008 unibody Macbook)
Inner view of a Sony VAIO laptop
The basic components of laptops are similar in function to their desktop counterparts, Toshiba AEBL5R00040-UI Keyboard but are miniaturized, adapted to mobile use, and designed for low power consumption. Because of the additional requirements, laptop components are usually slower compared to similarly priced desktop parts. Furthermore, the design bounds on power, size, and cooling of laptops limit the maximum performance of laptop parts compared to that of desktop components.[26]
The following list summarizes the differences and distinguishing features of laptop components in comparison to desktop personal computer parts:[27] Toshiba AEEW30IU018-US Keyboard
Central processing unit (CPU): Laptop CPUs have advanced power-saving features and produce less heat than desktop processors, but are not as powerful.[28] There is a wide range of CPUs designed for laptops available from Intel (Pentium M, Celeron M, Intel Core and Core 2 Duo), AMD (Athlon, Turion 64, and Sempron), VIA Technologies, Transmeta and others. Toshiba G83C0000E510 Keyboard On the non-x86 architectures, Motorola and IBM produced the chips for the former PowerPC-based Apple laptops (iBook and PowerBook). Most laptops have removable CPUs, although some support by the motherboard may be restricted to the specific models.[29] Some laptops uses a desktop processor instead of the laptop version. Those laptops have high performance at the cost of being likely to have overheating problems, Toshiba G83C0000EA10 Keyboard
and having less battery life. In other laptops the CPU is soldered on the motherboard and is non-replaceable.
A SODIMM memory module
Memory (RAM): SO-DIMM memory modules that are usually found in laptops are about half the size of desktop DIMMs.[27] They may be accessible from the bottom of the laptop for ease of upgrading, or placed in locations not intended for user replacement such as between the keyboard and the motherboard. Currently, Toshiba G83c00018610 Keyboard
most midrange laptops are factory equipped with 3–4 GB of DDR2 RAM, while some higher end notebooks feature up to 32 GB of DDR3 memory. Netbooks however, are commonly equipped with only 1 GB of RAM to keep manufacturing costs low.
Expansion cards: A PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) or ExpressCard bay for expansion cards is often present on laptops to allow adding and removing functionality, Toshiba G83C0001K210 Keyboard
even when the laptop is powered on. Some subsystems (such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or a cellular modem) can be implemented as replaceable internal expansion cards, usually accessible under an access cover on the bottom of the laptop. Two popular standards for such cards are MiniPCI and its successor, the PCI Express Mini.[30] Toshiba G83c0003b210 Keyboard
Power supply: Laptops are typically powered by an internal rechargeable battery that is charged using an external power supply, which outputs a DC voltage typically in the range of 7.2– 24 volts. The power supply is usually external, and connected to the laptop through a AC connector cable. It can charge the battery and power the laptop simultaneously; when the battery is fully charged, the laptop continues to run on power supplied by the external power supply. Toshiba G83c0003b710 Keyboard
The charger adds about 400 grams (1 lb) to the overall "transport weight" of the notebook.
Battery: Current laptops utilize lithium ion batteries, with more recent models using the new lithium polymer technology. These two technologies have largely replaced the older nickel metal-hydride batteries. Typical battery life for standard laptops is two to five hours of light-duty use, but may drop to as little as one hour when doing power-intensive tasks. Toshiba G83C0003G110 Keyboard
A battery's performance gradually decreases with time, leading to an eventual replacement in one to three years, depending on the charging and discharging pattern. This large-capacity main battery should not be confused with the much smaller battery nearly all computers use to run the real-time clock and to store the BIOS configuration in the CMOS memory when the computer is off. Lithium-ion batteries do not have a memory effect as older batteries may have. Toshiba G83c0004l410 Keyboard
The memory effect happens when one does not use a battery to its fullest extent, then recharges the battery. Innovations in laptops and batteries have seen new possible matchings which can provide up to a full 24 hours of continued operation, assuming average power consumption levels. An example of this is the HP EliteBook 6930p when used with its ultra-capacity battery.
Video display controller: Toshiba G83c0004lbus Keyboard
On standard laptops the video controller is usually integrated into the chipset to conserve power. This tends to limit the use of laptops for gaming and entertainment, two fields which have constantly escalating hardware demands, and because the integrated chipset is very difficult to upgrade for a standard user, laptops may grow obsolete quickly for use in gaming and entertainment. Toshiba G83C0009W2US Keyboard
[31] Higher-end laptops and desktop replacements in particular often come with dedicated graphics processors on the motherboard or as an internal expansion card. These mobile graphics processors are comparable in performance to mainstream desktop graphic accelerator boards.[32] A few notebooks have switchable graphics with both an integrated and discrete card installed. The user can choose between using integrated graphics when battery life is important and dedicated graphics when demanding applications call for it. This allows for greater flexibility and also conserves power when not required.[33] Toshiba H000001790 Keyboard
Display: Most modern laptops feature 13 inches (33 cm) or larger color active matrix displays based on CCFL or LED lighting with resolutions of 1280×800 (16:10) or 1366 × 768 (16:9) pixels and above. Some models use screens with resolutions common in desktop PCs (for example, 1440×900, 1600×900 and 1680×1050.) Models with LED-based lighting offer lesser power consumption, and often higher brightness. Toshiba H000006820 Keyboard
Netbooks with a 10 inches (25 cm) or smaller screen typically use a resolution of 1024×600, while netbooks and subnotebooks with a 11.6 inches (29 cm) or 12 inches (30 cm) screen use standard notebook resolutions. Having a higher resolution display will allow you to fit more onscreen at a time, thus improving your ability to multitask. A higher resolution in a fixed size display will make items onscreen appear smaller than they would on a lower resolution. Toshiba K000001600 Keyboard
The difference between available display resolutions will often affect the user's experience considerably more than the difference between available processors and available memory, but it is commonly misconceived to be the opposite. 15.6" 1366 × 768 displays and 17.3" 1600 × 900 displays make items onscreen rather large, and tend to have poor image quality due in part to low contrast compared to their higher-resolution counterparts such as 15.6" 1600×900, Toshiba K000009780 Keyboard
15.6" 1920×1080, and 17.3" 1920×1080, because the lower resolution displays are generally more cheaply manufactured. If you as a buyer have a budget that allows you to get a laptop that one of the higher-resolution displays and at the same time suits your needs, and if you don't require the larger text provided by a lower resolution for eyesight-related reasons, then it is commonly recommended that you avoid buying laptops that come with the lower-resolution 15.6" 1366 × 768 displays or 17.3" 1600 × 900 displays. Toshiba K000011870 Keyboard
1366 × 768-resolution displays of sizes 14" and under tend to exhibit the same low-contrast-related poor image quality, but do not make items onscreen as large. 1600 × 900 resolution is occasionally available in sizes of 13.3" and 14", improving multitasking capability, but it is rare for such displays to have noticeably better contrast.
A size comparison of 3.5" and 2.5" hard disk drives
Removable media drives: A DVD/CD reader/writer drive is nearly universal on full-sized models, and is common on thin-and-light models; Toshiba K000016050 Keyboard
it is uncommon on subnotebooks and unknown on netbooks. CD drives are becoming rare, while Blu-ray is becoming more common on notebooks.[34]
Internal storage: Laptop hard disks are physically smaller—2.5 inches (64 mm) or 1.8 inches (46 mm) —compared to desktop 3.5 inches (89 mm) drives. Some newer laptops (usually ultraportables) employ more expensive, Toshiba K000029390 Keyboard
but faster, lighter and power-efficient flash memory-based SSDs instead. Currently, 250 to 500 GB sizes are common for laptop hard disks (64 to 512 GB for SSDs).
Input: A pointing stick, touchpad or both are used to control the position of the cursor on the screen, and an integrated keyboard is used for typing. An external keyboard and/or mouse may be connected using USB or PS/2 port, or Bluetooth (if present). Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
Ports: several USB ports, an external monitor port (VGA, DVI, mini-DisplayPort or HDMI), audio in/out, and an Ethernet network port are found on most laptops. Less common are legacy ports such as a PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, serial port or a parallel port. S-video or composite video ports are more common on consumer-oriented notebooks.
Cooling: Toshiba K000073050 Keyboard
Waste heat from operation is difficult to remove in the compact internal space of a laptop. Early laptops used heat sinks placed directly on the components to be cooled, but when these hot components are deep inside the device, a large space-wasting air duct is needed to exhaust the heat. Modern laptops instead rely on heat pipes to rapidly move waste heat towards the edges of the device, to allow for a much smaller and compact fan and heat sink cooling system. Toshiba K000097450 Keyboard
Waste heat is usually exhausted away from the device operator, towards the rear or sides of the device. Multiple air intake paths are used, because some intakes can be blocked, such as when the device is placed on a soft conforming surface such as a chair cushion. Some designs with metal cases, like Apple's aluminum MacBook Pro and MacBook Air also employ the case of the machine as a "gigantic" heat sink, Toshiba K000097460 Keyboard
and rely on it to pump heat out of the device core.[citation needed]Secondary device temperature monitoring may reduce performance or trigger an emergency shutdown if it is unable to dissipate heat, such as if the laptop were to be left running and placed inside a carrying case. Such a condition has the potential to melt plastics or ignite a fire.
Docking stations
A docking station is a relatively bulky laptop accessory that contains multiple ports, Toshiba K000098730 Keyboard
expansion slots, and bays for fixed or removable drives. A laptop connects and disconnects easily to a docking station, typically through a single large proprietary connector. A port replicator is a simplified docking station that only provides connections from the laptop to input/output ports. Both docking stations and port replicators are intended to be used at a permanent working place (a desk) to offer instant connection to multiple input/output devices and to extend a laptop's capabilities. Toshiba K011126E1 US Keyboard
Docking stations became a common laptop accessory in the early 1990s. The most common use was in a corporate computing environment where the company had standardized on a common network card and this same card was placed into the docking station. These stations were very large and quite expensive. As the need for additional storage and expansion slots became less critical because of the high integration inside the laptop, Toshiba KFRSBA064A Keyboard
port replicators have gained popularity, being a cheaper, often passive device that often simply mates to the connectors on the back of the notebook, or connects via a standardized port such as USB or FireWire.
Charging stations
Laptop charging trolleys, Toshiba KFRSBA114A Keyboard
also known as laptop trolleys or laptop carts, are mobile storage containers to charge laptops, netbooks and tablet computers en masse. The trolleys are predominately used in schools that have replaced their traditional static ICT[35] suites of desktop computers with laptops, but do not have enough plug sockets in their buildings to charge all of the devices.
The trolleys can be wheeled between rooms and classrooms so that anyone in a particular building can access fully charged IT[36] equipment. Toshiba MP-03433US-6984 Keyboard
Laptop charging trolleys are also used to deter and protect against opportunistic and organized theft. Schools, especially those with open plan designs, are often prime targets for thieves and laptops, netbooks and tablets can easily be concealed and removed from buildings. Laptop charging trolleys were designed and constructed to protect against theft. They are generally made out of steel, and the laptops remain locked up while not in use. Toshiba MP-03433US-930 Keyboard
Although the trolleys can be moved between areas in buildings, they can often also be mounted to the floor or walls to prevent thieves walking off with investments, especially overnight.[35]
Standards
In general, components other than the four categories listed above are not intended to be replaceable; a few, such as processors, Toshiba MP-03433US-9301 Keyboard
follow their own standards but are difficult to replace because of other factors (for example, in the case of processors cooling and access limitations can make upgrades very difficult or impossible.)
In particular, motherboards are almost always make and model-specific: locations of ports, and design and placement of internal components are not standard. Toshiba MP-04273US-5281 Keyboard
Those parts are neither interchangeable with parts from other manufacturers (replaceable) nor upgradeable. If broken or damaged, they must be substituted with an exact replacement part. Those users uneducated in the relevant fields are those the most affected by incompatibilities, especially if they attempt to connect their laptops with incompatible hardware or power adapters.
Intel, Asus, Compal, Toshiba MP-06766U4-698 Keyboard
Quanta and some other laptop manufacturers have created the Common Building Block standard for laptop parts to address some of the inefficiencies caused by the lack of standards.
Advantages
Laptop computers are portable and can be used in many locations. Shown here is Vicente Fox using an Apple PowerBook
A woman listening to music on external speakers. Toshiba MP-06863UK-930 Keyboard
Portability is usually the first feature mentioned in any comparison of laptops versus desktop PCs.[37] Physical portability allows that a laptop can be used in many places— not only at home and at the office, but also during commuting and flights, in coffee shops, in lecture halls and libraries, at clients' location or at a meeting room, etc. The portability feature offers several distinct advantages: Toshiba MP-06863US-9308 Keyboard
Productivity: Using a laptop in places where a desktop PC can not be used, and at times that would otherwise be wasted. For example, an office worker managing their e-mails during an hour-long commute by train, or a student doing his/her homework at the university coffee shop during a break between lectures.[38]
Immediacy: Carrying a laptop means having instant access to various information, Toshiba MP-06866GB-6983 Keyboard
personal and work files. Immediacy allows better collaboration between coworkers or students, as a laptop can be flipped open to present a problem or a solution anytime, anywhere.
Up-to-date information: If a person has more than one desktop PC, a problem of synchronization arises: changes made on one computer are not automatically propagated to the others. There are ways to resolve this problem, Toshiba MP-06873US-6983 Keyboard
including physical transfer of updated files (using a USB flash memory stick or CDRs) or using synchronization software over the Internet. However, using a single laptop at both locations avoids the problem entirely, as the files exist in a single location and are always up-to-date.
Connectivity: A proliferation of Wi-Fi wireless networks and cellular broadband data services (HSDPA, EVDO and others) combined with a near-ubiquitous support by laptops[39Toshiba MP-06873US-9204 Keyboard
] means that a laptop can have easy Internet and local network connectivity while remaining mobile. Wi-Fi networks and laptop programs are especially widespread at university campuses.[40]
Other advantages of laptops:
Size: Laptops are smaller than desktop PCs. Toshiba MP-07A23A0-442 Keyboard
This is beneficial when space is at a premium, for example in small apartments and student dorms. When not in use, a laptop can be closed and put away.
Low power consumption: Laptops are several times more power-efficient than desktops. A typical laptop uses 20–90 W, compared to 100–800 W for desktops. This could be particularly beneficial for businesses (which run hundreds of personal computers, Toshiba MP-07A56CU-442 Keyboard
multiplying the potential savings) and homes where there is a computer running 24/7 (such as a home media server, print server, etc.)
Quiet: Laptops are often quieter than desktops, due both to the components (quieter, slower 2.5-inch hard drives) and to less heat production leading to use of fewer and slower cooling fans.
Battery: Toshiba MP-09K53US6698 Keyboard
a charged laptop can continue to be used in case of a power outage and is not affected by short power interruptions and blackouts. A desktop PC needs a UPS to handle short interruptions, blackouts and spikes; achieving on-battery time of more than 20–30 minutes for a desktop PC requires a large and expensive UPS.[41]
All-in-One: designed to be portable, Toshiba MP-09N13US-698 Keyboard
laptops have everything integrated in to the chassis. For desktops (excluding all-in-ones) this is divided into the desktop, keyboard, mouse, display, and optional peripherals such as speakers.
Disadvantages
Compared to desktop PCs, laptops have disadvantages in the following fields:
Performance
While the performance of mainstream desktops and laptops is comparable, and the cost of laptops Toshiba N860-7630-T101-03A Keyboard
has fallen more rapidly than desktops, laptops remain more expensive than desktop PCs at the same performance level.[42] The upper limits of performance of laptops remain much lower than the highest-end desktops (especially "workstation class" machines with two processor sockets), and "bleeding-edge" features usually appear first in desktops and only then, as the underlying technology matures, are adapted to laptops. Toshiba NSK-T4001 Keyboard
However, for Internet browsing and typical office applications, where the computer spends the majority of its time waiting for the next user input, even relatively low-end laptops (such as Netbooks) can be fast enough for some users.[43] As of mid-2010, at the lowest end, the cheapest netbooks—between US$200–300—remain more expensive than the lowest-end desktop computers (around US$200) only when those are priced without a screen/monitor. Once an inexpensive monitor is added, the prices are comparable. Toshiba NSK-T4101 Keyboard
Most higher-end laptops are sufficiently powerful for high-resolution movie playback, some 3D gaming and video editing and encoding. However, laptop processors can be disadvantaged when dealing with higher-end database, maths, engineering, financial software, virtualization, etc. Also, the top-of-the-line mobile graphics processors (GPUs) are significantly behind the top-of-the-line desktop GPUs to a greater degree than the processors, which limits the utility of laptops for high-end 3D gaming and scientific visualization applications. Toshiba NSK-T4301 Keyboard
Some manufacturers work around this performance problem by using desktop CPUs for laptops.[44]
Upgradeability
Upgradeability of laptops is very limited compared to desktops, which are thoroughly standardized. In general, hard drives and memory can be upgraded easily. Optical drives and internal expansion cards may be upgraded if they follow an industry standard, Toshiba NSK-T4701 Keyboard
but all other internal components, including the motherboard, CPU and graphics, are not always intended to be upgradeable. Intel, Asus, Compal, Quanta and some other laptop manufacturers have created the Common Building Block standard for laptop parts to address some of the inefficiencies caused by the lack of standards. Toshiba NSK-T4A01 Keyboard
The reasons for limited upgradeability are both technical and economic. There is no industry-wide standard form factor for laptops; each major laptop manufacturer pursues its own proprietary design and construction, with the result that laptops are difficult to upgrade and have high repair costs. With few exceptions, laptop components can rarely be swapped between laptops of competing manufacturers, or even between laptops from the different product-lines of the same manufacturer. Toshiba NSK-T4D01 Keyboard
Some upgrades can be performed by adding external devices, either USB or in expansion card format such as PC Card. Devices such as sound cards, network adapters, hard and optical drives, and numerous other peripherals are available, but these upgrades usually impair the laptop's portability, because they add cables and boxes to the setup and often have to be disconnected and reconnected when the laptop is on the move. Toshiba NSK-T4N01 Keyboard
Ergonomics and health effects
Wrists
Laptop cooler preventing heating of lap and improving laptop airflow
Because of their small and flat keyboard and trackpad pointing devices, prolonged use of laptops can cause repetitive strain injury.[45] Usage of separate, external ergonomic keyboards and pointing devices is recommended to prevent injury when working for long periods of time; Toshiba NSK-t6001 Keyboard
they can be connected to a laptop easily by USB or via a docking station. Some health standards require ergonomic keyboards at workplaces.
Neck, spinal
The integrated screen often causes users to hunch over for a better view, which can cause neck or spinal injuries. A larger and higher-quality external screen can be connected to almost any laptop to alleviate that and to provide additional screen space for more productive work. Toshiba NSK-T6401 Keyboard
Another solution is to use a computer stand.
For anyone not buying a new screen, a simple method to reduce risk of spinal injury is to position the laptop's screen in a manner that an obtuse angle (more than 90 degrees open) is formed. It is then possible for the neck to remain straight during use of the device.
Possible effect on fertilityToshiba NSK-T6901 Keyboard
A study by State University of New York researchers found that heat generated from laptops can increase the temperature of the lap of male users when balancing the computer on their lap, potentially putting sperm count at risk. The study, which included roughly two dozen men between the ages of 21 and 35, found that the sitting position required to balance a laptop can increase scrotum temperature by as much as 2.1 °C (3.78 °F). However, further research is needed to determine whether this directly affects male sterility.[46] Toshiba NSK-T7001 Keyboard
A 2010 study of 29 males published in Fertility and Sterility found that men who kept their laptops on their laps experienced scrotal hyperthermia (overheating) in which their scrotal temperatures increased by up to 2 °C. The resulting heat increase, which could not be offset by a laptop cushion, may increase male infertility.[47][48][49][50][51]
A common practical solution to this problem is to place the laptop on a Toshiba NSK-TA001 Keyboard
table or desk, or to use a book or pillow between the body and the laptop.[citation needed] Another solution is to obtain a cooling unit for the laptop. These are usually USB powered and consist of a hard thin plastic case housing one, two or three cooling fans – with the entire assembly designed to sit under the laptop in question – which results in the laptop remaining cool to the touch, and greatly reduces laptop heat buildup.[citation needed] Toshiba NSK-TACO1 Keyboard
Thighs
Heat generated from using a laptop on the lap can also cause skin discoloration on the thighs known as "toasted skin syndrome."[52][53][54][55]
Durability
A clogged heat sink on a laptop after 2.5 years of use
Equipment wear
Because of their portability, Toshiba NSK-TAE01 Keyboard
laptops are subject to more wear and physical damage than desktops. Components such as screen hinges, latches, power jacks and power cords deteriorate gradually from ordinary use. A liquid spill onto the keyboard, a rather minor mishap with a desktop system, can damage the internals of a laptop and result in a costly repair. One study found that a laptop is three times more likely to break during the first year of use than a desktop.[56]
Parts replacement
Original external components are expensive, Toshiba NSK-TAJ01 Keyboard
and usually proprietary and non-interchangeable; other parts are inexpensive—a power jack can cost a few dollars—but their replacement may require extensive disassembly and reassembly of the laptop by a technician. Other inexpensive but fragile parts often cannot be purchased separate from larger more expensive components.[57] The repair costs of a failed motherboard or LCD panel often exceed the value of a used laptop.
Heat and coolingToshiba NSK-TAP0U Keyboard
Laptops rely on extremely compact cooling systems involving a fan and heat sink that can fail from blockage caused by accumulated airborne dust and debris. Most laptops do not have any sort of removable dust collection filter over the air intake for these cooling systems, resulting in a system that gradually causes it to conduct more heat and noise as the years pass. Eventually the laptop starts to overheat even at idle load levels. This dust is usually stuck inside where casual cleaning and vacuuming cannot remove it. Toshiba NSK-TB801 Keyboard
Compressed air can dislodge the dust and debris but may not always remove it; after the device is turned on, the loose debris is reapplied to the cooling system by the fans. Instead, a complete disassembly is needed to clean the laptop. Many laptops are difficult to disassemble by the average user and contain components sensitive to electrostatic discharge (ESD).
Battery life
Battery life is limited because the capacity drops with time, eventually requiring replacement after as little as a year. A new battery typically stores enough energy to run the laptop for three to five hours, Toshiba NSK-TBA01 Keyboard
depending on usage, configuration, and power management settings. Yet, as it ages, the battery's energy storage will dissipate progressively until it lasts only a few minutes. The battery is often easily replaceable and a higher capacity model may be obtained for longer life. Replacement batteries can be expensive.
Security and privacy
Main article: Laptop theft
Because they are valuable, common, Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
and portable, laptops are prized targets for theft. The cost of stolen business or personal data, and of the resulting problems (identity theft, credit card fraud, breach of privacy), can be many times the value of the stolen laptop itself. Consequently, physical protection of laptops and the safeguarding of data contained on them are both of great importance.
Most laptops have a Kensington security slot, Toshiba Nsk-tg001 Keyboard
which can be used to tether them to a desk or other immovable object with a security cable and lock. In addition, modern operating systems and third-party software offer disk encryption functionality, which renders the data on the laptop's hard drive unreadable without a key or a pass phrase. Some laptops also now have additional security elements added by the consumer, including eye recognition software and fingerprint scanning components.[58] Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
In Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (Eastern District of Pennsylvania 2010), school-issued laptops loaded with special software afforded two high schools with the capability to take secret webcam shots of their students at home, via their students' laptops.[59][60][61]
Major brands and manufacturers
Major laptop brandsToshiba NSK-TK01D Keyboard
Apple: MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
Acer / Gateway / eMachines / Packard Bell: TravelMate, Extensa, Ferrari and Aspire; Packard Bell Easynote; Chromebook
Asus: Asus Eee, Lamborghini, ASUS G Series(ROG)
Dell: Alienware, Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, Studio, Vostro and XPS
Falcon Northwest: DRX, TLX, I / OToshiba NSK-TN001 Keyboard
Fujitsu: Lifebook
HCL (India): ME Laptop, ME Netbook, Leaptop and MiLeap
Hewlett-Packard / Compaq: HP Pavilion, HP Envy, HP ProBook, HP EliteBook, Compaq Presario
Lenovo: ThinkPad, IdeaPad, and the Essential B and G Series
LG: Xnote
Medion: Akoya (OEM version of MSI Wind)
MSI: E, C, P, G, V, A, X, U series and Wind NetbookToshiba NSK-TN0SC Keyboard
Panasonic: Toughbook, Satellite, Let's Note (Japan only)
Samsung: SENS: N, P, Q, R and X series; Chromebook
Sony: Vaio
TG Sambo (Korea): Averatec, Averatec Buddy
Toshiba: Dynabook, Portege, Tecra, Satellite, Qosmio, Libretto
v t e
Main article: List of laptop brands and manufacturersToshiba NSK-TN0SV Keyboard
There are a multitude of laptop brands and manufacturers; several major brands, offering notebooks in various classes, are listed in the box to the right.
The major brands usually offer good service and support, including well-executed documentation and driver downloads that will remain available for many years after a particular laptop model is no longer produced. Capitalizing on service, support and brand image, Toshiba P000349000 Keyboard
laptops from major brands are more expensive than laptops by smaller brands and ODMs.
Some brands are specializing in a particular class of laptops, such as gaming laptops (Alienware), selling high-performance laptops (HP Envy), netbooks (EeePC) and laptops for children (OLPC).
Many brands, including the major ones, Toshiba P000364900 Keyboard
do not design and do not manufacture their laptops. Instead, a small number of Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) design new models of laptops, and the brands choose the models to be included in their lineup. In 2006, 7 major ODMs manufactured 7 of every 10 laptops in the world, with the largest one (Quanta Computer) having 30% world market share.[62] Therefore, there often are identical models available both from a major label and from a low-profile ODM in-house brand. Toshiba P000373850 Keyboard
Sales
Battery-powered portable computers had just 2% worldwide market share in 1986.[63] However, laptops have become increasingly popular, both for business and personal use.[64] Around 109 million notebook PCs shipped worldwide in 2007, Toshiba P000377360 Keyboard
a growth of 33% compared to 2006.[65] In 2008 it was estimated that 145.9 million notebooks were sold, and that the number would grow in 2009 to 177.7 million.[66] The third quarter of 2008 was the first time when notebook PC shipments exceeded desktops, with 38.6 million units versus 38.5 million units.[64][67][68][69] Toshiba P000388740 Keyboard
For Microsoft Windows systems, the average selling price (ASP) showed a decline in 2008/2009, possibly due to low-cost netbooks, drawing US$689 at U.S. retail in August 2008. In 2009, ASP had further fallen to $602 by January and to $560 in February. While Windows machines fell $129 in these seven months, Mac laptop ASP declined just $12 from $1,524 to $1,512.[70]
Super usersToshiba P000405490 Keyboard
At the end of 2011, 10 percent of mobile users are using up 90 percent of wireless bandwidth, super/extreme users mostly use a laptop with 64 percent share, and that is followed by 33 percent of smartphone users (excluding a few iPad users). According to Ericsson, the super users watch videos 40 percent of the time.[71]
Extreme environments
See also: International Space Station#ComputersToshiba P000411620 Keyboard
The ruggedized Grid Compass computer was used since the early days of the Space Shuttle program. The first commercial laptop used in space was a Macintosh portable in 1991 aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-43.[72][73][74] Mac and other laptop computers continue to be flown aboard manned spaceflights though the only long duration flight certified computer for the International Space Station is the ThinkPad. Toshiba P000422920 Keyboard
[75] As of 2011 over 100 ThinkPads were aboard the ISS. Laptops used aboard the International Space Station and other spaceflights are generally the same ones that can be purchased by the general public but needed modifications are made to allow them to be used safely and effectively in a weightless environment such as updating the cooling systems to function without relying on hot air rising and accommodation for the lower cabin air pressure.[76]
Laptops operating in harsh usage environments and conditions, Toshiba P000436200 Keyboard
such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures and wet or dusty conditions differ from those used in space in that they are custom designed for the task and do not use commercial off-the-shelf hardware.
Accessories
A common accessory for laptops is a laptop sleeve or laptop case, which provides a degree of protection from drops or impacts. Sleeves, which are distinguished by being relatively thin and flexible, are most commonly made of neoprene, Toshiba P000440670 Keyboard
with sturdier ones made of LRPu (low-resilience polyurethane), with some wrapped in ballistic nylon to provide some measure of waterproofing. Bulkier and sturdier cases can be made of metal with polyurethane padding inside, and may have locks, for added security.
Another common accessory is a laptop cooler. This device helps lower the internal temperature of the laptop by using either active or passive methods. Toshiba P000482730 Keyboard
A general active method is plugging a laptop cooler into the laptop and using fans to draw heat away from the laptop. A common passive method is just propping the laptop up on some type of pad so it can receive more air flow.[77]
Used to have features
Features that certain early models of laptops used to have but not available anymore in most recent models of laptops include: Toshiba P000484960 Keyboard
Reset (Cold restart) button in a hole
Instant power off button in a hole
Integrated charger or power adapter inside the laptop
Typewriter.
Typewriter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the Leroy Anderson composition, see The Typewriter.
Mechanical desktop typewriters, such as this Underwood Five, were long-time standards of government agencies, newsrooms, and offices.
Old style Hermes typewriter with jammed typebarsDell V119525BS1 Keyboard
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the sorts used in movable type letterpress printing. From their invention in the 1860s through much of the 20th century, typewriters were indispensable tools for recording the written word. Widely used by professional writers and in offices for decades, HP G62-b70EV Keyboard
by the end of the 1980s, word processors and personal computers largely displaced typewriters in the settings where they previously had been ubiquitous in the western world.
Notable typewriter manufacturer companies have included E. Remington and Sons, IBM, Imperial Typewriters, Oliver Typewriter Company, Olivetti, Royal Typewriter Company, Smith Corona, and Underwood Typewriter Company.
HistoryHP Pavilion dv5-1137la Keyboard
Peter Mitterhofer, typewriter prototype 1864 Technisches Museum Wien
Although many modern typewriters have one of several similar designs, their invention was incremental, provided by numerous inventors working independently or in competition with each other over a series of decades. As with the automobile, telephone, and telegraph, a number of people contributed insights and inventions that eventually resulted in ever more commercially successful instruments. In fact, historians have estimated that some form of typewriter was invented 52 times as thinkers tried to come up with a workable design.[1]
Early innovationsPackard Bell Easynote TM99 keyboard
In 1714, Henry Mill obtained a patent in Britain for a machine that, from the patent, appears to have been similar to a typewriter. The patent shows that this machine was actually created: "[he] hath by his great study and paines & expence invented and brought to perfection an artificial machine or method for impressing or transcribing of letters, one after another, as in writing, whereby all writing whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print; that the said machine or method may be of great use in settlements and public records, the impression being deeper and more lasting than any other writing, and not to be erased or counterfeited without manifest discovery."[2] HP Pavilion DV7-3183cl Keyboard
Italian Pellegrino Turri invented a typewriter in 1808. He also invented carbon paper to provide the ink for his machine. Many early machines, including Turri's, were developed to enable the blind to write.
John J. Pratt's "pterotype" of 1865
In 1829, William Austin Burt patented a machine called the "Typographer" which, in common with many other early machines, is listed as the "first typewriter". The Science Museum (London) describes it merely as "the first writing mechanism whose invention was documented," but even that claim may be excessive, since Turri's invention pre-dates it.[3] Even in the hands of its inventor, this machine was slower than handwriting. Burt and his promoter John D. Sony Vaio PCG-K23 Keyboard
Sheldon never found a buyer for the patent, and it was never commercially produced. Because the typographer used a dial, rather than keys, to select each character, it was called an "index typewriter" rather than a "keyboard typewriter." Index typewriters of that era resemble the squeeze-style embosser from the 1970s more than they resemble the modern keyboard typewriter.
By the mid-19th century, the increasing pace of business communication had created a need for mechanization of the writing process. Stenographers and telegraphers could take down information at rates up to 130 words per minute, whereas a writer with a pen was limited to a maximum of 30 words per minute (the 1853 speed record).[4] Toshiba Satellite L300-155 Keyboard
From 1829 to 1870, many printing or typing machines were patented by inventors in Europe and America, but none went into commercial production.
Charles Thurber developed multiple patents, of which his first in 1843 was developed as an aid to the blind, such as the 1845 Chirographer. In 1855, the Italian Giuseppe Ravizza created a prototype typewriter called Cembalo scrivano o macchina da scrivere a tasti ("Scribe harpsichord, or machine for writing with keys"). It was an advanced machine that let the user see the writing as it was typed. In 1861, Father Francisco João de Azevedo, a Brazilian priest, made his own typewriter with basic materials and tools, such as wood and knives. Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
In that same year the Brazilian emperor D. Pedro II, presented a gold medal to Father Azevedo for this invention. Many Brazilian people as well as the Brazilian federal government recognize Fr. Azevedo as the real inventor of the typewriter, a claim that has been the subject of some controversy. In 1865, John Pratt, of Centre, Alabama, built a machine called the Pterotype which appeared in an 1867 Scientific American article[5] and inspired other inventors. Between 1864 and 1867 Peter Mitterhofer, a carpenter from South Tyrol (former part of Austria) developed several models and a fully functioning prototype typewriter in 1867.[6]
Hansen Writing BallHP HDX18-1010EA Keyboard
Hansen Writing Ball, 1870, the first typewriter manufactured commercially.
Christopher Latham Sholes
Prototype of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, 1873, the first commercially successful typewriter, and the first with a QWERTY keyboard.
In 1865, Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen of Denmark invented the Hansen Writing Ball, which went into commercial production in 1870 and was the first commercially sold typewriter. It was a success in Europe and was reported as being used in offices in London as late as 1909.[citation needed] Malling-Hansen used a solenoid escapement to return the carriage on some of his models which makes him a candidate for the title of inventor of the first "electric" typewriter. HP 636191-001 Keyboard
According to the book Hvem er skrivekuglens opfinder? (English: Who is the inventor of the Writing Ball?), written by Malling-Hansen's daughter, Johanne Agerskov, in 1865, Malling-Hansen made a porcelain model of the keyboard of his writing ball and experimented with different placements of the letters to achieve the fastest writing speed. Malling-Hansen placed the letters on short pistons that went directly through the ball and down to the paper. This, together with the placement of the letters so that the fastest writing fingers struck the most frequently used letters, made the Hansen Writing Ball the first typewriter to produce text substantially faster than a person could write by hand. Sony VAIO VGN-FS730W Keyboard
Malling-Hansen developed his typewriter further through the 1870s and 1880s and made many improvements, but the writing head remained the same. On the first model of the writing ball from 1870, the paper was attached to a cylinder inside a wooden box. In 1874, the cylinder was replaced by a carriage, moving beneath the writing head. Then, in 1875, the well-known "tall model" was patented, which was the first of the writing balls that worked without electricity. Malling-Hansen attended the world exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1878 and he received the first-prize for his invention at both exhibitions. HP 636191-001 Keyboard
Sholes and Glidden Type-writer
The first typewriter to be commercially successful was invented in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, although Sholes soon disowned the machine and refused to use, or even to recommend it. The working prototype was made by the machinist Matthias Schwalbach.[10][11][12] The patent (US 79,265) was sold for $12,000 to Densmore and Yost, who made an agreement with E. Remington and Sons (then famous as a manufacturer of sewing machines) to commercialize the machine as the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer. This was the origin of the term typewriter. Sony Vaio VGN-FW290 Keyboard
Remington began production of its first typewriter on March 1, 1873, in Ilion, New York. It had a QWERTY keyboard layout, which because of the machine's success, was slowly adopted by other typewriter manufacturers. As with most other early typewriters, because the type bars strike upwards, the typist could not see the characters as they were typed.
Standardization
Hammond 1B with a semicircular keyboard, as used by a newspaper office in Saskatoon around 1910.
Typebars which became entangled when the six keys operating the typebars were pressed simultaneouslyPackard Bell PEW91 keyboard
By about 1910, the "manual" or "mechanical" typewriter had reached a somewhat standardized design. There were minor variations from one manufacturer to another, but most typewriters followed the concept that each key was attached to a typebar that had the corresponding letter molded, in reverse, into its striking head. When a key was struck briskly and firmly, the typebar hit a ribbon (usually made of inked fabric), making a printed mark on the paper wrapped around a cylindrical platen. The platen was mounted on a carriage that moved left or right, automatically advancing the typing position horizontally after each character was typed. The paper, Sony VAIO VGN-SZ470 Keyboard
rolled around the typewriter's platen, was then advanced vertically by the "carriage return" lever (at the far left, or sometimes on the far right) into position for each new line of text.
Some ribbons were inked in black and red stripes, each being half the width and the entire length of the ribbon. A lever on most machines allowed switching between colors, which was useful for bookkeeping entries where negative amounts had to be in red.
FrontstrikingAcer Aspire 7740G Keyboard
In most of the early typewriters, the type bars struck upward against the bottom of the platen, so the typist could not see the text as it was typed. What was typed was not visible until a carriage return caused it to scroll into view. The difficulty with any other arrangement was ensuring the type bars fell back into place reliably when the key was released. This was eventually achieved with various ingenious mechanical designs and so-called "visible typewriters" which used frontstriking, in which the type bars struck forward against the front side of the platen, became standard. One of the first was the Daugherty Visible, introduced in 1893, Thinkpad T410I
which also introduced the four-bank keyboard that became standard, although the Underwood which came out two years later was the first major typewriter with these features.[13][14] However, older "nonvisible" models continued in production to as late as 1915.[citation needed]
Shift key
A significant innovation was the shift key. This key physically "shifted" either the basket of typebars, in which case the typewriter is described as "basket shift", or the paper-holding carriage, in which case the typewriter is described as "carriage shift".HP Pavilion dv6-2150so Keyboard
Either mechanism caused a different portion of the typebar to come in contact with the ribbon/platen. The result is that each typebar could type two different characters, cutting the number of keys and typebars in half (and simplifying the internal mechanisms considerably). The obvious use for this was to allow letter keys to type both upper and lower case, but normally the number keys were also duplexed, allowing access to special symbols such as percent (%) and ampersand (&). With the shift key, Compaq Presario CQ60-218EM Keyboard
manufacturing costs (and therefore purchase price) were greatly reduced, and typist operation was simplified; both factors contributed greatly to mass adoption of the technology. Certain models, such as the Barlet, had a double shift so that each key performed three functions. These little three-row machines were very portable and could be used by journalists, etc.
However, because the shift key required more force to push (its mechanism was moving a much larger mass than other keys), and was operated by the "pinky" finger[citation needed] Lenovo 45N2141
(normally the weakest finger on the hand), it was difficult to hold the shift down for more than two or three consecutive strokes. The "shift lock" key (the precursor to the modern caps lock) allowed the shift operation to be maintained indefinitely.
"Noiseless" designs
In the early part of the 20th century, a typewriter was marketed under the name "Noiseless" and advertised as "silent". It was developed by Wellington Parker Kidder and the first model was marketed by the Noiseless Typewriter Company in 1917. An agreement with Remington in 1924 saw production transferred to Remington, Asus F80L Keyboard
and a further agreement in 1929 allowed Underwood to produce it as well.[15] It failed to sell well, leading some observers to the conclusion that the "clickety-clack" of the typical typewriter was a consumer preference.[16] A more likely reason is that the claims of silent operation were simply untrue.
In a conventional typewriter the type bars are decelerated at the end of their travel simply by impacting upon the ribbon and paper. So-called "noiseless"HP Pavilion dv5-1131la Keyboard
typewriters have a complex lever mechanism that decelerates the typebar mechanically and then presses it against the ribbon and paper[15] in an attempt to render the process less noisy. It was not particularly successful; it certainly reduced the high-frequency content of the sound, rendering it more of a "clunk" than a "clack" and arguably less intrusive, but the grandiose claims of the advertising — such as "A machine that can be operated a few feet away from your desk — And not be heard" — were entirely without foundation.
Electric designsSony Vaio PCG-K45 Keyboard
Although electric typewriters would not achieve widespread popularity until nearly a century later, the basic groundwork for the electric typewriter was laid by the Universal Stock Ticker, invented by Thomas Edison in 1870. This device remotely printed letters and numbers on a stream of paper tape from input generated by a specially designed typewriter at the other end of a telegraph line.
Early electric models
The first electric typewriter was produced by the Blickensderfer Manufacturing Company, of Stamford, Connecticut, in 1902. Like the manual Blickensderfer typewriters it used a cylindrical typewheel rather than individual typebars. It was not a commercial success, which may have been because at the time electricity had not been standardized and voltage differed from city to city. The next step in the development of the electric typewriter came in 1910, Sony Vaio PCG-K45F Keyboard
when Charles and Howard Krum filed a patent for the first practical teletypewriter.[17] The Krums' machine, named the Morkrum Printing Telegraph, used a typewheel rather than individual typebars. This machine was used for the first commercial teletypewriter system on Postal Telegraph Company lines between Boston and New York City in 1910.[18]
James Fields Smathers of Kansas City invented what is considered the first practical power-operated typewriter in 1914. SamsungQ318 Keyboard
In 1920, after returning from Army service, he produced a successful model and in 1923 turned it over to the Northeast Electric Company of Rochester for development. Northeast was interested in finding new markets for their electric motors and developed Smathers's design so that it could be marketed to typewriter manufacturers, and from 1925 Remington Electric typewriters were produced powered by Northeast's motors.
After some 2,500 electric typewriters had been produced, Northeast asked Remington for a firm contract for the next batch. However, HP Mini 311-1035TU Keyboard
Remington was engaged in merger talks which would eventually result in the creation of Remington Rand and no executives were willing to commit to a firm order. Northeast instead decided to enter the typewriter business for itself, and in 1929 produced the first Electromatic Typewriter.
In 1928, Delco, a division of General Motors, purchased Northeast Electric, and the typewriter business was spun off as the Electromatic Typewriters, Inc. In 1933, Electromatic was acquired by IBM, which then spent $1 million on a redesign of the Electromatic Typewriter, Sony VGN-FE21SR Keyboard
launching the IBM Electric Typewriter Model 01 in 1935. By 1958 IBM was deriving 8% of its revenue from the sale of electric typewriters.
In 1931, an electric typewriter was introduced by Varityper Corporation. It was called the Varityper, because a narrow cylinder like wheel could be replaced to change the font.[19]
Electrical typewriter designs removed the direct mechanical connection between the keys and the element that struck the paper. Not to be confused with later electronic typewriters, HP Pavilion dv6-2113tx Keyboard
electric typewriters contained only a single electrical component: the motor. Where the keystroke had previously moved a typebar directly, now it engaged mechanical linkages that directed mechanical power from the motor into the typebar.
In 1941, IBM announced the Electromatic Model 04 electric typewriter, featuring the revolutionary concept of proportional spacing. Sony VAIO VGN-NW25E/P Keyboard
By assigning varied rather than uniform spacing to different sized characters, the Type 4 recreated the appearance of a printed page, an effect that was further enhanced by a typewriter ribbon innovation that produced clearer, sharper words on the page. The proportional spacing feature became a staple of the IBM Executive series typewriters.
IBM Selectric models
Main article: IBM Selectric typewriter
IBM Selectric II (dual Latin/Hebrew typeball and keyboard)
Selectric II dual Latin/Hebrew Hadar typeballAcer TravelMate 2354NLCi Keyboard
Replaceable IBM typeballs with clip, €2 coin for scale
IBM and Remington Rand electric typewriters were the leading models until IBM introduced the IBM Selectric typewriter in 1961, which replaced the typebars with a spherical element (or typeball) slightly smaller than a golf ball, with reverse-image letters molded into its surface. The Selectric used a system of latches, metal tapes, and pulleys driven by an electric motor to rotate the ball into the correct position and then strike it against the ribbon and platen. The typeball moved laterally in front of the paper, instead of the previous designs usingSamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
a platen-carrying carriage moving the paper across a stationary print position.
Due to the physical similarity, the typeball was sometimes referred to as a "golfball". The typeball design had many advantages, especially the elimination of "jams" (when more than one key was struck at once and the typebars became entangled) and in the ability to change the typeball, allowing multiple fonts to be used in a single document.
The IBM Selectric became a commercial success, dominating the office typewriter market for at least 2 decades.[citation needed] IBM also gained an advantage by marketing more heavily to schools than did Remington, Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
with the idea that students who learned to type on a Selectric would later choose IBM typewriters over the competition in the workplace as businesses replaced their old manual models.[citation needed] By the 1970s, IBM had succeeded in establishing the Selectric as the de facto standard typewriter in mid- to high-end office environments, replacing the raucous "clack" of older typebar machines with the quieter sound of gyrating typeballs. Sony Vaio VGN-FW200 Keyboard
Later models of IBM Executives and Selectrics replaced inked fabric ribbons with "carbon film" ribbons that had a dry black or colored powder on a clear plastic tape. These could be used only once, but later models used a cartridge that was simple to replace. A side effect of this technology was that the text typed on the machine could be easily read from the used ribbon, raising issues where the machines were used for preparing classified documents (ribbons had to be accounted for to ensure that typists did not carry them from the facility).[20] HP Pavilion dv6-2123sf Keyboard
Composer output showing Roman, Bold and Italic fonts available by changing the type ball
A variation known as "Correcting Selectrics" introduced a correction feature, where a sticky tape in front of the carbon film ribbon could remove the black-powdered image of a typed character, eliminating the need for little bottles of white dab-on correction fluid and for hard erasers that could tear the paper. These machines also introduced selectable "pitch" so that the typewriter could be switched between pica type (10 characters per inch) and elite type (12 per inch), HP Pavilion dv4-1220us Keyboard
even within one document. Even so, all Selectrics were monospaced—each character and letterspace was allotted the same width on the page, from a capital "W" to a period. Although IBM had produced a successful typebar-based machine with five levels of proportional spacing, called the IBM Executive,[21] proportional spacing was not provided with the Selectric typewriter or its successors the Selectric II and Selectric III.
The only fully electromechanical Selectric Typewriter with fully proportional spacing and which used a Selectric type element was the expensive Selectric Composer, Acer NSK-AF31D Keyboard
which was capable of right-margin justification and was considered a typesetting machine rather than a typewriter.
In addition to its electronic successors, the Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer (MT/SC), the Mag Card Selectric Composer, and the Electronic Selectric Composer, IBM also made electronic typewriters with proportional spacing using the Selectric element that were considered typewriters or word processors instead of typesetting machines.
The first of these was the relatively obscure Mag Card Executive, which used 88-character elements. Later, some of the same typestyles used for it were used on the 96-characterHP Pavilion G6-1106AX keyboard
elements used on the IBM Electronic Typewriter 50 and the later models 65 and 85.
By 1970, as offset printing began to replace letterpress printing, the Composer would be adapted as the output unit for a typesetting system. The system included a computer-driven input station to capture the key strokes on magnetic tape and insert the operator's format commands, and a Composer unit to read the tape and produce the formatted text for photo reproduction.
Selectric mechanisms were widely incorporated into computer terminals in the 1960s and 1970s, as they possessed obvious advantages: IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201 Keyboard
reasonably fast, jam-free, and reliable
relatively quiet, and more importantly, free of major vibrations
could produce high quality lower- and upper-case output, compared to competitors such as Teletype machines
could be activated by a short, low-force mechanical action, allowing easier interfacing to electronic controls
did not require the movement of a heavy "type basket" to shift between lower- and upper-case, allowing higher speed without heavy impactsHP Pavilion DV7-2273cl Keyboard
did not require the platen roller assembly to move from side to side (a problem with continuous-feed paper used for automated printing)
The IBM 2741 terminal was a popular example of a Selectric-based computer terminal, and similar mechanisms were employed as the console devices for many IBM System/360 computers. These mechanisms used "ruggedized" designs compared to those in standard office typewriters.
Later electric modelsAcer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
Some of IBM's advances were later adopted in less expensive machines from competitors. For example, Smith-Corona electric typewriters of the 1970s used interchangeable ribbon cartridges, including fabric, film, erasing, and two-color versions. At about the same time, the advent of photocopying meant that carbon copies and erasers were less and less necessary; only the original need be typed, and photocopies made from it.
Typewriter/printer hybrids
Towards the end of the commercial popularity of typewriters in the 1970s, a number of hybrid designs combining features of printers were introduced. These often incorporated keyboards from existing models of typewriters and printing mechanisms of dot-matrix printers. The generation of teleprinters HP 441426-001 Keyboard
with impact pin-based printing engines was not adequate for the demanding quality required for typed output, and alternative thermal transfer technologies used in thermal label printers had become technically feasible for typewriters.
IBM produced a series of typewriters called Thermotronic with letter-quality output and correcting tape along with printers tagged Quietwriter. Brother extended the life of their typewriter product line with similar products. Toshiba Satellite L350 Keyboard
DEC meanwhile had the DECwriter. The development of these proprietary printing engines provided the vendors with exclusive markets in consumable ribbons and the ability to use standardised printing engines with varying degrees of electronic and software sophistication to develop product lines. Although these changes reduced prices - and greatly increased the convenience - of typewriters, the technological disruption posed by word processors left these improvements with only a short-term low-end market. To extend the life of these products, many examples were provided withToshiba 9j.n7482.201 Keyboard
communication ports to connect them to computers as printers.
Electronic Typewriters
The final major development of the typewriter was the "electronic" typewriter. Most of these replaced the typeball with a plastic or metal daisy wheel mechanism (a disk with the letters molded on the outside edge of the "petals"). The daisy wheel concept first emerged in printers developed by Diablo Systems in the 1970's. In 1981, Xerox Corporation, who by then had bought Diablo Systems, introduced a line of Electronic Typewriters incorporating this technology (the Memorywriter product line). For a time, Acer PK1301K0200 Keyboard
these products were quite successful as their plastic daisy-wheel was much simpler and cheaper than the metal typeball and their electronic memory and display allowed the user to easily see errors and correct them before they were actually printed. One problem with the plastic daisy wheel was that they were not always durable. To solve this problem, more durable metal daisy wheels were made available (but at aslightly higher price). These and similar electronic typewriters were in essence dedicated word processors with either single line LCD displays or multi-line CRT displays, built-in line editors in ROM, a spelling and grammar checker, a few kilobytes of internal RAM and optional cartridge, magnetic card or diskette external memory-storage devices for storing text and even document formats. Sony VAIO PCG-FR315M Keyboard
Text could be entered a line or paragraph at a time and edited using the display and built-in software tools before being committed to paper. Unlike the Selectrics and earlier models, these really were "electronic" and relied on integrated circuits and multiple electromechanical components. These typewriters were sometimes called display typewriters[22], dedicated word processors or word-processing typewriters, though the latter term was also frequently applied to less sophisticated machines that featured only a tiny, sometimes just single-row display. Sophisticated models were also called word processors, though today that term almost always denotes a type of software program. Manufacturers of such machines included Brother (Brother WP1 and WP500 etc., where WP stood for word processor), Acer Aspire One D150-1165 Keyboard
Canon (Canon Cat), Smith-Corona (PWP, i.e. Personal Word Processor line)[23] and Philips/Magnavox (VideoWriter).
Electronic typewriter - the final stage in typewriter development. A 1989 Canon Typestar 110
The Brother WP1, an electronic typewriter complete with a small screen and a floppy disc reader
End of an era
The 1970s and early 1980s were a time of transition for typewriters and word processors. In a given year, most small-business offices would be completely old-style, while large corporations and government departments would already be all new-style; other offices would have a mixture. The pace of change was so rapid that it was common for clerical staff to have to learn several new systems, one after the other, in just a few years. HP 441426-001 Keyboard
While such rapid change is commonplace today, and is taken for granted, this was not always so; in fact, typewriting technology changed very little in its first 80 or 90 years.
Due to falling sales, IBM sold its typewriter division in 1990 to Lexmark.
As of 2009, typewriters were still used by some U.S. government agencies. As an example, it was reported that in 2008 New York City purchased a few thousand typewriters, mostly for use by New York Police Department, at the total cost of $982,269; another $99,570 were spent in 2009 for the maintenance of the existing typewriters. Sony VAIO VGN-N110G Keyboard
New York police officers use the machines to type property and evidence vouchers on carbon paper forms.[24]
Russian typewriters use Cyrillic, which has made the ongoing Azerbaijani reconversion from Cyrillic to Roman alphabet more difficult. In 1997, the government of Turkey offered to donate western typewriters to the Republic of Azerbaijan in exchange for more zealous and exclusive promotion of the Roman alphabet for the Azerbaijani language; this offer, however, was declined.[citation needed] Sony VAIO VGN-CS16G/Q Keyboard
In Latin America and Africa, mechanical typewriters are still common because they can be used without electrical power. In Latin America, the typewriters used are most often Brazilian models – Brazil continues to produce mechanical (Facit) and electronic (Olivetti) typewriters to the present day.[25] In the U.S., Swintec Corporation still produces typewriters aimed at prisons.[26][27] In April 2011, Godrej and Boyce, a Mumbai-based manufacturer of mechanical typewriters, closed its doors, leading to a flurry of erroneous news reports that the "world's Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Keyboard
last typewriter factory" had shut down.[28] The reports were quickly debunked.[29][30][31]
The increasing dominance of personal computers, desktop publishing, the introduction of low-cost, truly high-quality, laser and inkjet printer technologies, and the pervasive use of web publishing, e-mail and other electronic communication techniques have largely replaced typewriters in the United States.
Correction technologies
An old typewriter on display at the Historic Archive and Museum of Mining in Pachuca, Mexico
According to the standards taught in secretarial schools in the mid-20th century, HP Pavilion dv5-1060eo Keyboard
a business letter was supposed to have no mistakes and no visible corrections. Accuracy was prized as much as speed. Indeed, typing speeds, as scored in proficiency tests and typewriting speed competitions, included a deduction of ten words for every mistake. Corrections were, of course, necessary, and many methods were developed.
In practice, several methods would often be combined. Packard Bell Easynote TK81 keyboard
For example, if six extra copies of a letter were needed, the fluid-corrected original would be photocopied, but only for the two recipients getting "c.c."s; the other four copies, the less-important file copies that stayed in various departments at the office, would be cheaper, hand-erased, less-distinct bond paper copies or even "flimsies" of different colors (tissue papers interleaved with black carbon paper) that were all typed as a "carbon pack" at the same time as the original.
Typewriter erasersPackard Bell NEW90 keyboard
The traditional erasing method involved the use of a special typewriter eraser made of hard rubber that contained an abrasive material. Some were thin, flat disks, pink or gray, approximately 2 inches (51 mm) in diameter by 1⁄8 inches (3.2 mm) thick, with a brush attached from the center, while others looked like pink pencils, with a sharpenable eraser at the "lead" end and a stiff nylon brush at the other end. Either way, these tools made possible erasure of individual typed letters. Business letters were typed on heavyweight, high-rag-content bond paper, not merely to provide a luxurious appearance, but also to stand up to erasure. Typewriter eraser brushes were necessary for clearing eraser crumbs and paper dust, HP G62-b57SG Keyboard
and using the brush properly was an important element of typewriting skill; if erasure detritus fell into the typewriter, a small buildup could cause the typebars to jam in their narrow supporting grooves.
Eraser shield
Erasing a set of carbon copies was particularly difficult, and called for the use of a device called an eraser shield (a thin stainless-steel rectangle about 2 by 3 inches (51 by 76 mm) with several tiny holes in it) to prevent the pressure of erasing on the upper copies from producing carbon smudges on the lower copies. Toshiba PK13CW10100 Keyboard
To correct copies, typists had to go from carbon copy to carbon copy, trying not to get their fingers dirty as they leafed through the carbon papers, and moving and repositioning the eraser shield and eraser for each copy.
Erasable bond
Paper companies produced a special form of typewriter paper called erasable bond (for example, Eaton's Corrasable Bond). This incorporated a thin layer of material that prevented ink from penetrating and was relatively soft and easy to remove from the page. An ordinary soft pencil eraser could quickly produce perfect erasures on this kind of paper. However, the same characteristics that made the paper erasable made the characters subject to smudging due to ordinary friction and deliberate alteration after the fact, making it unacceptable for business correspondence, contracts, or any archival use. Dell 0PVDG3 Keyboard
Correction fluid
Main article: Correction fluid
In the 1950s and 1960s, correction fluid made its appearance, under brand names such as Liquid Paper, Wite-Out and Tipp-Ex; it was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham. Correction fluid was a kind of opaque, white, fast-drying paint that produced a fresh white surface onto which, when dry, a correction could be retyped. However, when held to the light, the covered-up characters were visible, as was the patch of dry correction fluid (which was never perfectly flat, and never a perfect match for the color, texture, and luster of the surrounding paper). Sony VAIO VGN-NW270F Keyboard
The standard trick for solving this problem was photocopying the corrected page, but this was possible only with high quality photocopiers. Not surprisingly, given the demand, photocopier quality improved quickly.
Dry correction
Dry correction products (such as correction paper) under brand names such as "Ko-Rec-Type" were introduced in the 1970s and functioned like white carbon paper. A strip of the product was placed over the letters needing correction, and the incorrect letters were retyped, Sony VAIO VPC-F11 Keyboard
causing the black character to be overstruck with a white overcoat. Similar material was soon incorporated in carbon-film electric typewriter ribbons; like the traditional two-color black-and-red inked ribbon common on manual typewriters, a black and white correcting ribbon became commonplace on electric typewriters. But the black or white coating could be partly rubbed off with handling, so such corrections were generally not acceptable in legal documents. ThinkPad Edge E520
The pinnacle of this kind of technology was the IBM Electronic Typewriter series. These machines, and similar products from other manufacturers, used a separate correction ribbon and a character memory. With a single keystroke, the typewriter was capable of automatically backspacing and then overstriking the previous characters with minimal marring of the paper. White cover-up ribbons were used with fabric ink ribbons, or an alternate premium design featured plastic lift-off correction ribbons which were used with carbon film typing ribbons. This latter technology actually lifted the carbon film forming a typed letter, ThinkPad Edge E520s
leaving nothing more than a flattened depression in the surface of the paper, with the advantage that no color matching of the paper was needed.
Legacy
Keyboard layouts
The "QWERTY" layout of typewriter keys became a de facto standard and continues to be used long after the reasons for its adoption (including reduction of key/lever entanglements) have ceased to apply.
QWERTY
The 1874 Sholes & Glidden typewriters established the "QWERTY" layout for the letter keys. During the period in which Sholes and his colleagues were experimenting with this invention, Packard Bell Easynote TK81 keyboard
other keyboard arrangements were apparently tried, but these are poorly documented.[32] The near-alphabetical sequence on the "home row" of the QWERTY layout (a-s-d-f-g-h-j-k-l) demonstrates that a straightforward alphabetical arrangement was the original starting point.[33] The QWERTY layout of keys has become the de facto standard for English-language typewriter and computer keyboards. Other languages written in the Latin alphabet sometimes use variants of the QWERTY layouts, such as the French AZERTY, the Italian QZERTY and the German QWERTZ layouts. Acer Aspire 4535 Keyboard
The QWERTY layout is not the most efficient layout possible, since it requires a touch-typist to move his or her fingers between rows to type the most common letters.
The most likely explanation for the QWERTY arrangement is that it was designed to reduce the likelihood of internal clashing of typebars by placing commonly used combinations of letters farther from each other inside the machine.[33][34] This allowed the user to type faster without jamming. In a mechanical typewriter, the arrangement of typebars is tied to the arrangement of the keys, and two adjacent bars are much more likely to clash if struck together or in a rapid sequence. Toshiba Satellite C650-110 Keyboard
Another story is that the QWERTY layout allowed early typewriter salesmen to impress their customers by being able to easily type out the example word "typewriter" without having learnt the full keyboard layout, because "typewriter" can be spelled purely on the top row of the keyboard.
Other layouts
A number of radically different layouts such as Dvorak have been proposed to reduce the perceived inefficiencies of QWERTY, but none have been able to displace the QWERTY layout; their proponents claim considerable advantages, Toshiba Satellite C650-182 Keyboard
but so far none has been widely used. The Blickensderfer typewriter with its DHIATENSOR layout may have possibly been the first attempt at optimizing the keyboard layout for efficiency advantages.
Many non-Latin alphabets have keyboard layouts that have nothing to do with QWERTY. The Russian layout, for instance, puts the common trigrams ыва, про, and ить on adjacent keys so that they can be typed by rolling the fingers. The Greek layout, on the other hand, is a variant of QWERTY.
Typewriters were also made for East Asian languages with thousands of characters, such as Chinese or Japanese. They were not easy to operate, Toshiba Satellite U305-S2808 Keyboard
but professional typists used them for a long time until the development of electronic word processors and laser printers in the 1980s. See the "Gallery" at the end of this article for pictures of East Asian mechanical typewriters.
On modern keyboards, the exclamation point is the shifted character on the 1 key, a direct result of the historical fact that these were the last characters to become "standard" on keyboards. Holding the spacebar pressed down usually suspended the carriage advance mechanism (a so-called "dead key" feature), Toshiba Satellite U305-S2804 Keyboard
allowing one to superimpose multiple keystrikes on a single location. The ¢ symbol (meaning cents) was located above the number 6 on old typewriters, while modern keyboards now have ^ instead.
Typewriter conventions
Illustration of a number of typographic conventions stemming from the mechanical limitations of the typewriter: two hyphens in place of an em dash, double sentence spacing, straight quotation marks, tab indents for paragraphs, and double carriage returns between paragraphs
A number of typographical conventions originate from the widespread use of the typewriter, based on the characteristics and limitations of the typewriter itself. HP Pavilion dv6-3143cl Keyboard
For example, the QWERTY keyboard typewriter did not include keys for the en dash and the em dash. To overcome this limitation, users typically typed more than one adjacent hyphen to approximate these symbols. This typewriter convention is still sometimes used today, even though modern computer word processing applications can input the correct en and em dashes for each font type.[35] Other examples of typewriter practices that are sometimes still used in desktop publishing systems include inserting a double space at Toshiba Satellite U305-S2804 Keyboard
the end of a sentence,[36][37] and the use of straight quotes (or "dumb quotes") as quotation marks and prime marks.[38] The practice of underlining text in place of italics and the use of all capitals to provide emphasis are additional examples of typographical conventions that derived from the limitations of the typewriter keyboard that still carry on today.[39]
Many older typewriters did not include a separate key for the numeral 1 or the exclamation point, and some even older ones also lack the numeral zero. Typists who trained on these machines learned the habit of using the lowercase letter l ("ell") for the digitHP G72-b61NR Keyboard
1, and the uppercase O for the zero. A cents symbol (¢) was created by combining (over-striking) a lower case 'c' with a slash character (typing 'c', then backspace, then '/'). Similarly, the exclamation point was created by combining an apostrophe and a period.[40] These characters were omitted to simplify design and reduce manufacturing and maintenance costs; they were chosen specifically because they were "redundant" and could be recreated using other keys.
Computer jargon
Some terminology from the typewriter age has survived into the personal computer era. Examples include: Toshiba N860-7630-T101-03A Keyboard
backspace (BS) – a keystroke that moved the cursor backwards one position (on a physical platen, this is the exact opposite of the space key), for the purpose of overtyping a character. This could be for combining characters (e.g. an apostrophe, backspace, and period make an exclamation point—a character missing on some early typewriters), or for correction such as with the correcting tape that developed later.
carriage return (CR) – indicating an end of line and return to the first column of text. Toshiba Satellite M645-SP4161 Keyboard
cursor – a marker used to indicate where the next character will be printed. The cursor, however, was originally a term to describe the clear slider on a slide rule.
cut and paste – taking text, a numerical table, or an image and pasting it into a document. The term originated when such compound documents were created using manual paste up techniques for typographic page layout. Actual brushes and paste were later replaced by hot-wax machines equipped with cylinders that applied melted adhesive wax to developed prints of "typeset" copy. This copy was then cut out with knives and rulers, Lenovo 45N2106
and slid into position on layout sheets on slanting layout tables. After the "copy" had been correctly positioned and squared up using a T-square and set square, it was pressed down with a brayer, or roller. The whole point of the exercise was to create so-called "camera-ready copy" which existed only to be photographed and then printed, usually by offset lithography.
dead key – describes a key that when typed, does not advance the typing position, thus allowing another character to be overstruck on top of the original character. This typically was used to combine diacritical marks with HP Pavilion G7-1033CL keyboard
letters they modified (e.g. è can be generated by first pressing ` and then e). The dead key feature was often implemented mechanically by having the typist press and hold the space bar while typing the characters to be superimposed.
line feed (LF), also called "newline" – moving the cursor to the next on-screen line of text in a word processor document.
shift – a modifier key used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper case" characters; when pressed and held down, Lenovo 3000 Y510a 15303
would shift a typewriter's mechanism to allow a different typebar impression (such as 'D' instead of 'd') to press into the ribbon and print on a page. The concept of a shift key or modifier key was later extended to Ctrl, Alt, and Super ("Windows" or "Apple") keys on modern computer keyboards. The generalized concept of a shift key reached its apotheosis in the MIT space-cadet keyboard.
tab (HT), shortened from "horizontal tab" or "tabulator stop" – caused the print position to advance horizontally to the next pre-set "tab stop". HP Envy 15-1021tx Keyboard
This was used for typing lists and tables with vertical columns of numbers or words. The related term "vertical tab" (VT) never came into widespread use.
tty, short for teletypewriter – used in Unix-like operating systems to designate a given "terminal".
In the above listing, the two-letter codes in parentheses are abbreviations for the ASCII characters derived from typewriter usage.
Early social effects
"Get out! Can't you see I'm busy." Early 20th century humorous postcard; boss man puts his arm around female typist.
When Remington first started marketing typewriters, HP Mini 210-1102TU Keyboard
the company assumed the machine would not be used for composing but for transcribing dictation, and that the person typing would be a woman. Flowers were printed on the casing of early models to make the machine seem more comfortable for women to use.
In the United States, women often started in the professional workforce as typists (called "typewriters" then); in fact, according to the 1910 U.S. census, 81 percent of typists were female. With more women coming out of the home and into offices, Toshiba Satellite L775-S7309 Keyboard
there was some concern about the effects this would have on the morals of society. The "typewriter girl" became part of the iconography of the early-20th-century office. The "Tijuana bibles" — adult comic books produced in Mexico for the American market, starting in the 1930s — often featured women typists. In one panel, a businessman in a three-piece suit, ogling his secretary’s thigh, says, "Miss Higby, are you ready for—ahem!—er—dictation?"[16]
In spite of these jokes, becoming a typist was one of the few "respectable" jobs an unmarried woman could hold outside the home; Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
the few other choices included teaching, and possibly retail salesgirl.
The famous quote by Marcus Glenn, "Live by the typewriter, die by the typewriter!" also dates from this period.[citation needed]
Authors and writers who had unusual relationships with typewriters
Early adopters
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used a typewriter in an attempt to stem his migraine headaches and his incipient blindness. HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
Mark Twain claimed in his autobiography that he was the first important writer to present a publisher with a typewritten manuscript, for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Typewriter collector and historian Darryl Rehr challenges his claim, stating that Twain's memory was faulty and that the first novel submitted in typed form was Life on the Mississippi (1883, also by Twain).[41]
Henry James dictated to a typist.[16] HP Probook 4320s Keyboard
English actress Fanny Kemble, after settling in the United States, wrote regularly for the Atlantic Monthly. She used the earliest Remington typewriter to produce typescripts. In correspondence between Kemble and her nephew Owen Wister (later author of "The Virginian") he asks about - and she describes - her "writing machine."[citation needed]
OthersHP Pavilion dv6-3013tx Keyboard
William Faulkner's Underwood Universal Portable sits in his office at Rowan Oak, which is now maintained by the University of Mississippi in Oxford as a museum.
E. E. Cummings may have been the first poet to deliberately use a typewriter for poetic effect. His grasshopper poem is perhaps the most famous example.
William S. Burroughs wrote in some of his novels — and possibly believed — that "a machine he called the 'Soft Typewriter' was writing our lives, and our books, into existence," according to a book review in The New Yorker. And, in the film adaptation of his novel, Naked Lunch, his typewriter is a living, insect-like entity (voiced by Canadian actor Peter Boretski) Sony 148084122 Keyboard
and actually dictates the book to him.
Writer Zack Helm and director Mark Forster explored the potential mechanics of the "Soft Typewriter" philosophy in the movie Stranger than Fiction ... in which the very act of typing up her handwritten notes gives a fiction writer the power to kill or otherwise manipulate her main character in real life.[citation needed]
Ernest Hemingway used to write his books standing up in front of a Royal typewriter suitably placed on a tall bookshelf. This typewriter, still on its bookshelf, is kept in Finca Vigia, Hemingway's Havana house (now a museum) where he lived until 1960, the year before his death. HP G62-b80SB Keyboard
Jack Kerouac, a fast typist at 100 words per minute, typed On the Road on a roll of paper so he would not be interrupted by having to change the paper. Within two weeks of starting to write On the Road, Kerouac had one single-spaced paragraph, 120 feet long. Some scholars say the scroll was shelf paper; others contend it was a Thermo-fax roll; another theory is that the roll consisted of sheets of architect’s paper taped together.[16]
Another fast typist of the Beat Generation was Richard Brautigan, Toshiba Tecra M10-S3453 Keyboard
who said that he thought out the plots of his books in detail beforehand, then typed them out at speeds approaching 90 to 100 words a minute.[42]
Tom Robbins waxed philosophical about the Remington SL3, a typewriter that he bought to write Still Life with Woodpecker. He eventually did away with it because it is too complicated and inhuman for the writing of poetry.
After completing the novel Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen is said to have flung his typewriter into the Aegean Sea.[citation needed] Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
Don Marquis purposely used the limitations of a typewriter (or more precisely, a particular typist) in his archy and mehitabel series of newspaper columns, which were later compiled into a series of books. According to his literary conceit, a cockroach named "Archy" was a reincarnated free-verse poet, who would type articles overnight by jumping onto the keys of a manual typewriter. The writings were typed completely in lower case, because of the cockroach's inability to generate the heavy force needed to operate the shift key. HP Pavilion dv6-3034ca Keyboard
The lone exception is the poem "CAPITALS AT LAST" from archys life of mehitabel, written in 1933.
Late users
Andy Rooney and William F. Buckley Jr. (1982) were among many writers who were very reluctant to switch from typewriters to computers.
David McCullough bought himself a second-hand Royal typewriter in 1965 and it has been the sole piece of technology in producing the manuscripts of every book this two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author has published. Sony VAIO VGN-FS515B Keyboard
Hunter S. Thompson kept a typewriter in his kitchen and is believed to have written his "Hey, Rube!" column for ESPN.com on a typewriter. He used a typewriter until his suicide in 2005.
Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, wrote his manifesto as well as his letters on a manual typewriter.
David Sedaris used a typewriter to write his essay collections through Me Talk Pretty One Day at least.
Richard Polt, a philosophy professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati who collects typewriters, Sony VAIO VGN-FS515BR Keyboard
edits ETCetera, a quarterly magazine about historic writing machines.
William Gibson used a Hermes 2000 model manual typewriter to write Neuromancer and half of Count Zero before a mechanical failure and lack of replacement parts forced him to upgrade to an Apple IIc computer.[43]
Harlan Ellison has used typewriters for his entire career, and when he was no longer able to have them repaired, learned to do it himself; he has repeatedly stated his belief that computers are bad for writing, maintaining, "Art is not supposed to be easier!"[44] Acer Aspire One D150-1Br Keyboard
Author Cormac McCarthy continues to write his novels on an Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter to the present day. In 2009, the Lettera he obtained from a pawn shop in 1963, on which nearly all his novels and screenplays have been written, was auctioned for charity at Christie's for $254,500 USD;[45] McCarthy obtained an identical replacement for $20 to continue writing on.[46]
Will Self explains why he uses a manual typewriter: Acer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
"I think the computer user does their thinking on the screen, and the non-computer user is compelled, because he or she has to retype a whole text, to do a lot more thinking in the head.".[47]
Typewriters in popular culture
In music
The composer Pablo Sorozábal includes in a scene of his zarzuela La eterna canción (1945) a typewriter, accompanied by an orchestra and vocal soloists: the scene is in a police station, where a policeman is deposing witnesses, and is singing while he types the report. Sony Vaio PCG-K215Z Keyboard
The composer Leroy Anderson wrote The Typewriter (1950) for orchestra and typewriter, and it has since been used as the theme for numerous radio programs. The solo instrument is a real typewriter played by a percussionist.
The Lovin' Spoonful used a typewriter, complete with carriage return bell, as a percussion instrument on their song "Money" (1968)
An Estonian prog-rock band In Spe features typewriters as a rhythmic instruments in their album Typewriter Concerto in D Major (1994) HP Pavilion G6-1202AU Keyboard
A suite of songs entitled "Green Typewriters" is on The Olivia Tremor Control's album Dusk At Cubist Castle (1996), and the sounds of typewriters can be heard in a few of the sections.
American singer-songwriter Marian Call accompanies herself on a typewriter on "Nerd Anthem"
American musician Beck's 2005 music video for 'Black Tambourine' features typewriter characters to animate Beck moving and playing guitar. Acer Aspire 7741Z Keyboard
The title track of Heernt's 2006 album Locked in a Basement prominently features the typewriter as a percussion instrument.
The "Boston Typewriter Orchestra" (BTO) has performed at numerous art festivals, clubs, and parties since at least 2008.[48][49] The group consists of a half-dozen performers who use typewriters as percussive musical instruments, under the slogan, "The revolution will be typewritten".[48]
OtherAcer Aspire 7741ZG Keyboard
The word "typewriter" is often cited as the longest English word that can be typed using only one row of keys of a QWERTY keyboard. This is untrue, since "rupturewort" (a kind of flowering plant) has 11 letters, while "typewriter" has only 10. Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary defines "uropyoureter" (12 letters).
Typewriters are used to write typecast blogs in which text is typed on a manual typewriter and then scanned for posting on blogs, a practice called typecasting. Acer TravelMate 2354 Keyboard
A sentence which uses every letter of the alphabet (a pangram), "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" can be used to check typewriters quickly.
The early Resident Evil video games used a typewriter as the save feature, and used one ink ribbon per save.
The opening title sequence of Murder She Wrote prominently features Jessica Fletcher touch typing a manuscript with a 1940's style Royal Typewriter. Although in one episode Fletcher rejects a character's offer to sell her a computer to replace the old Royal (which he calls a "dinosaur"), towards the series end, she, too begins using a computer and word processing typewriter. HP AESP7U00110 Keyboard
In Rome the Altare della Patria, National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, used to be nicknamed "the typewriter" because of its strange shape and popular dislike.
Forensic examination
Typewritten documents may be examined by forensic document examiners. This is done primarily to determine 1) the make and/or model of the typewriter used to produce a document, or 2) whether or not a particular suspect typewriter might have been used to produce a document.[50] In some situations, an ink or correction ribbon may also be examined. HP Pavilion dv6-3140sa Keyboard
The determination of a make and/or model of typewriter is a 'classification' problem and several systems have been developed for this purpose.[50] These include the original Haas Typewriter Atlases (Pica version)[51] and (Non-Pica version)[52] and the TYPE system developed by Dr. Philip Bouffard,[53] the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Termatrex Typewriter classification system,[54] and the Interpol's Typewriter classification system,[55] among others.[50]
Because of the tolerances of the mechanical parts, slight variation in the alignment of the letters and their uneven wear, each typewriter has an individual "signature" or "fingerprint", SamsungNP-Q320-JS01UK Keyboard
which may permit a typewritten document to be traced back to the typewriter on which it was produced. For devices utilizing replaceable components, such as a typeball element, any association may be restricted to a specific element, rather than to the typewriter as a whole.
The earliest reference in fictional literature to the potential identification of a typewriter as having produced a document was by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote "A Case of Identity" in 1891.[56] In non-fiction, the first document examiner[56] to describe how a typewriter might be identified was William E. Hagan who wrote, in 1894, "All typewriter machines, Sony VAIO VGN-FZ140N Keyboard
even when using the same kind of type, become more or less peculiar by use as to the work done by them".[57] Other early discussions of the topic were provided by A.S. Osborn in his 1908 treatise, Typewriting as Evidence,[58] and again in his 1929 textbook, Questioned Documents.[59] A modern description of the examination procedure is laid out in ASTM Standard E2494-08 (Standard Guide for Examination of Typewritten Items).[60]
Typewriter examination was used in the Leopold and Loeb and Alger Hiss cases. In the Eastern Bloc, typewriters (together with printing presses, copy machines, and later computer printers) were a controlled technology, with secret police in charge of maintaining files of the typewriters and their owners. Sony VAIO VGN-FZ140NB Keyboard
In the Soviet Union, the First Department of each organization sent data on organization's typewriters to the KGB. This posed a significant risk for dissidents and samizdat authors.
The ribbon can be read vertically, although only if it has not been typed over more than once. This can be very hard to do as it does not include spaces, but can be done, giving even a typewriter a "memory".
Xerox was founded in 1906 in Rochester as The Haloid Photographic Company,[6] which originally manufactured photographic paper and equipment. The company subsequently changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958 and then simply Xerox in 1961.[7] Xerography, a modern word meaning "dry writing" developed from two Greek roots, is the name of the process invented in 1938 and developed by the Haloid Company. The company came to prominence in 1959 with the introduction of the Xerox 914,[8] the first plain paper photocopier using the process of Electro-photography, (later changed to xerography) discovered by Chester Carlson, which he developed with John H. Dessauer.[9] Sony VAIO VGN-SZ740N Keyboard
The 914 was so popular that by the end of 1961 Xerox had almost $60 million in revenue. Revenues leaped to over $500 million by 1965. Before releasing the 914, Xerox had tested the market by introducing a developed version of the prototype Hand equipment known as the Flat-plate 1385. This was followed by the first automatic xerographic printer, the Copyflo, in 1955. The Copyflo was a large microfilm printer which could produce positive prints on roll paper from any type of microfilm negative. Following the Copyflo, the process was scaled down to produce the 1824 microfilm printer. HP Pavilion dv6-3014tu Keyboard
At about half the size and weight this still sizable machine printed onto hand fed, cut sheet paper which was pulled through the process by one of two gripper bars. A scaled down version of this gripper feed system was to become the basis for the 813 desktop copier.
In 1963 Xerox introduced the Xerox 813, the first desktop plain-paper copier, bringing Carlson's vision of a copier that could fit on anyone's office desk into a reality. HP Pavilion dv6-3014so Keyboard
Ten years later in 1973, a basic, analogue, color copier, based on the 914, followed. The 914 itself was gradually sped up to become the 420 and 720. The 813 was similarly developed into the 330 and 660 products and, eventually, also the 740 desktop microfiche printer.
Chester Carlson's original hand equipment, which saw the market as the 1385 Flatplate, was not actually a viable copier because of its speed of operation. In consequence it was sold as a platemaker to the offset lithography market. It was little more than a high quality, commercially available plate camera mounted as a horizontal rostrum camera, complete with photo-flood lighting and timer. The glass film/plate had been replaced with a selenium coated aluminum plate. Clever electrics turned this into a quick developing and reusable substitute for film. HP Pavilion dv6-3014sl Keyboard
A skilled user could produce fast, paper and metal printing plates of a higher quality than almost any other method. Having started as a supplier to the offset litho. duplicating industry, Xerox now set its sights on capturing some of offset's market share.
Xerox's first foray into duplicating, as distinct from copying, was with the Xerox 2400. This number denoted the number of prints produced in an hour. Although still some way short of offset speeds, this machine introduced the industry's first Automatic Document Feeder, Slitter/Perforator, and Collator (sorter). HP Pavilion dv6-3013tx Keyboard
This product was soon sped up by fifty percent to become the Xerox 3600 Duplicator.
Meanwhile, a small lab team was borrowing 914 copiers and modifying them. The lab was working on a project called the "Long Distance Xerography" project (LDX for short). The aim was to be able to connect two copiers together via the public telephone network, such that a document scanned on one machine would be copied out on the other. Many years later this work came to fruition in the Xerox Telecopiers, seminal to today's fax machines. The fax operation in today's multifunction copiers is true to Carlson's original vision for these devices. The company expanded substantially throughout the 1960s, HP Pavilion dv6-3013tu Keyboard
making millionaires of some long-suffering investors who had nursed the company through the slow research and development phase of the product. In 1960 a xerography research facility called the Wilson Center for Research and Technology was opened in Webster, New York. In 1961 the company changed its name to Xerox Corporation. Xerox common stock (XRX) was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1961 and on the Chicago Stock Exchange in 1990.
In 1969, Xerox acquired Scientific Data Systems [SDS], and produced the Sigma line of 32-bit mainframe computers in the 1960s and 1970s. HP Pavilion dv6-3013so Keyboard
The laser printer was invented in 1969 by Xerox researcher Gary Starkweather by modifying a Xerox copier. This development resulted in the first commercially available laser printer, the Xerox 9700, being launched in 1977. Laser printing eventually became a multi billion dollar business for Xerox. Archie McCardell was named president of the company in 1971.[10] During his tenure, Xerox introduced the Xerox 6500, its first color copier.[11] During McCardell's reign at Xerox, the company announced record revenues, earnings and profits in 1973, 1974, and 1975.[12] John Carrol became a backer, later spreading the company throughout North America. HP Pavilion dv6-3013sl Keyboard
Following these years of record profits, in 1975 Xerox resolved an anti-trust suit with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which at the time was under the direction of Frederic M. Scherer. The Xerox consent decree resulted in the forced licensing of the company’s entire patent portfolio, mainly to Japanese competitors. Within four years of the consent decree, Xerox's share of the U.S. copier market dropped from nearly 100% to less than 14%.HP Pavilion dv6-3013nr Keyboard
In 1970, under company president Charles Peter McColough, Xerox opened the Xerox PARC (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) research facility. The facility developed many modern computing technologies such as the graphical user interface (GUI), Laser printing, WYSIWYG text editors and Ethernet. From these inventions, Xerox PARC created the Xerox Alto in 1973, a small minicomputer similar to a modern workstation or personal computer. This machine can be considered the first true Personal Computer, given its versatile combination of a cathode-ray-type screen, mouse-type pointing device, and a QWERTY-type alphanumeric keyboard. But the Alto was never commercially sold, HP Pavilion dv6-3013eg Keyboard
as Xerox itself could not see the sales potential of it. It was, however, installed in Xerox's own offices, worldwide and those of the US Government and military, who could see the potential. Within these sites the individual workstations were connected together by Xerox's own unique LAN, The Ethernet. Data was sent around this system of heavy, yellow, low loss coaxial cable using the packet data system. In addition, PARC also developed one of the earliest internetworking protocol suites, the PARC Universal Packet. HP Pavilion dv6-3013cl Keyboard
In 1979, Steve Jobs made a deal with Xerox's venture capital division: He would let them invest $1 million in exchange for a look at the technology they were working on. Jobs and the others saw the commercial potential of the WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu, and Pointing device) system and redirected development of the Apple Lisa to incorporate these technologies. Jobs is quoted as saying, "They just had no idea what they had." In 1980, Jobs invited several key PARC researchers to join his company so that they could fully develop and implement their ideas. HP Pavilion dv6-3013ax Keyboard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the Leroy Anderson composition, see The Typewriter.
Mechanical desktop typewriters, such as this Underwood Five, were long-time standards of government agencies, newsrooms, and offices.
Old style Hermes typewriter with jammed typebarsDell V119525BS1 Keyboard
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the sorts used in movable type letterpress printing. From their invention in the 1860s through much of the 20th century, typewriters were indispensable tools for recording the written word. Widely used by professional writers and in offices for decades, HP G62-b70EV Keyboard
by the end of the 1980s, word processors and personal computers largely displaced typewriters in the settings where they previously had been ubiquitous in the western world.
Notable typewriter manufacturer companies have included E. Remington and Sons, IBM, Imperial Typewriters, Oliver Typewriter Company, Olivetti, Royal Typewriter Company, Smith Corona, and Underwood Typewriter Company.
HistoryHP Pavilion dv5-1137la Keyboard
Peter Mitterhofer, typewriter prototype 1864 Technisches Museum Wien
Although many modern typewriters have one of several similar designs, their invention was incremental, provided by numerous inventors working independently or in competition with each other over a series of decades. As with the automobile, telephone, and telegraph, a number of people contributed insights and inventions that eventually resulted in ever more commercially successful instruments. In fact, historians have estimated that some form of typewriter was invented 52 times as thinkers tried to come up with a workable design.[1]
Early innovationsPackard Bell Easynote TM99 keyboard
In 1714, Henry Mill obtained a patent in Britain for a machine that, from the patent, appears to have been similar to a typewriter. The patent shows that this machine was actually created: "[he] hath by his great study and paines & expence invented and brought to perfection an artificial machine or method for impressing or transcribing of letters, one after another, as in writing, whereby all writing whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print; that the said machine or method may be of great use in settlements and public records, the impression being deeper and more lasting than any other writing, and not to be erased or counterfeited without manifest discovery."[2] HP Pavilion DV7-3183cl Keyboard
Italian Pellegrino Turri invented a typewriter in 1808. He also invented carbon paper to provide the ink for his machine. Many early machines, including Turri's, were developed to enable the blind to write.
John J. Pratt's "pterotype" of 1865
In 1829, William Austin Burt patented a machine called the "Typographer" which, in common with many other early machines, is listed as the "first typewriter". The Science Museum (London) describes it merely as "the first writing mechanism whose invention was documented," but even that claim may be excessive, since Turri's invention pre-dates it.[3] Even in the hands of its inventor, this machine was slower than handwriting. Burt and his promoter John D. Sony Vaio PCG-K23 Keyboard
Sheldon never found a buyer for the patent, and it was never commercially produced. Because the typographer used a dial, rather than keys, to select each character, it was called an "index typewriter" rather than a "keyboard typewriter." Index typewriters of that era resemble the squeeze-style embosser from the 1970s more than they resemble the modern keyboard typewriter.
By the mid-19th century, the increasing pace of business communication had created a need for mechanization of the writing process. Stenographers and telegraphers could take down information at rates up to 130 words per minute, whereas a writer with a pen was limited to a maximum of 30 words per minute (the 1853 speed record).[4] Toshiba Satellite L300-155 Keyboard
From 1829 to 1870, many printing or typing machines were patented by inventors in Europe and America, but none went into commercial production.
Charles Thurber developed multiple patents, of which his first in 1843 was developed as an aid to the blind, such as the 1845 Chirographer. In 1855, the Italian Giuseppe Ravizza created a prototype typewriter called Cembalo scrivano o macchina da scrivere a tasti ("Scribe harpsichord, or machine for writing with keys"). It was an advanced machine that let the user see the writing as it was typed. In 1861, Father Francisco João de Azevedo, a Brazilian priest, made his own typewriter with basic materials and tools, such as wood and knives. Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
In that same year the Brazilian emperor D. Pedro II, presented a gold medal to Father Azevedo for this invention. Many Brazilian people as well as the Brazilian federal government recognize Fr. Azevedo as the real inventor of the typewriter, a claim that has been the subject of some controversy. In 1865, John Pratt, of Centre, Alabama, built a machine called the Pterotype which appeared in an 1867 Scientific American article[5] and inspired other inventors. Between 1864 and 1867 Peter Mitterhofer, a carpenter from South Tyrol (former part of Austria) developed several models and a fully functioning prototype typewriter in 1867.[6]
Hansen Writing BallHP HDX18-1010EA Keyboard
Hansen Writing Ball, 1870, the first typewriter manufactured commercially.
Christopher Latham Sholes
Prototype of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, 1873, the first commercially successful typewriter, and the first with a QWERTY keyboard.
In 1865, Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen of Denmark invented the Hansen Writing Ball, which went into commercial production in 1870 and was the first commercially sold typewriter. It was a success in Europe and was reported as being used in offices in London as late as 1909.[citation needed] Malling-Hansen used a solenoid escapement to return the carriage on some of his models which makes him a candidate for the title of inventor of the first "electric" typewriter. HP 636191-001 Keyboard
According to the book Hvem er skrivekuglens opfinder? (English: Who is the inventor of the Writing Ball?), written by Malling-Hansen's daughter, Johanne Agerskov, in 1865, Malling-Hansen made a porcelain model of the keyboard of his writing ball and experimented with different placements of the letters to achieve the fastest writing speed. Malling-Hansen placed the letters on short pistons that went directly through the ball and down to the paper. This, together with the placement of the letters so that the fastest writing fingers struck the most frequently used letters, made the Hansen Writing Ball the first typewriter to produce text substantially faster than a person could write by hand. Sony VAIO VGN-FS730W Keyboard
Malling-Hansen developed his typewriter further through the 1870s and 1880s and made many improvements, but the writing head remained the same. On the first model of the writing ball from 1870, the paper was attached to a cylinder inside a wooden box. In 1874, the cylinder was replaced by a carriage, moving beneath the writing head. Then, in 1875, the well-known "tall model" was patented, which was the first of the writing balls that worked without electricity. Malling-Hansen attended the world exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1878 and he received the first-prize for his invention at both exhibitions. HP 636191-001 Keyboard
Sholes and Glidden Type-writer
The first typewriter to be commercially successful was invented in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, although Sholes soon disowned the machine and refused to use, or even to recommend it. The working prototype was made by the machinist Matthias Schwalbach.[10][11][12] The patent (US 79,265) was sold for $12,000 to Densmore and Yost, who made an agreement with E. Remington and Sons (then famous as a manufacturer of sewing machines) to commercialize the machine as the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer. This was the origin of the term typewriter. Sony Vaio VGN-FW290 Keyboard
Remington began production of its first typewriter on March 1, 1873, in Ilion, New York. It had a QWERTY keyboard layout, which because of the machine's success, was slowly adopted by other typewriter manufacturers. As with most other early typewriters, because the type bars strike upwards, the typist could not see the characters as they were typed.
Standardization
Hammond 1B with a semicircular keyboard, as used by a newspaper office in Saskatoon around 1910.
Typebars which became entangled when the six keys operating the typebars were pressed simultaneouslyPackard Bell PEW91 keyboard
By about 1910, the "manual" or "mechanical" typewriter had reached a somewhat standardized design. There were minor variations from one manufacturer to another, but most typewriters followed the concept that each key was attached to a typebar that had the corresponding letter molded, in reverse, into its striking head. When a key was struck briskly and firmly, the typebar hit a ribbon (usually made of inked fabric), making a printed mark on the paper wrapped around a cylindrical platen. The platen was mounted on a carriage that moved left or right, automatically advancing the typing position horizontally after each character was typed. The paper, Sony VAIO VGN-SZ470 Keyboard
rolled around the typewriter's platen, was then advanced vertically by the "carriage return" lever (at the far left, or sometimes on the far right) into position for each new line of text.
Some ribbons were inked in black and red stripes, each being half the width and the entire length of the ribbon. A lever on most machines allowed switching between colors, which was useful for bookkeeping entries where negative amounts had to be in red.
FrontstrikingAcer Aspire 7740G Keyboard
In most of the early typewriters, the type bars struck upward against the bottom of the platen, so the typist could not see the text as it was typed. What was typed was not visible until a carriage return caused it to scroll into view. The difficulty with any other arrangement was ensuring the type bars fell back into place reliably when the key was released. This was eventually achieved with various ingenious mechanical designs and so-called "visible typewriters" which used frontstriking, in which the type bars struck forward against the front side of the platen, became standard. One of the first was the Daugherty Visible, introduced in 1893, Thinkpad T410I
which also introduced the four-bank keyboard that became standard, although the Underwood which came out two years later was the first major typewriter with these features.[13][14] However, older "nonvisible" models continued in production to as late as 1915.[citation needed]
Shift key
A significant innovation was the shift key. This key physically "shifted" either the basket of typebars, in which case the typewriter is described as "basket shift", or the paper-holding carriage, in which case the typewriter is described as "carriage shift".HP Pavilion dv6-2150so Keyboard
Either mechanism caused a different portion of the typebar to come in contact with the ribbon/platen. The result is that each typebar could type two different characters, cutting the number of keys and typebars in half (and simplifying the internal mechanisms considerably). The obvious use for this was to allow letter keys to type both upper and lower case, but normally the number keys were also duplexed, allowing access to special symbols such as percent (%) and ampersand (&). With the shift key, Compaq Presario CQ60-218EM Keyboard
manufacturing costs (and therefore purchase price) were greatly reduced, and typist operation was simplified; both factors contributed greatly to mass adoption of the technology. Certain models, such as the Barlet, had a double shift so that each key performed three functions. These little three-row machines were very portable and could be used by journalists, etc.
However, because the shift key required more force to push (its mechanism was moving a much larger mass than other keys), and was operated by the "pinky" finger[citation needed] Lenovo 45N2141
(normally the weakest finger on the hand), it was difficult to hold the shift down for more than two or three consecutive strokes. The "shift lock" key (the precursor to the modern caps lock) allowed the shift operation to be maintained indefinitely.
"Noiseless" designs
In the early part of the 20th century, a typewriter was marketed under the name "Noiseless" and advertised as "silent". It was developed by Wellington Parker Kidder and the first model was marketed by the Noiseless Typewriter Company in 1917. An agreement with Remington in 1924 saw production transferred to Remington, Asus F80L Keyboard
and a further agreement in 1929 allowed Underwood to produce it as well.[15] It failed to sell well, leading some observers to the conclusion that the "clickety-clack" of the typical typewriter was a consumer preference.[16] A more likely reason is that the claims of silent operation were simply untrue.
In a conventional typewriter the type bars are decelerated at the end of their travel simply by impacting upon the ribbon and paper. So-called "noiseless"HP Pavilion dv5-1131la Keyboard
typewriters have a complex lever mechanism that decelerates the typebar mechanically and then presses it against the ribbon and paper[15] in an attempt to render the process less noisy. It was not particularly successful; it certainly reduced the high-frequency content of the sound, rendering it more of a "clunk" than a "clack" and arguably less intrusive, but the grandiose claims of the advertising — such as "A machine that can be operated a few feet away from your desk — And not be heard" — were entirely without foundation.
Electric designsSony Vaio PCG-K45 Keyboard
Although electric typewriters would not achieve widespread popularity until nearly a century later, the basic groundwork for the electric typewriter was laid by the Universal Stock Ticker, invented by Thomas Edison in 1870. This device remotely printed letters and numbers on a stream of paper tape from input generated by a specially designed typewriter at the other end of a telegraph line.
Early electric models
The first electric typewriter was produced by the Blickensderfer Manufacturing Company, of Stamford, Connecticut, in 1902. Like the manual Blickensderfer typewriters it used a cylindrical typewheel rather than individual typebars. It was not a commercial success, which may have been because at the time electricity had not been standardized and voltage differed from city to city. The next step in the development of the electric typewriter came in 1910, Sony Vaio PCG-K45F Keyboard
when Charles and Howard Krum filed a patent for the first practical teletypewriter.[17] The Krums' machine, named the Morkrum Printing Telegraph, used a typewheel rather than individual typebars. This machine was used for the first commercial teletypewriter system on Postal Telegraph Company lines between Boston and New York City in 1910.[18]
James Fields Smathers of Kansas City invented what is considered the first practical power-operated typewriter in 1914. SamsungQ318 Keyboard
In 1920, after returning from Army service, he produced a successful model and in 1923 turned it over to the Northeast Electric Company of Rochester for development. Northeast was interested in finding new markets for their electric motors and developed Smathers's design so that it could be marketed to typewriter manufacturers, and from 1925 Remington Electric typewriters were produced powered by Northeast's motors.
After some 2,500 electric typewriters had been produced, Northeast asked Remington for a firm contract for the next batch. However, HP Mini 311-1035TU Keyboard
Remington was engaged in merger talks which would eventually result in the creation of Remington Rand and no executives were willing to commit to a firm order. Northeast instead decided to enter the typewriter business for itself, and in 1929 produced the first Electromatic Typewriter.
In 1928, Delco, a division of General Motors, purchased Northeast Electric, and the typewriter business was spun off as the Electromatic Typewriters, Inc. In 1933, Electromatic was acquired by IBM, which then spent $1 million on a redesign of the Electromatic Typewriter, Sony VGN-FE21SR Keyboard
launching the IBM Electric Typewriter Model 01 in 1935. By 1958 IBM was deriving 8% of its revenue from the sale of electric typewriters.
In 1931, an electric typewriter was introduced by Varityper Corporation. It was called the Varityper, because a narrow cylinder like wheel could be replaced to change the font.[19]
Electrical typewriter designs removed the direct mechanical connection between the keys and the element that struck the paper. Not to be confused with later electronic typewriters, HP Pavilion dv6-2113tx Keyboard
electric typewriters contained only a single electrical component: the motor. Where the keystroke had previously moved a typebar directly, now it engaged mechanical linkages that directed mechanical power from the motor into the typebar.
In 1941, IBM announced the Electromatic Model 04 electric typewriter, featuring the revolutionary concept of proportional spacing. Sony VAIO VGN-NW25E/P Keyboard
By assigning varied rather than uniform spacing to different sized characters, the Type 4 recreated the appearance of a printed page, an effect that was further enhanced by a typewriter ribbon innovation that produced clearer, sharper words on the page. The proportional spacing feature became a staple of the IBM Executive series typewriters.
IBM Selectric models
Main article: IBM Selectric typewriter
IBM Selectric II (dual Latin/Hebrew typeball and keyboard)
Selectric II dual Latin/Hebrew Hadar typeballAcer TravelMate 2354NLCi Keyboard
Replaceable IBM typeballs with clip, €2 coin for scale
IBM and Remington Rand electric typewriters were the leading models until IBM introduced the IBM Selectric typewriter in 1961, which replaced the typebars with a spherical element (or typeball) slightly smaller than a golf ball, with reverse-image letters molded into its surface. The Selectric used a system of latches, metal tapes, and pulleys driven by an electric motor to rotate the ball into the correct position and then strike it against the ribbon and platen. The typeball moved laterally in front of the paper, instead of the previous designs usingSamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
a platen-carrying carriage moving the paper across a stationary print position.
Due to the physical similarity, the typeball was sometimes referred to as a "golfball". The typeball design had many advantages, especially the elimination of "jams" (when more than one key was struck at once and the typebars became entangled) and in the ability to change the typeball, allowing multiple fonts to be used in a single document.
The IBM Selectric became a commercial success, dominating the office typewriter market for at least 2 decades.[citation needed] IBM also gained an advantage by marketing more heavily to schools than did Remington, Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
with the idea that students who learned to type on a Selectric would later choose IBM typewriters over the competition in the workplace as businesses replaced their old manual models.[citation needed] By the 1970s, IBM had succeeded in establishing the Selectric as the de facto standard typewriter in mid- to high-end office environments, replacing the raucous "clack" of older typebar machines with the quieter sound of gyrating typeballs. Sony Vaio VGN-FW200 Keyboard
Later models of IBM Executives and Selectrics replaced inked fabric ribbons with "carbon film" ribbons that had a dry black or colored powder on a clear plastic tape. These could be used only once, but later models used a cartridge that was simple to replace. A side effect of this technology was that the text typed on the machine could be easily read from the used ribbon, raising issues where the machines were used for preparing classified documents (ribbons had to be accounted for to ensure that typists did not carry them from the facility).[20] HP Pavilion dv6-2123sf Keyboard
Composer output showing Roman, Bold and Italic fonts available by changing the type ball
A variation known as "Correcting Selectrics" introduced a correction feature, where a sticky tape in front of the carbon film ribbon could remove the black-powdered image of a typed character, eliminating the need for little bottles of white dab-on correction fluid and for hard erasers that could tear the paper. These machines also introduced selectable "pitch" so that the typewriter could be switched between pica type (10 characters per inch) and elite type (12 per inch), HP Pavilion dv4-1220us Keyboard
even within one document. Even so, all Selectrics were monospaced—each character and letterspace was allotted the same width on the page, from a capital "W" to a period. Although IBM had produced a successful typebar-based machine with five levels of proportional spacing, called the IBM Executive,[21] proportional spacing was not provided with the Selectric typewriter or its successors the Selectric II and Selectric III.
The only fully electromechanical Selectric Typewriter with fully proportional spacing and which used a Selectric type element was the expensive Selectric Composer, Acer NSK-AF31D Keyboard
which was capable of right-margin justification and was considered a typesetting machine rather than a typewriter.
In addition to its electronic successors, the Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer (MT/SC), the Mag Card Selectric Composer, and the Electronic Selectric Composer, IBM also made electronic typewriters with proportional spacing using the Selectric element that were considered typewriters or word processors instead of typesetting machines.
The first of these was the relatively obscure Mag Card Executive, which used 88-character elements. Later, some of the same typestyles used for it were used on the 96-characterHP Pavilion G6-1106AX keyboard
elements used on the IBM Electronic Typewriter 50 and the later models 65 and 85.
By 1970, as offset printing began to replace letterpress printing, the Composer would be adapted as the output unit for a typesetting system. The system included a computer-driven input station to capture the key strokes on magnetic tape and insert the operator's format commands, and a Composer unit to read the tape and produce the formatted text for photo reproduction.
Selectric mechanisms were widely incorporated into computer terminals in the 1960s and 1970s, as they possessed obvious advantages: IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201 Keyboard
reasonably fast, jam-free, and reliable
relatively quiet, and more importantly, free of major vibrations
could produce high quality lower- and upper-case output, compared to competitors such as Teletype machines
could be activated by a short, low-force mechanical action, allowing easier interfacing to electronic controls
did not require the movement of a heavy "type basket" to shift between lower- and upper-case, allowing higher speed without heavy impactsHP Pavilion DV7-2273cl Keyboard
did not require the platen roller assembly to move from side to side (a problem with continuous-feed paper used for automated printing)
The IBM 2741 terminal was a popular example of a Selectric-based computer terminal, and similar mechanisms were employed as the console devices for many IBM System/360 computers. These mechanisms used "ruggedized" designs compared to those in standard office typewriters.
Later electric modelsAcer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
Some of IBM's advances were later adopted in less expensive machines from competitors. For example, Smith-Corona electric typewriters of the 1970s used interchangeable ribbon cartridges, including fabric, film, erasing, and two-color versions. At about the same time, the advent of photocopying meant that carbon copies and erasers were less and less necessary; only the original need be typed, and photocopies made from it.
Typewriter/printer hybrids
Towards the end of the commercial popularity of typewriters in the 1970s, a number of hybrid designs combining features of printers were introduced. These often incorporated keyboards from existing models of typewriters and printing mechanisms of dot-matrix printers. The generation of teleprinters HP 441426-001 Keyboard
with impact pin-based printing engines was not adequate for the demanding quality required for typed output, and alternative thermal transfer technologies used in thermal label printers had become technically feasible for typewriters.
IBM produced a series of typewriters called Thermotronic with letter-quality output and correcting tape along with printers tagged Quietwriter. Brother extended the life of their typewriter product line with similar products. Toshiba Satellite L350 Keyboard
DEC meanwhile had the DECwriter. The development of these proprietary printing engines provided the vendors with exclusive markets in consumable ribbons and the ability to use standardised printing engines with varying degrees of electronic and software sophistication to develop product lines. Although these changes reduced prices - and greatly increased the convenience - of typewriters, the technological disruption posed by word processors left these improvements with only a short-term low-end market. To extend the life of these products, many examples were provided withToshiba 9j.n7482.201 Keyboard
communication ports to connect them to computers as printers.
Electronic Typewriters
The final major development of the typewriter was the "electronic" typewriter. Most of these replaced the typeball with a plastic or metal daisy wheel mechanism (a disk with the letters molded on the outside edge of the "petals"). The daisy wheel concept first emerged in printers developed by Diablo Systems in the 1970's. In 1981, Xerox Corporation, who by then had bought Diablo Systems, introduced a line of Electronic Typewriters incorporating this technology (the Memorywriter product line). For a time, Acer PK1301K0200 Keyboard
these products were quite successful as their plastic daisy-wheel was much simpler and cheaper than the metal typeball and their electronic memory and display allowed the user to easily see errors and correct them before they were actually printed. One problem with the plastic daisy wheel was that they were not always durable. To solve this problem, more durable metal daisy wheels were made available (but at aslightly higher price). These and similar electronic typewriters were in essence dedicated word processors with either single line LCD displays or multi-line CRT displays, built-in line editors in ROM, a spelling and grammar checker, a few kilobytes of internal RAM and optional cartridge, magnetic card or diskette external memory-storage devices for storing text and even document formats. Sony VAIO PCG-FR315M Keyboard
Text could be entered a line or paragraph at a time and edited using the display and built-in software tools before being committed to paper. Unlike the Selectrics and earlier models, these really were "electronic" and relied on integrated circuits and multiple electromechanical components. These typewriters were sometimes called display typewriters[22], dedicated word processors or word-processing typewriters, though the latter term was also frequently applied to less sophisticated machines that featured only a tiny, sometimes just single-row display. Sophisticated models were also called word processors, though today that term almost always denotes a type of software program. Manufacturers of such machines included Brother (Brother WP1 and WP500 etc., where WP stood for word processor), Acer Aspire One D150-1165 Keyboard
Canon (Canon Cat), Smith-Corona (PWP, i.e. Personal Word Processor line)[23] and Philips/Magnavox (VideoWriter).
Electronic typewriter - the final stage in typewriter development. A 1989 Canon Typestar 110
The Brother WP1, an electronic typewriter complete with a small screen and a floppy disc reader
End of an era
The 1970s and early 1980s were a time of transition for typewriters and word processors. In a given year, most small-business offices would be completely old-style, while large corporations and government departments would already be all new-style; other offices would have a mixture. The pace of change was so rapid that it was common for clerical staff to have to learn several new systems, one after the other, in just a few years. HP 441426-001 Keyboard
While such rapid change is commonplace today, and is taken for granted, this was not always so; in fact, typewriting technology changed very little in its first 80 or 90 years.
Due to falling sales, IBM sold its typewriter division in 1990 to Lexmark.
As of 2009, typewriters were still used by some U.S. government agencies. As an example, it was reported that in 2008 New York City purchased a few thousand typewriters, mostly for use by New York Police Department, at the total cost of $982,269; another $99,570 were spent in 2009 for the maintenance of the existing typewriters. Sony VAIO VGN-N110G Keyboard
New York police officers use the machines to type property and evidence vouchers on carbon paper forms.[24]
Russian typewriters use Cyrillic, which has made the ongoing Azerbaijani reconversion from Cyrillic to Roman alphabet more difficult. In 1997, the government of Turkey offered to donate western typewriters to the Republic of Azerbaijan in exchange for more zealous and exclusive promotion of the Roman alphabet for the Azerbaijani language; this offer, however, was declined.[citation needed] Sony VAIO VGN-CS16G/Q Keyboard
In Latin America and Africa, mechanical typewriters are still common because they can be used without electrical power. In Latin America, the typewriters used are most often Brazilian models – Brazil continues to produce mechanical (Facit) and electronic (Olivetti) typewriters to the present day.[25] In the U.S., Swintec Corporation still produces typewriters aimed at prisons.[26][27] In April 2011, Godrej and Boyce, a Mumbai-based manufacturer of mechanical typewriters, closed its doors, leading to a flurry of erroneous news reports that the "world's Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Keyboard
last typewriter factory" had shut down.[28] The reports were quickly debunked.[29][30][31]
The increasing dominance of personal computers, desktop publishing, the introduction of low-cost, truly high-quality, laser and inkjet printer technologies, and the pervasive use of web publishing, e-mail and other electronic communication techniques have largely replaced typewriters in the United States.
Correction technologies
An old typewriter on display at the Historic Archive and Museum of Mining in Pachuca, Mexico
According to the standards taught in secretarial schools in the mid-20th century, HP Pavilion dv5-1060eo Keyboard
a business letter was supposed to have no mistakes and no visible corrections. Accuracy was prized as much as speed. Indeed, typing speeds, as scored in proficiency tests and typewriting speed competitions, included a deduction of ten words for every mistake. Corrections were, of course, necessary, and many methods were developed.
In practice, several methods would often be combined. Packard Bell Easynote TK81 keyboard
For example, if six extra copies of a letter were needed, the fluid-corrected original would be photocopied, but only for the two recipients getting "c.c."s; the other four copies, the less-important file copies that stayed in various departments at the office, would be cheaper, hand-erased, less-distinct bond paper copies or even "flimsies" of different colors (tissue papers interleaved with black carbon paper) that were all typed as a "carbon pack" at the same time as the original.
Typewriter erasersPackard Bell NEW90 keyboard
The traditional erasing method involved the use of a special typewriter eraser made of hard rubber that contained an abrasive material. Some were thin, flat disks, pink or gray, approximately 2 inches (51 mm) in diameter by 1⁄8 inches (3.2 mm) thick, with a brush attached from the center, while others looked like pink pencils, with a sharpenable eraser at the "lead" end and a stiff nylon brush at the other end. Either way, these tools made possible erasure of individual typed letters. Business letters were typed on heavyweight, high-rag-content bond paper, not merely to provide a luxurious appearance, but also to stand up to erasure. Typewriter eraser brushes were necessary for clearing eraser crumbs and paper dust, HP G62-b57SG Keyboard
and using the brush properly was an important element of typewriting skill; if erasure detritus fell into the typewriter, a small buildup could cause the typebars to jam in their narrow supporting grooves.
Eraser shield
Erasing a set of carbon copies was particularly difficult, and called for the use of a device called an eraser shield (a thin stainless-steel rectangle about 2 by 3 inches (51 by 76 mm) with several tiny holes in it) to prevent the pressure of erasing on the upper copies from producing carbon smudges on the lower copies. Toshiba PK13CW10100 Keyboard
To correct copies, typists had to go from carbon copy to carbon copy, trying not to get their fingers dirty as they leafed through the carbon papers, and moving and repositioning the eraser shield and eraser for each copy.
Erasable bond
Paper companies produced a special form of typewriter paper called erasable bond (for example, Eaton's Corrasable Bond). This incorporated a thin layer of material that prevented ink from penetrating and was relatively soft and easy to remove from the page. An ordinary soft pencil eraser could quickly produce perfect erasures on this kind of paper. However, the same characteristics that made the paper erasable made the characters subject to smudging due to ordinary friction and deliberate alteration after the fact, making it unacceptable for business correspondence, contracts, or any archival use. Dell 0PVDG3 Keyboard
Correction fluid
Main article: Correction fluid
In the 1950s and 1960s, correction fluid made its appearance, under brand names such as Liquid Paper, Wite-Out and Tipp-Ex; it was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham. Correction fluid was a kind of opaque, white, fast-drying paint that produced a fresh white surface onto which, when dry, a correction could be retyped. However, when held to the light, the covered-up characters were visible, as was the patch of dry correction fluid (which was never perfectly flat, and never a perfect match for the color, texture, and luster of the surrounding paper). Sony VAIO VGN-NW270F Keyboard
The standard trick for solving this problem was photocopying the corrected page, but this was possible only with high quality photocopiers. Not surprisingly, given the demand, photocopier quality improved quickly.
Dry correction
Dry correction products (such as correction paper) under brand names such as "Ko-Rec-Type" were introduced in the 1970s and functioned like white carbon paper. A strip of the product was placed over the letters needing correction, and the incorrect letters were retyped, Sony VAIO VPC-F11 Keyboard
causing the black character to be overstruck with a white overcoat. Similar material was soon incorporated in carbon-film electric typewriter ribbons; like the traditional two-color black-and-red inked ribbon common on manual typewriters, a black and white correcting ribbon became commonplace on electric typewriters. But the black or white coating could be partly rubbed off with handling, so such corrections were generally not acceptable in legal documents. ThinkPad Edge E520
The pinnacle of this kind of technology was the IBM Electronic Typewriter series. These machines, and similar products from other manufacturers, used a separate correction ribbon and a character memory. With a single keystroke, the typewriter was capable of automatically backspacing and then overstriking the previous characters with minimal marring of the paper. White cover-up ribbons were used with fabric ink ribbons, or an alternate premium design featured plastic lift-off correction ribbons which were used with carbon film typing ribbons. This latter technology actually lifted the carbon film forming a typed letter, ThinkPad Edge E520s
leaving nothing more than a flattened depression in the surface of the paper, with the advantage that no color matching of the paper was needed.
Legacy
Keyboard layouts
The "QWERTY" layout of typewriter keys became a de facto standard and continues to be used long after the reasons for its adoption (including reduction of key/lever entanglements) have ceased to apply.
QWERTY
The 1874 Sholes & Glidden typewriters established the "QWERTY" layout for the letter keys. During the period in which Sholes and his colleagues were experimenting with this invention, Packard Bell Easynote TK81 keyboard
other keyboard arrangements were apparently tried, but these are poorly documented.[32] The near-alphabetical sequence on the "home row" of the QWERTY layout (a-s-d-f-g-h-j-k-l) demonstrates that a straightforward alphabetical arrangement was the original starting point.[33] The QWERTY layout of keys has become the de facto standard for English-language typewriter and computer keyboards. Other languages written in the Latin alphabet sometimes use variants of the QWERTY layouts, such as the French AZERTY, the Italian QZERTY and the German QWERTZ layouts. Acer Aspire 4535 Keyboard
The QWERTY layout is not the most efficient layout possible, since it requires a touch-typist to move his or her fingers between rows to type the most common letters.
The most likely explanation for the QWERTY arrangement is that it was designed to reduce the likelihood of internal clashing of typebars by placing commonly used combinations of letters farther from each other inside the machine.[33][34] This allowed the user to type faster without jamming. In a mechanical typewriter, the arrangement of typebars is tied to the arrangement of the keys, and two adjacent bars are much more likely to clash if struck together or in a rapid sequence. Toshiba Satellite C650-110 Keyboard
Another story is that the QWERTY layout allowed early typewriter salesmen to impress their customers by being able to easily type out the example word "typewriter" without having learnt the full keyboard layout, because "typewriter" can be spelled purely on the top row of the keyboard.
Other layouts
A number of radically different layouts such as Dvorak have been proposed to reduce the perceived inefficiencies of QWERTY, but none have been able to displace the QWERTY layout; their proponents claim considerable advantages, Toshiba Satellite C650-182 Keyboard
but so far none has been widely used. The Blickensderfer typewriter with its DHIATENSOR layout may have possibly been the first attempt at optimizing the keyboard layout for efficiency advantages.
Many non-Latin alphabets have keyboard layouts that have nothing to do with QWERTY. The Russian layout, for instance, puts the common trigrams ыва, про, and ить on adjacent keys so that they can be typed by rolling the fingers. The Greek layout, on the other hand, is a variant of QWERTY.
Typewriters were also made for East Asian languages with thousands of characters, such as Chinese or Japanese. They were not easy to operate, Toshiba Satellite U305-S2808 Keyboard
but professional typists used them for a long time until the development of electronic word processors and laser printers in the 1980s. See the "Gallery" at the end of this article for pictures of East Asian mechanical typewriters.
On modern keyboards, the exclamation point is the shifted character on the 1 key, a direct result of the historical fact that these were the last characters to become "standard" on keyboards. Holding the spacebar pressed down usually suspended the carriage advance mechanism (a so-called "dead key" feature), Toshiba Satellite U305-S2804 Keyboard
allowing one to superimpose multiple keystrikes on a single location. The ¢ symbol (meaning cents) was located above the number 6 on old typewriters, while modern keyboards now have ^ instead.
Typewriter conventions
Illustration of a number of typographic conventions stemming from the mechanical limitations of the typewriter: two hyphens in place of an em dash, double sentence spacing, straight quotation marks, tab indents for paragraphs, and double carriage returns between paragraphs
A number of typographical conventions originate from the widespread use of the typewriter, based on the characteristics and limitations of the typewriter itself. HP Pavilion dv6-3143cl Keyboard
For example, the QWERTY keyboard typewriter did not include keys for the en dash and the em dash. To overcome this limitation, users typically typed more than one adjacent hyphen to approximate these symbols. This typewriter convention is still sometimes used today, even though modern computer word processing applications can input the correct en and em dashes for each font type.[35] Other examples of typewriter practices that are sometimes still used in desktop publishing systems include inserting a double space at Toshiba Satellite U305-S2804 Keyboard
the end of a sentence,[36][37] and the use of straight quotes (or "dumb quotes") as quotation marks and prime marks.[38] The practice of underlining text in place of italics and the use of all capitals to provide emphasis are additional examples of typographical conventions that derived from the limitations of the typewriter keyboard that still carry on today.[39]
Many older typewriters did not include a separate key for the numeral 1 or the exclamation point, and some even older ones also lack the numeral zero. Typists who trained on these machines learned the habit of using the lowercase letter l ("ell") for the digitHP G72-b61NR Keyboard
1, and the uppercase O for the zero. A cents symbol (¢) was created by combining (over-striking) a lower case 'c' with a slash character (typing 'c', then backspace, then '/'). Similarly, the exclamation point was created by combining an apostrophe and a period.[40] These characters were omitted to simplify design and reduce manufacturing and maintenance costs; they were chosen specifically because they were "redundant" and could be recreated using other keys.
Computer jargon
Some terminology from the typewriter age has survived into the personal computer era. Examples include: Toshiba N860-7630-T101-03A Keyboard
backspace (BS) – a keystroke that moved the cursor backwards one position (on a physical platen, this is the exact opposite of the space key), for the purpose of overtyping a character. This could be for combining characters (e.g. an apostrophe, backspace, and period make an exclamation point—a character missing on some early typewriters), or for correction such as with the correcting tape that developed later.
carriage return (CR) – indicating an end of line and return to the first column of text. Toshiba Satellite M645-SP4161 Keyboard
cursor – a marker used to indicate where the next character will be printed. The cursor, however, was originally a term to describe the clear slider on a slide rule.
cut and paste – taking text, a numerical table, or an image and pasting it into a document. The term originated when such compound documents were created using manual paste up techniques for typographic page layout. Actual brushes and paste were later replaced by hot-wax machines equipped with cylinders that applied melted adhesive wax to developed prints of "typeset" copy. This copy was then cut out with knives and rulers, Lenovo 45N2106
and slid into position on layout sheets on slanting layout tables. After the "copy" had been correctly positioned and squared up using a T-square and set square, it was pressed down with a brayer, or roller. The whole point of the exercise was to create so-called "camera-ready copy" which existed only to be photographed and then printed, usually by offset lithography.
dead key – describes a key that when typed, does not advance the typing position, thus allowing another character to be overstruck on top of the original character. This typically was used to combine diacritical marks with HP Pavilion G7-1033CL keyboard
letters they modified (e.g. è can be generated by first pressing ` and then e). The dead key feature was often implemented mechanically by having the typist press and hold the space bar while typing the characters to be superimposed.
line feed (LF), also called "newline" – moving the cursor to the next on-screen line of text in a word processor document.
shift – a modifier key used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper case" characters; when pressed and held down, Lenovo 3000 Y510a 15303
would shift a typewriter's mechanism to allow a different typebar impression (such as 'D' instead of 'd') to press into the ribbon and print on a page. The concept of a shift key or modifier key was later extended to Ctrl, Alt, and Super ("Windows" or "Apple") keys on modern computer keyboards. The generalized concept of a shift key reached its apotheosis in the MIT space-cadet keyboard.
tab (HT), shortened from "horizontal tab" or "tabulator stop" – caused the print position to advance horizontally to the next pre-set "tab stop". HP Envy 15-1021tx Keyboard
This was used for typing lists and tables with vertical columns of numbers or words. The related term "vertical tab" (VT) never came into widespread use.
tty, short for teletypewriter – used in Unix-like operating systems to designate a given "terminal".
In the above listing, the two-letter codes in parentheses are abbreviations for the ASCII characters derived from typewriter usage.
Early social effects
"Get out! Can't you see I'm busy." Early 20th century humorous postcard; boss man puts his arm around female typist.
When Remington first started marketing typewriters, HP Mini 210-1102TU Keyboard
the company assumed the machine would not be used for composing but for transcribing dictation, and that the person typing would be a woman. Flowers were printed on the casing of early models to make the machine seem more comfortable for women to use.
In the United States, women often started in the professional workforce as typists (called "typewriters" then); in fact, according to the 1910 U.S. census, 81 percent of typists were female. With more women coming out of the home and into offices, Toshiba Satellite L775-S7309 Keyboard
there was some concern about the effects this would have on the morals of society. The "typewriter girl" became part of the iconography of the early-20th-century office. The "Tijuana bibles" — adult comic books produced in Mexico for the American market, starting in the 1930s — often featured women typists. In one panel, a businessman in a three-piece suit, ogling his secretary’s thigh, says, "Miss Higby, are you ready for—ahem!—er—dictation?"[16]
In spite of these jokes, becoming a typist was one of the few "respectable" jobs an unmarried woman could hold outside the home; Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
the few other choices included teaching, and possibly retail salesgirl.
The famous quote by Marcus Glenn, "Live by the typewriter, die by the typewriter!" also dates from this period.[citation needed]
Authors and writers who had unusual relationships with typewriters
Early adopters
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used a typewriter in an attempt to stem his migraine headaches and his incipient blindness. HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
Mark Twain claimed in his autobiography that he was the first important writer to present a publisher with a typewritten manuscript, for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Typewriter collector and historian Darryl Rehr challenges his claim, stating that Twain's memory was faulty and that the first novel submitted in typed form was Life on the Mississippi (1883, also by Twain).[41]
Henry James dictated to a typist.[16] HP Probook 4320s Keyboard
English actress Fanny Kemble, after settling in the United States, wrote regularly for the Atlantic Monthly. She used the earliest Remington typewriter to produce typescripts. In correspondence between Kemble and her nephew Owen Wister (later author of "The Virginian") he asks about - and she describes - her "writing machine."[citation needed]
OthersHP Pavilion dv6-3013tx Keyboard
William Faulkner's Underwood Universal Portable sits in his office at Rowan Oak, which is now maintained by the University of Mississippi in Oxford as a museum.
E. E. Cummings may have been the first poet to deliberately use a typewriter for poetic effect. His grasshopper poem is perhaps the most famous example.
William S. Burroughs wrote in some of his novels — and possibly believed — that "a machine he called the 'Soft Typewriter' was writing our lives, and our books, into existence," according to a book review in The New Yorker. And, in the film adaptation of his novel, Naked Lunch, his typewriter is a living, insect-like entity (voiced by Canadian actor Peter Boretski) Sony 148084122 Keyboard
and actually dictates the book to him.
Writer Zack Helm and director Mark Forster explored the potential mechanics of the "Soft Typewriter" philosophy in the movie Stranger than Fiction ... in which the very act of typing up her handwritten notes gives a fiction writer the power to kill or otherwise manipulate her main character in real life.[citation needed]
Ernest Hemingway used to write his books standing up in front of a Royal typewriter suitably placed on a tall bookshelf. This typewriter, still on its bookshelf, is kept in Finca Vigia, Hemingway's Havana house (now a museum) where he lived until 1960, the year before his death. HP G62-b80SB Keyboard
Jack Kerouac, a fast typist at 100 words per minute, typed On the Road on a roll of paper so he would not be interrupted by having to change the paper. Within two weeks of starting to write On the Road, Kerouac had one single-spaced paragraph, 120 feet long. Some scholars say the scroll was shelf paper; others contend it was a Thermo-fax roll; another theory is that the roll consisted of sheets of architect’s paper taped together.[16]
Another fast typist of the Beat Generation was Richard Brautigan, Toshiba Tecra M10-S3453 Keyboard
who said that he thought out the plots of his books in detail beforehand, then typed them out at speeds approaching 90 to 100 words a minute.[42]
Tom Robbins waxed philosophical about the Remington SL3, a typewriter that he bought to write Still Life with Woodpecker. He eventually did away with it because it is too complicated and inhuman for the writing of poetry.
After completing the novel Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen is said to have flung his typewriter into the Aegean Sea.[citation needed] Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
Don Marquis purposely used the limitations of a typewriter (or more precisely, a particular typist) in his archy and mehitabel series of newspaper columns, which were later compiled into a series of books. According to his literary conceit, a cockroach named "Archy" was a reincarnated free-verse poet, who would type articles overnight by jumping onto the keys of a manual typewriter. The writings were typed completely in lower case, because of the cockroach's inability to generate the heavy force needed to operate the shift key. HP Pavilion dv6-3034ca Keyboard
The lone exception is the poem "CAPITALS AT LAST" from archys life of mehitabel, written in 1933.
Late users
Andy Rooney and William F. Buckley Jr. (1982) were among many writers who were very reluctant to switch from typewriters to computers.
David McCullough bought himself a second-hand Royal typewriter in 1965 and it has been the sole piece of technology in producing the manuscripts of every book this two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author has published. Sony VAIO VGN-FS515B Keyboard
Hunter S. Thompson kept a typewriter in his kitchen and is believed to have written his "Hey, Rube!" column for ESPN.com on a typewriter. He used a typewriter until his suicide in 2005.
Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, wrote his manifesto as well as his letters on a manual typewriter.
David Sedaris used a typewriter to write his essay collections through Me Talk Pretty One Day at least.
Richard Polt, a philosophy professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati who collects typewriters, Sony VAIO VGN-FS515BR Keyboard
edits ETCetera, a quarterly magazine about historic writing machines.
William Gibson used a Hermes 2000 model manual typewriter to write Neuromancer and half of Count Zero before a mechanical failure and lack of replacement parts forced him to upgrade to an Apple IIc computer.[43]
Harlan Ellison has used typewriters for his entire career, and when he was no longer able to have them repaired, learned to do it himself; he has repeatedly stated his belief that computers are bad for writing, maintaining, "Art is not supposed to be easier!"[44] Acer Aspire One D150-1Br Keyboard
Author Cormac McCarthy continues to write his novels on an Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter to the present day. In 2009, the Lettera he obtained from a pawn shop in 1963, on which nearly all his novels and screenplays have been written, was auctioned for charity at Christie's for $254,500 USD;[45] McCarthy obtained an identical replacement for $20 to continue writing on.[46]
Will Self explains why he uses a manual typewriter: Acer NSK-AFA3D Keyboard
"I think the computer user does their thinking on the screen, and the non-computer user is compelled, because he or she has to retype a whole text, to do a lot more thinking in the head.".[47]
Typewriters in popular culture
In music
The composer Pablo Sorozábal includes in a scene of his zarzuela La eterna canción (1945) a typewriter, accompanied by an orchestra and vocal soloists: the scene is in a police station, where a policeman is deposing witnesses, and is singing while he types the report. Sony Vaio PCG-K215Z Keyboard
The composer Leroy Anderson wrote The Typewriter (1950) for orchestra and typewriter, and it has since been used as the theme for numerous radio programs. The solo instrument is a real typewriter played by a percussionist.
The Lovin' Spoonful used a typewriter, complete with carriage return bell, as a percussion instrument on their song "Money" (1968)
An Estonian prog-rock band In Spe features typewriters as a rhythmic instruments in their album Typewriter Concerto in D Major (1994) HP Pavilion G6-1202AU Keyboard
A suite of songs entitled "Green Typewriters" is on The Olivia Tremor Control's album Dusk At Cubist Castle (1996), and the sounds of typewriters can be heard in a few of the sections.
American singer-songwriter Marian Call accompanies herself on a typewriter on "Nerd Anthem"
American musician Beck's 2005 music video for 'Black Tambourine' features typewriter characters to animate Beck moving and playing guitar. Acer Aspire 7741Z Keyboard
The title track of Heernt's 2006 album Locked in a Basement prominently features the typewriter as a percussion instrument.
The "Boston Typewriter Orchestra" (BTO) has performed at numerous art festivals, clubs, and parties since at least 2008.[48][49] The group consists of a half-dozen performers who use typewriters as percussive musical instruments, under the slogan, "The revolution will be typewritten".[48]
OtherAcer Aspire 7741ZG Keyboard
The word "typewriter" is often cited as the longest English word that can be typed using only one row of keys of a QWERTY keyboard. This is untrue, since "rupturewort" (a kind of flowering plant) has 11 letters, while "typewriter" has only 10. Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary defines "uropyoureter" (12 letters).
Typewriters are used to write typecast blogs in which text is typed on a manual typewriter and then scanned for posting on blogs, a practice called typecasting. Acer TravelMate 2354 Keyboard
A sentence which uses every letter of the alphabet (a pangram), "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" can be used to check typewriters quickly.
The early Resident Evil video games used a typewriter as the save feature, and used one ink ribbon per save.
The opening title sequence of Murder She Wrote prominently features Jessica Fletcher touch typing a manuscript with a 1940's style Royal Typewriter. Although in one episode Fletcher rejects a character's offer to sell her a computer to replace the old Royal (which he calls a "dinosaur"), towards the series end, she, too begins using a computer and word processing typewriter. HP AESP7U00110 Keyboard
In Rome the Altare della Patria, National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, used to be nicknamed "the typewriter" because of its strange shape and popular dislike.
Forensic examination
Typewritten documents may be examined by forensic document examiners. This is done primarily to determine 1) the make and/or model of the typewriter used to produce a document, or 2) whether or not a particular suspect typewriter might have been used to produce a document.[50] In some situations, an ink or correction ribbon may also be examined. HP Pavilion dv6-3140sa Keyboard
The determination of a make and/or model of typewriter is a 'classification' problem and several systems have been developed for this purpose.[50] These include the original Haas Typewriter Atlases (Pica version)[51] and (Non-Pica version)[52] and the TYPE system developed by Dr. Philip Bouffard,[53] the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Termatrex Typewriter classification system,[54] and the Interpol's Typewriter classification system,[55] among others.[50]
Because of the tolerances of the mechanical parts, slight variation in the alignment of the letters and their uneven wear, each typewriter has an individual "signature" or "fingerprint", SamsungNP-Q320-JS01UK Keyboard
which may permit a typewritten document to be traced back to the typewriter on which it was produced. For devices utilizing replaceable components, such as a typeball element, any association may be restricted to a specific element, rather than to the typewriter as a whole.
The earliest reference in fictional literature to the potential identification of a typewriter as having produced a document was by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote "A Case of Identity" in 1891.[56] In non-fiction, the first document examiner[56] to describe how a typewriter might be identified was William E. Hagan who wrote, in 1894, "All typewriter machines, Sony VAIO VGN-FZ140N Keyboard
even when using the same kind of type, become more or less peculiar by use as to the work done by them".[57] Other early discussions of the topic were provided by A.S. Osborn in his 1908 treatise, Typewriting as Evidence,[58] and again in his 1929 textbook, Questioned Documents.[59] A modern description of the examination procedure is laid out in ASTM Standard E2494-08 (Standard Guide for Examination of Typewritten Items).[60]
Typewriter examination was used in the Leopold and Loeb and Alger Hiss cases. In the Eastern Bloc, typewriters (together with printing presses, copy machines, and later computer printers) were a controlled technology, with secret police in charge of maintaining files of the typewriters and their owners. Sony VAIO VGN-FZ140NB Keyboard
In the Soviet Union, the First Department of each organization sent data on organization's typewriters to the KGB. This posed a significant risk for dissidents and samizdat authors.
The ribbon can be read vertically, although only if it has not been typed over more than once. This can be very hard to do as it does not include spaces, but can be done, giving even a typewriter a "memory".
Xerox was founded in 1906 in Rochester as The Haloid Photographic Company,[6] which originally manufactured photographic paper and equipment. The company subsequently changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958 and then simply Xerox in 1961.[7] Xerography, a modern word meaning "dry writing" developed from two Greek roots, is the name of the process invented in 1938 and developed by the Haloid Company. The company came to prominence in 1959 with the introduction of the Xerox 914,[8] the first plain paper photocopier using the process of Electro-photography, (later changed to xerography) discovered by Chester Carlson, which he developed with John H. Dessauer.[9] Sony VAIO VGN-SZ740N Keyboard
The 914 was so popular that by the end of 1961 Xerox had almost $60 million in revenue. Revenues leaped to over $500 million by 1965. Before releasing the 914, Xerox had tested the market by introducing a developed version of the prototype Hand equipment known as the Flat-plate 1385. This was followed by the first automatic xerographic printer, the Copyflo, in 1955. The Copyflo was a large microfilm printer which could produce positive prints on roll paper from any type of microfilm negative. Following the Copyflo, the process was scaled down to produce the 1824 microfilm printer. HP Pavilion dv6-3014tu Keyboard
At about half the size and weight this still sizable machine printed onto hand fed, cut sheet paper which was pulled through the process by one of two gripper bars. A scaled down version of this gripper feed system was to become the basis for the 813 desktop copier.
In 1963 Xerox introduced the Xerox 813, the first desktop plain-paper copier, bringing Carlson's vision of a copier that could fit on anyone's office desk into a reality. HP Pavilion dv6-3014so Keyboard
Ten years later in 1973, a basic, analogue, color copier, based on the 914, followed. The 914 itself was gradually sped up to become the 420 and 720. The 813 was similarly developed into the 330 and 660 products and, eventually, also the 740 desktop microfiche printer.
Chester Carlson's original hand equipment, which saw the market as the 1385 Flatplate, was not actually a viable copier because of its speed of operation. In consequence it was sold as a platemaker to the offset lithography market. It was little more than a high quality, commercially available plate camera mounted as a horizontal rostrum camera, complete with photo-flood lighting and timer. The glass film/plate had been replaced with a selenium coated aluminum plate. Clever electrics turned this into a quick developing and reusable substitute for film. HP Pavilion dv6-3014sl Keyboard
A skilled user could produce fast, paper and metal printing plates of a higher quality than almost any other method. Having started as a supplier to the offset litho. duplicating industry, Xerox now set its sights on capturing some of offset's market share.
Xerox's first foray into duplicating, as distinct from copying, was with the Xerox 2400. This number denoted the number of prints produced in an hour. Although still some way short of offset speeds, this machine introduced the industry's first Automatic Document Feeder, Slitter/Perforator, and Collator (sorter). HP Pavilion dv6-3013tx Keyboard
This product was soon sped up by fifty percent to become the Xerox 3600 Duplicator.
Meanwhile, a small lab team was borrowing 914 copiers and modifying them. The lab was working on a project called the "Long Distance Xerography" project (LDX for short). The aim was to be able to connect two copiers together via the public telephone network, such that a document scanned on one machine would be copied out on the other. Many years later this work came to fruition in the Xerox Telecopiers, seminal to today's fax machines. The fax operation in today's multifunction copiers is true to Carlson's original vision for these devices. The company expanded substantially throughout the 1960s, HP Pavilion dv6-3013tu Keyboard
making millionaires of some long-suffering investors who had nursed the company through the slow research and development phase of the product. In 1960 a xerography research facility called the Wilson Center for Research and Technology was opened in Webster, New York. In 1961 the company changed its name to Xerox Corporation. Xerox common stock (XRX) was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1961 and on the Chicago Stock Exchange in 1990.
In 1969, Xerox acquired Scientific Data Systems [SDS], and produced the Sigma line of 32-bit mainframe computers in the 1960s and 1970s. HP Pavilion dv6-3013so Keyboard
The laser printer was invented in 1969 by Xerox researcher Gary Starkweather by modifying a Xerox copier. This development resulted in the first commercially available laser printer, the Xerox 9700, being launched in 1977. Laser printing eventually became a multi billion dollar business for Xerox. Archie McCardell was named president of the company in 1971.[10] During his tenure, Xerox introduced the Xerox 6500, its first color copier.[11] During McCardell's reign at Xerox, the company announced record revenues, earnings and profits in 1973, 1974, and 1975.[12] John Carrol became a backer, later spreading the company throughout North America. HP Pavilion dv6-3013sl Keyboard
Following these years of record profits, in 1975 Xerox resolved an anti-trust suit with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which at the time was under the direction of Frederic M. Scherer. The Xerox consent decree resulted in the forced licensing of the company’s entire patent portfolio, mainly to Japanese competitors. Within four years of the consent decree, Xerox's share of the U.S. copier market dropped from nearly 100% to less than 14%.HP Pavilion dv6-3013nr Keyboard
In 1970, under company president Charles Peter McColough, Xerox opened the Xerox PARC (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) research facility. The facility developed many modern computing technologies such as the graphical user interface (GUI), Laser printing, WYSIWYG text editors and Ethernet. From these inventions, Xerox PARC created the Xerox Alto in 1973, a small minicomputer similar to a modern workstation or personal computer. This machine can be considered the first true Personal Computer, given its versatile combination of a cathode-ray-type screen, mouse-type pointing device, and a QWERTY-type alphanumeric keyboard. But the Alto was never commercially sold, HP Pavilion dv6-3013eg Keyboard
as Xerox itself could not see the sales potential of it. It was, however, installed in Xerox's own offices, worldwide and those of the US Government and military, who could see the potential. Within these sites the individual workstations were connected together by Xerox's own unique LAN, The Ethernet. Data was sent around this system of heavy, yellow, low loss coaxial cable using the packet data system. In addition, PARC also developed one of the earliest internetworking protocol suites, the PARC Universal Packet. HP Pavilion dv6-3013cl Keyboard
In 1979, Steve Jobs made a deal with Xerox's venture capital division: He would let them invest $1 million in exchange for a look at the technology they were working on. Jobs and the others saw the commercial potential of the WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu, and Pointing device) system and redirected development of the Apple Lisa to incorporate these technologies. Jobs is quoted as saying, "They just had no idea what they had." In 1980, Jobs invited several key PARC researchers to join his company so that they could fully develop and implement their ideas. HP Pavilion dv6-3013ax Keyboard
laptop keyboard
.Aries (constellation)
Best visible at 21:00 (9 p.m.) during the month of December.
Aries is one of the constellations of the zodiac, the groups of stars through which the apparent course of the sun passes during the year. It is located in the Northern Hemisphere between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east. The name Aries is Latin for ram, and its symbol is (Unicode ♈), representing a ram's horns. Sony Vaio PCG-K23 Keyboard
It is one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is a mid-sized constellation, ranking 39th overall size, with an area of 441 square degrees (1.1% of the celestial sphere).
Although Aries came to represent specifically the ram whose fleece became the Golden Fleece of Ancient Greek mythology, it has represented a ram since late Babylonian times. Pior to that, the stars of Aries were perceived to form a farmhand. Different cultures have incorporated the stars of Aries into different constellations including twin inspectors in China and a porpoise in the Marshall Islands. HP Pavilion dv5-1115es Keyboard
Aries is a relatively dim constellation, possessing only three bright stars: Hamal (Alpha Arietis, second magnitude), Sheratan (Beta Arietis, third magnitude), and Mesartim (Gamma Arietis, fourth magnitude). The few deep-sky objects within the constellation are quite faint and include several pairs of interacting galaxies. Several meteor showers appear to radiate from Aries, including the Daytime Arietids and the Epsilon Arietids.
Aries is now recognized as an official constellation, albeit as a specific region of the sky, by the International Astronomical Union. Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
It was originally defined in ancient texts as a specific pattern of stars, and has remained a constellation since ancient times; it now includes the ancient pattern as well as the surrounding stars.[4] In the description of the Babylonian zodiac given in the clay tablets known as the MUL.APIN, the constellation now known as Aries was the final station along the ecliptic. The MUL.APIN was a comprehensive table of the risings and settings of stars, which likely served as an agricultural calendar. Modern-day Aries was known as MULLÚ.ḪUN.GÁ, "The Agrarian Worker" or "The Hired Man".[5] Although likely compiled in the 12th or 11th century BCE, the MUL.APIN reflects a tradition which marks the Pleiades as the vernal equinox, Dell NSK-DP101 Keyboard
which was the case with some precision at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. The earliest identifiable reference to Aries as a distinct constellation comes from the boundary stones that date from 1350 to 1000 BCE. On several boundary stones, a zodiacal ram figure is distinct from the other characters present. The shift in identification from the constellation as the Agrarian Worker to the Ram likely occurred in later Babylonian tradition because of its growing association with Dumuzi the Shepherd. By the time the MUL.APIN was created—by 1000 BCE—modern Aries was identified with both Dumuzi's ram and a hired laborer. The exact timing of this shift is difficult to determine due to the lack of images of Aries or other ram figures.[6] Acer Aspire 2023WLMi Keyboard
In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Aries was associated with the god Amon-Ra, who was depicted as a man with a ram's head and represented fertility and creativity. Because it was the location of the vernal equinox, it was called the "Indicator of the Reborn Sun".[7] During the times of the year when Aries was prominent, priests would process statues of Amon-Ra to temples, a practice that was modified by Persian astronomers centuries later. Aries acquired the title of "Lord of the Head" in Egypt, referring to its symbolic and mythological importance.[8] Toshiba Satellite L755-S5214 Keyboard
Aries and Musca Borealis as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825
Aries was not fully accepted as a constellation until classical times.[9] In Hellenistic astrology, the constellation of Aries is associated with the golden ram of Greek mythology that rescued Phrixos and Helle on orders from Mercury, taking him to the land of Colchis.[10][11][12] Phrixos and Helle were the son and daughter of King Athamas and his first wife Nephele. The king's second wife, Ino, was jealous and wished to kill his children. To accomplish this, HP Pavilion G6-1B79DX Keyboard
she induced a famine in Boeotia, then falsified a message from the Oracle of Delphi that said Phrixos must be sacrificed to end the famine. Athamas was about to sacrifice his son atop Mount Laphystium when Aries, sent by Nephele, arrived.[13] Helle fell off of Aries's back in flight and drowned in the Dardanelles, also called the Hellespont in her honor. After arriving, Phrixos sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the Fleece to Aeëtes of Colchis, NC6320
who rewarded him with an engagement to his daughter Chalciope. Aeëtes hung its skin in a sacred place where it became known as the Golden Fleece and was guarded by a dragon.[2][10] The Golden Fleece was then stolen by Jason and the Argonauts.[12]
Historically, Aries has been depicted as a crouched, wingless ram with its head turned towards Taurus. Ptolemy asserted in his Almagest that Hipparchus depicted Alpha Arietis as the ram's muzzle, though Ptolemy did not include it in his constellation figure. HP Pavilion dm3 Keyboard
Instead, it was listed as an "unformed star", and denoted as "the star over the head". John Flamsteed, in his Atlas Coelestis, followed Ptolemy's description by mapping it above the figure's head.[13][14] Flamsteed followed the general convention of maps by depicting Aries laying down.[7] Astrologically, Aries has been associated with the head and its humors.[15] It was strongly associated with Mars, both the planet and the god. It was considered to govern Western Europe and Syria, and to indicate a strong temper in a person.[16] HP Pavilion dv6-2125ez Keyboard
The First Point of Aries, the location of the vernal equinox, is named for the constellation. This is because the Sun crossed the celestial equator from south to north in Aries more than two millennia ago. Hipparchus defined it in 130 B.C.E. as a point south of Gamma Arietis. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the First Point of Aries has since moved into Pisces and will move into Aquarius by around 2600 C.E. The Sun now appears in Aries from late April through mid May, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of spring.[11][13][17]
Medieval Muslim astronomers depicted Aries in various ways. Toshiba Satellite U305-S5127 Keyboard
Astronomers like al-Sufi saw the constellation as a ram, modeled on the precedent of Ptolemy. However, some Islamic celestial globes depicted Aries as a nondescript four-legged animal with what may be antlers instead of horns.[18] Some early Bedouin observers saw a ram elsewhere in the sky; this constellation featured the Pleiades as the ram's tail.[19] The generally accepted Arabic formation of Aries consisted of thirteen stars in a figure along with five "unformed" stars, four of which were over the animal's hindquarters and one of which was the disputed star over Aries's head.[20] Al-Sufi's depiction differed from both other Arab astronomers' and Flamsteed's, in that his Aries was running and looking behind itself.[7] Packard Bell Easynote TM99 keyboard
The obsolete constellations introduced in Aries (Musca Borealis, Vespa, and Apis) have all been composed of the northern stars.[21] Musca Borealis was created from the stars 33 Arietis, 35 Arietis, 39 Arietis, and 41 Arietis.[22] In 1612, Petrus Plancius introduced Apis, a constellation representing a bee. In 1624, the same stars were used by Jakob Bartsch to create a constellation called Vespa, representing a wasp. Neither constellation became widely accepted. Johann Hevelius renamed the constellation "Musca" in 1690 in his Firmamentum Sobiescianum. To differentiate it from Musca, the southern fly, it was later renamed Musca Borealis but it did not gain acceptance and its stars were ultimately officially reabsorbed into Aries.[22] Sony VAIO VGN-N365E/B Keyboard
In 1922, the IAU defined its recommended three-letter abbreviation, "Ari".[1] The official boundaries of Aries were defined in 1930 by Eugène Delporte as a polygon of 12 segments. Its right ascension is between 1h 46.4m and 3h 29.4m and its declination is between 10.36° and 31.22° in the equatorial coordinate system.[23]
[edit]In non-Western astronomy
In traditional Chinese astronomy, stars from Aries were used in several constellations. The brightest stars—Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis—formed a constellation called Lou, variously translated as "bond", "lasso", and "sickle",Sony VAIO VGN-N170G/T Keyboard
which was associated with the ritual sacrifice of cattle. This name was shared by the 16th lunar mansion, the location of the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. The lunar mansion represented the area where animals were gathered before sacrifice around that time.[13] This constellation has also been associated with harvest-time as it could represent a woman carrying a basket of food on her head.[7] 35, 39, and 41 Arietis were part of a constellation called Wei, which represented a fat abdomen and was the namesake of the 17th lunar mansion, Dell Vostro 3450 Keyboard
which represented granaries. Delta and Zeta Arietis were a part of the constellation Tianyin, thought to represent the Emperor's hunting partner. Zuogeng (Tso-kang), a constellation depicting a marsh and pond inspector, was composed of Mu, Nu, Omicron, Pi, and Sigma Arietis.[7][13] He was accompanied by Yeou-kang, a constellation depicting an official in charge of pasture distribution.[7]
In a similar system to the Chinese, the first lunar mansion in Hindu astronomy was called "Aswini", after the traditional names for Beta and Gamma Arietis, the Aswins. Because the Hindu new year began with the vernal equinox, Pavilion dv6-3022ee
the Rig Veda contains over 50 new-year's related hymns to the twins, making them some of the most prominent characters in the work. Aries itself was known as "Aja" and "Mesha".[16] The Hebrew people named Aries "Teli"; it signified either Simeon or Gad, and generally symbolizes the "Lamb of the World". The neighboring Syrians named the constellation "Amru", and the bordering Turks named it "Kuzi".[16] Half a world away, in the Marshall Islands, several stars from Aries were incorporated into a constellation depicting a porpoise, along with stars from Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Triangulum. HP Pavilion dv5t-1200se CTO Keyboard
Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis formed the head of the porpoise, while stars from Andromeda formed the body and the bright stars of Cassiopeia formed the tail.[24] In indigenous Peruvian astronomy, a constellation with most of the same stars as Aries existed. It was called the "Market Moon" and the "Kneeling Terrace", as a reminder for when to hold the annual harvest festival, Ayri Huay.[16]
Notable featuresSony VGN-FE790G/N Keyboard
The constellation Aries as it can be seen with the naked eye
Further information: List of stars in Aries
Aries has three prominent stars, designated Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis by Johann Bayer. All three are commonly used for navigation.[25] α Arietis, called Hamal, is the brightest star in Aries. Its traditional name is derived from the Arabic word for "lamb" or "head of the ram" (ras al-hamal), which references Aries's mythological background.[17] With a spectral class of K2[12] and a luminosity class of III, it is an orange giant with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.00, which lies 66 light-years from Earth.[11][26] Hamal has a luminosity of 96 L☉Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
and its absolute magnitude is −0.1.[27]
β Arietis, also known as Sheratan, is a blue-white star with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.64. Its traditional name is derived from "sharatayn", the Arabic word for "the two signs", referring to both Beta and Gamma Arietis in their position as heralds of the vernal equinox. The two stars were known to the Bedouin as "qarna al-hamal", "horns of the ram".[28] It is 59 light-years from Earth.[29] It has a luminosity of 11 L☉ and its absolute magnitude is 2.1.[27] It is a spectroscopic binary star, 45N2141
one in which the companion star is only known through analysis of the spectra.[30] The spectral class of the primary is A5.[12] Hermann Carl Vogel determined that Sheratan was a spectroscopic binary in 1903; its orbit was determined by Hans Ludendorff in 1907. It has since been studied for its eccentric orbit.[30]
γ Arietis, with a common name of Mesartim, is a binary star with two white-hued components, located in a rich field of magnitude 8–12 stars. Its traditional name has conflicting derivations. It may be derived from a corruption of "al-sharatan", the Arabic word meaning "pair" or a word for "fat ram".[13][17][31] However, Compaq Presario CQ50-142US Keyboard
it may also come from the Sanskrit for "first star of Aries" or the Hebrew for "ministerial servants", both of which are unusual languages of origin for star names.[17] Along with Beta Arietis, it was known to the Bedouin as "qarna al-hamal".[28] The primary is of magnitude 4.59 and the secondary is of magnitude 4.68.[27] The system is 164 light-years from Earth.[32] The two components are separated by 7.8 arcseconds,[2] and the system as a whole has an apparent magnitude of 3.9.[12] The primary has a luminosity of 60 L☉ 45N2141and the secondary has a luminosity of 56 L☉; the primary is an A-type star with an absolute magnitude of 0.2 and the secondary is a B9-type star with an absolute magnitude of 0.4.[27] The angle between the two components is 1°.[2] Mesartim was discovered to be a double star by Robert Hooke in 1664, one of the earliest such telescopic discoveries. The primary, γ1 Arietis, is an Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variable star that has a range of 0.02 magnitudes and a period of 2.607 days. It is unusual because of its strong silicon emission lines.[30] Toshiba MP-09N13US-698 Keyboard
The constellation is home to several double stars, including Epsilon, Lambda, and Pi Arietis. ε Arietis is a binary star with two white components. The primary is of magnitude 5.2 and the secondary is of magnitude 5.5. The system is 290 light-years from Earth.[11] Its overall magnitude is 4.63, and the primary has an absolute magnitude of 1.4. Its spectral class is A2. The two components are separated by 1.5 arcseconds.[27] λ Arietis is a wide double star with a white-hued primary and a yellow-hued secondary. The primary is of magnitude 4.8 and the secondary is of magnitude 7.3.[11] Acer Aspire 3680 Keyboard
The primary is 129 light-years from Earth.[33] It has an absolute magnitude of 1.7 and a spectral class of F0.[27] The two components are separated by 36 arcseconds at an angle of 50°; the two stars are located 0.5° east of 7 Arietis.[2] π Arietis is a close binary star with a blue-white primary and a white secondary. The primary is of magnitude 5.3 and the secondary is of magnitude 8.5.[11] The primary is 776 light-years from Earth.[34] The primary itself is a wide double star with a separation of 25.2 arcseconds; the tertiary has a magnitude of 10.8. The primary and secondary are separated by 3.2 arcseconds.[27] HP Pavilion G6-1119TU Keyboard
Most of the other stars in Aries visible to the naked eye have magnitudes between 3 and 5. δ Ari, called Boteïn, is a star of magnitude 4.35, 170 light-years away. It has an absolute magnitude of −0.1 and a spectral class of K2.[27][35] ζ Arietis is a star of magnitude 4.89, 263 light-years away. Its spectral class is A0 and its absolute magnitude is 0.0.[27][36] 14 Arietis is a star of magnitude 4.98, 288 light-years away. Its spectral class is F2 and its absolute magnitude is 0.6.[27][37] 39 Arietis is a similar star of magnitude 4.51, 172 light-years away. Sony VAIO VGN-CR120E Keyboard
Its spectral class is K1 and its absolute magnitude is 0.0.[27][38] 35 Arietis is a dim star of magnitude 4.55, 343 light-years away. Its spectral class is B3 and its absolute magnitude is −1.7.[27][39] 41 Arietis, known both as c Arietis and Nair al Butain, is a brighter star of magnitude 3.63, 165 light-years away. Its spectral class is B8 and it has a luminosity of 105 L☉. Its absolute magnitude is −0.2.[27][40] 53 Arietis is a runaway star of magnitude 6.09, 815 light-years away.[30][41] Its spectral class is B2. It was likely ejected from the Orion Nebula approximately five million years ago, possibly due to supernovae.[30] Finally, Acer Aspire 4736G Keyboard
Teegarden's Star is the closest star to Earth in Aries. It is a brown dwarf of magnitude 15.14 and spectral class M6.5V. With a proper motion of 5.1 arcseconds per year, it is the 24th closest star to Earth overall.[3]
Aries has its share of variable stars, including R and U Arietis, Mira-type variable stars, and T Arietis, a semi-regular variable star. R Arietis is a Mira variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 13.7 to a maximum of 7.4 with a period of 186.8 days.[27] It is 4,080 light-years away.[42] U Arietis is another Mira variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 15.2 to a maximum of 7.2 with a period of 371.1 days.[27] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
T Arietis is a semiregular variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 11.3 to a maximum of 7.5 with a period of 317 days.[27] It is 1,630 light-years away.[43] One particularly interesting variable in Aries is SX Arietis, a rotating variable star considered to be the prototype of its class, helium variable stars. SX Arietis stars have very prominent emission lines of Helium I and Silicon III. They are normally main-sequence B0p—B9p stars, and their variations are not usually visible to the naked eye. Therefore, they are observed photometrically, usually having periods that fit in the course of one night. Similar to Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4080 Keyboard
SX Arietis stars have periodic changes in their light and magnetic field, which correspond to the periodic rotation; they differ from the Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables in their higher temperature. There are between 39 and 49 SX Arietis variable stars currently known; ten are noted as being "uncertain" in the General Catalog of Variable Stars.[44]
[edit]Deep-sky objects
The few deep-sky objects in Aries are very dim. Nevertheless, several scientifically interesting galaxies lie within its borders; it has spiral, elliptical, and interacting galaxies.
NGC 772, with a notated supernova. Toshiba Satellite L755-S5214 Keyboard
NGC 772 is a spiral galaxy with an integrated magnitude of 10.3, located southeast of β Arietis and 15 arcminutes west of 15 Arietis.[12] It is a relatively bright galaxy and shows obvious nebulosity and ellipticity in an amateur telescope. It is 7.2 by 4.2 arcminutes, meaning that its surface brightness, magnitude 13.6, is significantly lower than its integrated magnitude. NGC 772 is a class SA(s)b galaxy, which means that it is an unbarred spiral galaxy without a ring that possesses a somewhat prominent bulge and spiral arms that are wound somewhat tightly.[2] The main arm, on the northwest side of the galaxy,[30] HP Pavilion G4-1020TX LQ375PA Keyboard
is home to many star forming regions; this is due to previous gravitational interactions with other galaxies. NGC 772 has a small companion galaxy, NGC 770, that is about 113,000 light-years away from the larger galaxy. The two galaxies together are also classified as Arp 78 in the Arp peculiar galaxy catalog. NGC 772 has a diameter of 240,000 light-years and the system is 114 million light-years from Earth.[45] Another spiral galaxy in Aries is NGC 673, a face-on class SAB(s)c galaxy. It is a weakly barred spiral galaxy with loosely wound arms. It has no ring and a faint bulge and is 2.5 by 1.9 arcminutes. Sony VAIO VGN-FS630 Keyboard
It has two primary arms with fragments located farther from the core. 171,000 light-years in diameter, NGC 673 is 235 million light-years from Earth.[45]
NGC 678 and NGC 680 are a pair of galaxies in Aries that are only about 200,000 light-years apart. Part of the NGC 691 group of galaxies, both are at a distance of approximately 130 million light-years. NGC 678 is an edge-on spiral galaxy that is 4.5 by 0.8 arcminutes. NGC 680, an elliptical galaxy with an asymmetrical boundary, is the brighter of the two at magnitude 12.9; NGC 678 has a magnitude of 13.35. Both galaxies have bright cores, but NGC 678 is the larger galaxy at a diameter of 171,000 light-years; NGC 680 has a diameter of 72,000 light-years. NGC 678 is further distinguished by its prominent dust lane. Acer Aspire 5611 Keyboard
NGC 691 itself is a spiral galaxy slightly inclined to our line of sight. It has multiple spiral arms and a bright core. Because it is so diffuse, it has a low surface brightness. It has a diameter of 126,000 light-years and is 124 million light-years away.[45] NGC 877 is the brightest member of an 8-galaxy group that also includes NGC 870, NGC 871, and NGC 876, with a magnitude of 12.53. It is 2.4 by 1.8 arcminutes and is 178 million light-years away with a diameter of 124,000 light-years. Its companion is NGC 876, which is about 103,000 light-years from the core of NGC 877. They are interacting gravitationally, Toshiba Satellite L755-S5242BN Keyboard
as they are connected by a faint stream of gas and dust.[45] Arp 276 is a different pair of interacting galaxies in Aries, consisting of NGC 935 and IC 1801.[46]
NGC 821 is an E6 elliptical galaxy. It is unusual because it has hints of an early spiral structure, which is normally only found in lenticular and spiral galaxies. NGC 821 is 2.6 by 2.0 arcminutes and has a visual magnitude of 11.3. Its diameter is 61,000 light-years and it is 80 million light-years away.[45] Another unusual galaxy in Aries is Segue 2. Segue 2 is a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, recently discovered to be a potential relic of the epoch of reionization.[47] Compaq Presario CQ35-100 Keyboard
[edit]Meteor showers
Aries is home to several meteor showers. The Daytime Arietid meteor shower is one of the strongest meteor showers that occurs during the day, lasting from 22 May to 2 June. It is an annual shower associated with the Marsden group of comets that peaks on 7 June with a maximum zenithal hourly rate of 54 meteors.[48][49] Its parent body may be the asteroid Icarus. The meteors are sometimes visible before dawn, because the radiant is 32 degrees away from the Sun. They usually appear at a rate of 1–2 per hour as "earthgrazers", Ideapad Y450
meteors that last several seconds and often begin at the horizon. Because most of the Daytime Arietids are not visible to the naked eye, they are observed in the radio spectrum. This is possible because of the ionized gas they leave in their wake.[50][51] Other meteor showers radiate from Aries during the day; these include the Daytime Epsilon Arietids and the Northern and Southern Daytime May Arietids.[52] The Jodrell Bank Observatory discovered the Daytime Arietids in 1947 when James Hey and G.S. Stewart adapted the World War II-era radar systems for meteor observations.[51] Dell NSK-D9001 Keyboard
The Delta Arietids are another meteor shower radiating from Aries. Peaking on 9 December with a low peak rate, the shower lasts from 8 December to 14 January, with the highest rates visible from 8 to 14 December. The average Delta Aquarid meteor is very slow, with an average velocity of 13.2 kilometres (8.2 mi) per second. However, this shower sometimes produces bright fireballs.[53] This meteor shower has northern and southern components, both of which are likely associated with 1990 HA, a near-earth asteroid.[54] Acer Aspire 7736ZG Keyboard
The Autumn Arietids also radiate from Aries. The shower lasts from 7 September to 27 October and peaks on 9 October. Its peak rate is low.[55] The Epsilon Arietids appear from 12 to 23 October.[7] Other meteor showers radiating from Aries include the October Delta Arietids, Daytime Epsilon Arietids, Daytime May Arietids, Sigma Arietids, Nu Arietids, and Beta Arietids.[52] The Sigma Arietids, a class IV meteor shower, are visible from 12 to 19 October, with a maximum zenithal hourly rate of less than two meteors per hour on 19 October.[56]
[edit]Planetary systemsAsus X53S Keyboard
Aries contains several stars with extrasolar planets. HIP 14810, a G5 type star, is orbited by three giant planets (those more than ten times the mass of Earth).[57] HD 12661, like HIP 14810, is a G-type main sequence star, slightly larger than the Sun, with two orbiting planets. One planet is 2.3 times the mass of Jupiter, and the other is 1.57 times the mass of Jupiter.[58] HD 20367 is a G0 type star, approximately the size of the Sun, with one orbiting planet. The planet, discovered in 2002, has a mass 1.07 times that of Jupiter and orbits every 500 days.[59]
[edit]See also
Big Bang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPackard Bell PEW91 keyboard
This article is about the cosmological model. For other uses, see Big Bang (disambiguation).
"Big Bang theory" redirects here. For other uses, see Big Bang Theory (disambiguation).
According to the Big Bang model, the Universe expanded from an extremely dense and hot state and continues to expand today. A common analogy explains that space itself is expanding, carrying galaxies with it, like spots on an inflating balloon. The graphic scheme above is an artist's concept illustrating the expansion of a portion of a flat universe.
Key topics in
Physical cosmology
Universe · Big Bang
Age of the universeSony 9J.N0U82.001 Keyboard
Timeline of the Big Bang
Early universe[show]
Expanding universe[show]
Structure formation[show]
Future of universe[show]
Components[show]
History of cosmological theories[show]
Experiments[show]
Scientists[show] Toshiba G83C0000EA10 Keyboard
Social impact[show]
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe.[1] According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the Universe to cool and resulted in its present continuously expanding state. The most recent measurements and observations are in agreement with a Big Bang that would have occurred approximately 13.75 billion years ago,[2][3] which is thus considered the age of the Universe.[4][5] According to the theory, after its initial expansion from a singularity, Toshiba Satellite A200-110 Keyboard
the Universe would have cooled sufficiently to allow energy to be converted into various subatomic particles, including protons, neutrons, and electrons. While protons and neutrons would have combined to form the first atomic nuclei only a few minutes after the Big Bang, it would then have taken thousands of years for electrons to combine with them and create electrically neutral atoms. The first element produced would then be hydrogen, along with traces of helium and lithium. Giant clouds of these primordial elements would then coalesce through gravity to form stars and galaxies, Toshiba Satellite P300-19P Keyboard
and the heavier elements would be synthesized either within stars or during supernovae.
The Big Bang is a well-developed scientific theory which is widely accepted within the scientific community because it offers an accurate and comprehensive explanation for a broad range of phenomena that astronomers observe. Since its conception, abundant evidence has arisen to further develop and strengthen the model.[6] Georges Lemaître first proposed what would become the Big Bang theory in what he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom." Over time, scientists would build on his initial ideas to form the modern synthesis. Asus A6Km Keyboard
The framework for the Big Bang model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions such as homogeneity and isotropy of space. The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. In 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts—an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927. Hubble's observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point: the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity.[7] HP Pavilion dv6-4008tx Keyboard
As the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, the theory states that everything was closer together in the past. This idea has been considered in detail back in time to extreme densities and temperatures,[8][9][10] and large particle accelerators have been built to experiment on and test such conditions, resulting in significant confirmation and further development of this model. On the other hand, these accelerators have limited capabilities to probe into such high energy regimes. Compaq Presario CQ57-315NR Keyboard
There is little evidence regarding the absolute earliest instant of the expansion. Thus, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on. The observed abundances of the light elements throughout the cosmos closely match the calculated predictions for the formation of these elements from nuclear processes in the rapidly expanding and cooling first minutes of the universe, HP G72-b80SB Keyboard
as logically and quantitatively detailed according to Big Bang nucleosynthesis. After the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, and especially when its spectrum (i.e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength) was found to match that of thermal radiation from a black body, most scientists had become fairly convinced that some version of the Big Bang scenario best fit observations.
Contents [hide]
Main article: Timeline of the Big BangHP Pavilion G6-1B87CL Keyboard
A graphical timeline is available at
Graphical timeline of the Big Bang
Extrapolation of the expansion of the Universe backwards in time using general relativity yields an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past.[11] This singularity signals the breakdown of general relativity. How closely we can extrapolate towards the singularity is debated—certainly no closer than the end of the Planck epoch. This singularity is sometimes called "the Big Bang",[12] but the term can also refer to the early hot, dense phase itself,[13][notes 1] which can be considered the "birth" of our Universe. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5057 Keyboard
Based on measurements of the expansion using Type Ia supernovae, measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, and measurements of the correlation function of galaxies, the Universe has a calculated age of 13.75 ± 0.11 billion years.[15] The agreement of these three independent measurements strongly supports the ΛCDM model that describes in detail the contents of the Universe.
The earliest phases of the Big Bang are subject to much speculation. Gateway MX3700 Keyboard
In the most common models the Universe was filled homogeneously and isotropically with an incredibly high energy density and huge temperatures and pressures and was very rapidly expanding and cooling. Approximately 10−37 seconds into the expansion, a phase transition caused a cosmic inflation, during which the Universe grew exponentially.[16] After inflation stopped, the Universe consisted of a quark–gluon plasma, as well as all other elementary particles.[17] Compaq Presario CQ71-413SG Keyboard
Temperatures were so high that the random motions of particles were at relativistic speeds, and particle–antiparticle pairs of all kinds were being continuously created and destroyed in collisions. At some point an unknown reaction called baryogenesis violated the conservation of baryon number, leading to a very small excess of quarks and leptons over antiquarks and antileptons—of the order of one part in 30 million. This resulted in the predominance of matter over antimatter in the present Universe.[18] Ideapad S9
The Universe continued to grow in size and fall in temperature, hence the typical energy of each particle was decreasing. Symmetry breaking phase transitions put the fundamental forces of physics and the parameters of elementary particles into their present form.[19] After about 10−11 seconds, the picture becomes less speculative, since particle energies drop to values that can be attained in particle physics experiments. At about 10−6 seconds, quarks and gluons combined to form baryons such as protons and neutrons. Toshiba Satellite L350-ST2121 Keyboard
The small excess of quarks over antiquarks led to a small excess of baryons over antibaryons. The temperature was now no longer high enough to create new proton–antiproton pairs (similarly for neutrons–antineutrons), so a mass annihilation immediately followed, leaving just one in 1010 of the original protons and neutrons, and none of their antiparticles. A similar process happened at about 1 second for electrons and positrons. After these annihilations, the remaining protons, neutrons and electrons were no longer moving relativistically and the energy density of the Universe was dominated by photons (with a minor contribution from neutrinos). Toshiba Satellite L655-S5100 Keyboard
A few minutes into the expansion, when the temperature was about a billion (one thousand million; 109; SI prefix giga-) kelvin and the density was about that of air, neutrons combined with protons to form the Universe's deuterium and helium nuclei in a process called Big Bang nucleosynthesis.[20] Most protons remained uncombined as hydrogen nuclei. As the Universe cooled, the rest mass energy density of matter came to gravitationally dominate that of the photon radiation. Packard Bell Easynote TK81 keyboard
After about 379,000 years the electrons and nuclei combined into atoms (mostly hydrogen); hence the radiation decoupled from matter and continued through space largely unimpeded. This relic radiation is known as the cosmic microwave background radiation.[21]
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field showcases galaxies from an ancient era when the Universe was younger, denser, and warmer according to the Big Bang theory.
Over a long period of time, the slightly denser regions of the nearly uniformly distributed matter gravitationally attracted nearby matter and thus grew even denser, Sony VAIO VGN-CS16G/Q Keyboard
forming gas clouds, stars, galaxies, and the other astronomical structures observable today. The details of this process depend on the amount and type of matter in the Universe. The four possible types of matter are known as cold dark matter, warm dark matter, hot dark matter and baryonic matter. The best measurements available (from WMAP) show that the data is well-fit by a Lambda-CDM model in which dark matter is assumed to be cold (warm dark matter is ruled out by early reionization[22]), Sony VAIO VGN-FS315 Keyboard
and is estimated to make up about 23% of the matter/energy of the universe, while baryonic matter makes up about 4.6%.[15] In an "extended model" which includes hot dark matter in the form of neutrinos, then if the "physical baryon density" Ωbh2 is estimated at about 0.023 (this is different from the 'baryon density' Ωb expressed as a fraction of the total matter/energy density, which as noted above is about 0.046), and the corresponding cold dark matter density Ωch2 is about 0.11, the corresponding neutrino density Ωvh2 is estimated to be less than 0.0062.[15] Acer Aspire 4736G Keyboard
Independent lines of evidence from Type Ia supernovae and the CMB imply that the Universe today is dominated by a mysterious form of energy known as dark energy, which apparently permeates all of space. The observations suggest 73% of the total energy density of today's Universe is in this form. When the Universe was very young, it was likely infused with dark energy, but with less space and everything closer together, gravity had the upper hand, and it was slowly braking the expansion. But eventually, Acer Extensa 7720 Keyboard
after numerous billion years of expansion, the growing abundance of dark energy caused the expansion of the Universe to slowly begin to accelerate. Dark energy in its simplest formulation takes the form of the cosmological constant term in Einstein's field equations of general relativity, but its composition and mechanism are unknown and, more generally, the details of its equation of state and relationship with the Standard Model of particle physics continue to be investigated both observationally and theoretically.[23] Toshiba Satellite P100-240 Keyboard
All of this cosmic evolution after the inflationary epoch can be rigorously described and modeled by the ΛCDM model of cosmology, which uses the independent frameworks of quantum mechanics and Einstein's General Relativity. As noted above, there is no well-supported model describing the action prior to 10−15 seconds or so. Apparently a new unified theory of quantum gravitation is needed to break this barrier. Understanding this earliest of eras in the history of the Universe is currently one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics. Compaq Presario CQ57-315NR Keyboard
Underlying assumptions
The Big Bang theory depends on two major assumptions: the universality of physical laws, and the cosmological principle. The cosmological principle states that on large scales the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic.
These ideas were initially taken as postulates, but today there are efforts to test each of them. For example, Acer eMachines G730ZG Keyboard
the first assumption has been tested by observations showing that largest possible deviation of the fine structure constant over much of the age of the universe is of order 10−5.[24] Also, general relativity has passed stringent tests on the scale of the Solar System and binary stars while extrapolation to cosmological scales has been validated by the empirical successes of various aspects of the Big Bang theory.[notes 2]
If the large-scale Universe appears isotropic as viewed from Earth, the cosmological principle can be derived from the simpler Copernican principle, Acer Aspire 5910 Keyboard
which states that there is no preferred (or special) observer or vantage point. To this end, the cosmological principle has been confirmed to a level of 10−5 via observations of the CMB.[notes 3][citation needed] The Universe has been measured to be homogeneous on the largest scales at the 10% level.[25]
FLRW metric
Main articles: Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric and Metric expansion of space
General relativity describes spacetime by a metric, which determines the distances that separate nearby points. The points, which can be galaxies, stars, or other objects, themselves are specified using a coordinate chart or "grid" that is laid down over all spacetime. Acer Aspire 2001 Keyboard
The cosmological principle implies that the metric should be homogeneous and isotropic on large scales, which uniquely singles out the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric (FLRW metric). This metric contains a scale factor, which describes how the size of the Universe changes with time. This enables a convenient choice of a coordinate system to be made, called comoving coordinates. In this coordinate system the grid expands along with the Universe, and objects that are moving only due to the expansion of the Universe remain at fixed points on the grid. While their coordinate distance (comoving distance) remains constant, HP Mini 210-1095CA Keyboard
the physical distance between two such comoving points expands proportionally with the scale factor of the Universe.[26]
The Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe. Instead, space itself expands with time everywhere and increases the physical distance between two comoving points. Because the FLRW metric assumes a uniform distribution of mass and energy, it applies to our Universe only on large scales—local concentrations of matter such as our galaxy are gravitationally bound and as such do not experience the large-scale expansion of space.
HorizonsHP Pavilion G6-1122TU Keyboard
Main article: Cosmological horizon
An important feature of the Big Bang spacetime is the presence of horizons. Since the Universe has a finite age, and light travels at a finite speed, there may be events in the past whose light has not had time to reach us. This places a limit or a past horizon on the most distant objects that can be observed. Conversely, because space is expanding, and more distant objects are receding ever more quickly, light emitted by us today may never "catch up" to very distant objects. This defines a future horizon, which limits the events in the future that we will be able to influence. Toshiba Tecra M10-ST9110 Keyboard
The presence of either type of horizon depends on the details of the FLRW model that describes our Universe. Our understanding of the Universe back to very early times suggests that there is a past horizon, though in practice our view is also limited by the opacity of the Universe at early times. So our view cannot extend further backward in time, though the horizon recedes in space. If the expansion of the Universe continues to accelerate, there is a future horizon as well.[27]
History
Main article: History of the Big Bang theory
See also: Timeline of cosmology
EtymologyToshiba NSK-T4N01 Keyboard
Fred Hoyle is credited with coining the term Big Bang during a 1949 radio broadcast. It is popularly reported that Hoyle, who favored an alternative "steady state" cosmological model, intended this to be pejorative, but Hoyle explicitly denied this and said it was just a striking image meant to highlight the difference between the two models.[28][29][30]
Development
Artist's depiction of the WMAP satellite gathering data to help scientists understand the Big Bang
The Big Bang theory developed from observations of the structure of the Universe and from theoretical considerations. Toshiba Satellite L750D-ST5NX1 Keyboard
In 1912 Vesto Slipher measured the first Doppler shift of a "spiral nebula" (spiral nebula is the obsolete term for spiral galaxies), and soon discovered that almost all such nebulae were receding from Earth. He did not grasp the cosmological implications of this fact, and indeed at the time it was highly controversial whether or not these nebulae were "island universes" outside our Milky Way.[31][32] Ten years later, Alexander Friedmann, a Russian cosmologist and mathematician, derived the Friedmann equations from Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity, showing that the Universe might be expanding in contrast to the static Universe model advocated by Einstein at that time.[33] Toshiba NSK-T4N01 Keyboard
In 1924 Edwin Hubble's measurement of the great distance to the nearest spiral nebulae showed that these systems were indeed other galaxies. Independently deriving Friedmann's equations in 1927, Georges Lemaître, a Belgian physicist and Roman Catholic priest, proposed that the inferred recession of the nebulae was due to the expansion of the Universe.[34]
In 1931 Lemaître went further and suggested that the evident expansion of the universe, if projected back in time, Sony VGN-FE880E/H Keyboard
meant that the further in the past the smaller the universe was, until at some finite time in the past all the mass of the Universe was concentrated into a single point, a "primeval atom" where and when the fabric of time and space came into existence.[35]
Starting in 1924, Hubble painstakingly developed a series of distance indicators, the forerunner of the cosmic distance ladder, using the 100-inch (2,500 mm) Hooker telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. This allowed him to estimate distances to galaxies whose redshifts had already been measured, mostly by Slipher. In 1929 Hubble discovered a correlation between distance and recession velocity—now known as Hubble's law. Dell UW739 Keyboard
[7][36] Lemaître had already shown that this was expected, given the Cosmological Principle.[23]
In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state Universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory.[37] This perception was enhanced by the fact that the originator of the Big Bang theory, Monsignor Georges Lemaître, Acer Aspire 5710Z Keyboard
was a Roman Catholic priest.[38] Arthur Eddington agreed with Aristotle that the universe did not have a beginning in time, viz., that matter is eternal. A beginning in time was "repugnant" to him.[39][40] Lemaître, however, thought that
If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time. 04W0872
During the 1930s other ideas were proposed as non-standard cosmologies to explain Hubble's observations, including the Milne model,[42] the oscillatory Universe (originally suggested by Friedmann, but advocated by Albert Einstein and Richard Tolman)[43] and Fritz Zwicky's tired light hypothesis.[44]
After World War II, two distinct possibilities emerged. One was Fred Hoyle's steady state model, whereby new matter would be created as the Universe seemed to expand. HP Pavilion dv5-1225et Keyboard
In this model the Universe is roughly the same at any point in time.[45] The other was Lemaître's Big Bang theory, advocated and developed by George Gamow, who introduced big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN)[46] and whose associates, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman, predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB).[47] Ironically, it was Hoyle who coined the phrase that came to be applied to Lemaître's theory, referring to it as "this big bang idea" during a BBC Radio broadcast in March 1949.[48][notes 4] For a while, Compaq Presario CQ50-115NR Keyboard
support was split between these two theories. Eventually, the observational evidence, most notably from radio source counts, began to favor Big Bang over Steady State. The discovery and confirmation of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964[50] secured the Big Bang as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the cosmos. Much of the current work in cosmology includes understanding how galaxies form in the context of the Big Bang, understanding the physics of the Universe at earlier and earlier times, and reconciling observations with the basic theory. Dell PVDG3 Keyboard
Significant progress in Big Bang cosmology have been made since the late 1990s as a result of advances in telescope technology as well as the analysis of data from satellites such as COBE,[51] the Hubble Space Telescope and WMAP.[52] Cosmologists now have fairly precise and accurate measurements of many of the parameters of the Big Bang model, and have made the unexpected discovery that the expansion of the Universe appears to be accelerating.
Observational evidence
"[T]he big bang picture is too firmly grounded in data from every area to be proved invalid in its general features." 04W0872
Lawrence Krauss[53]
The earliest and most direct kinds of observational evidence are the Hubble-type expansion seen in the redshifts of galaxies, the detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the relative abundances of light elements produced by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and today also the large scale distribution and apparent evolution of galaxies[54] predicted to occur due to gravitational growth of structure in the standard theory. These are sometimes called "the four pillars of the Big Bang theory".[55]
Hubble's law and the expansion of spaceSony VAIO VGN-CS16G/W Keyboard
Main articles: Hubble's law and Metric expansion of space
See also: Distance measures (cosmology) and Scale factor (universe)
Observations of distant galaxies and quasars show that these objects are redshifted—the light emitted from them has been shifted to longer wavelengths. This can be seen by taking a frequency spectrum of an object and matching the spectroscopic pattern of emission lines or absorption lines corresponding to atoms of the chemical elements interacting with the light. These redshifts are uniformly isotropic, Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard
distributed evenly among the observed objects in all directions. If the redshift is interpreted as a Doppler shift, the recessional velocity of the object can be calculated. For some galaxies, it is possible to estimate distances via the cosmic distance ladder. When the recessional velocities are plotted against these distances, a linear relationship known as Hubble's law is observed:[7]
v = H0D,
where
v is the recessional velocity of the galaxy or other distant object,
D is the comoving distance to the object, andSony VAIO VGN-FS295XP Keyboard
H0 is Hubble's constant, measured to be 70.4 +1.3
−1.4 km/s/Mpc by the WMAP probe.[15]
Hubble's law has two possible explanations. Either we are at the center of an explosion of galaxies—which is untenable given the Copernican principle—or the Universe is uniformly expanding everywhere. This universal expansion was predicted from general relativity by Alexander Friedmann in 1922[33] and Georges Lemaître in 1927,[34] well before Hubble made his 1929 analysis and observations, and it remains the cornerstone of the Big Bang theory as developed by Friedmann, Lemaître, Robertson and Walker. Sony VAIO VGN-FS810 Keyboard
The theory requires the relation v = HD to hold at all times, where D is the comoving distance, v is the recessional velocity, and v, H, and D vary as the Universe expands (hence we write H0 to denote the present-day Hubble "constant"). For distances much smaller than the size of the observable Universe, the Hubble redshift can be thought of as the Doppler shift corresponding to the recession velocity v. However, the redshift is not a true Doppler shift, but rather the result of the expansion of the Universe between the time the light was emitted and the time that it was detected.[56] Sony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard
That space is undergoing metric expansion is shown by direct observational evidence of the Cosmological principle and the Copernican principle, which together with Hubble's law have no other explanation. Astronomical redshifts are extremely isotropic and homogenous,[7] supporting the Cosmological principle that the Universe looks the same in all directions, along with much other evidence. If the redshifts were the result of an explosion from a center distant from us, they would not be so similar in different directions. HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
Measurements of the effects of the cosmic microwave background radiation on the dynamics of distant astrophysical systems in 2000 proved the Copernican principle, that, on a cosmological scale, the Earth is not in a central position.[57] Radiation from the Big Bang was demonstrably warmer at earlier times throughout the Universe. Uniform cooling of the cosmic microwave background over billions of years is explainable only if the Universe is experiencing a metric expansion, and excludes the possibility that we are near the unique center of an explosion.
Cosmic microwave background radiationSony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W Keyboard
Main article: Cosmic microwave background radiation
WMAP image of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The radiation is isotropic to roughly one part in 100,000.[58]
In 1964 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson serendipitously discovered the cosmic background radiation, an omnidirectional signal in the microwave band.[50] Their discovery provided substantial confirmation of the general CMB predictions: the radiation was found to be consistent with an almost perfect black body spectrum in all directions; this spectrum has been redshifted by the expansion of the universe, and today corresponds to approximately 2.725 K. This tipped the balance of evidence in favor of the Big Bang model, Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard
and Penzias and Wilson were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1978.
The surface of last scattering corresponding to emission of the CMB occurs shortly after recombination, the epoch when neutral hydrogen becomes stable. Prior to this, the universe comprised a hot dense photon-baryon plasma sea where photons were quickly scattered from free charged particles. Peaking at around 372±14 ka,[22] the mean free path for a photon becomes long enough to reach the present day and the universe becomes transparent. HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
The cosmic microwave background spectrum measured by the FIRAS instrument on the COBE satellite is the most-precisely measured black body spectrum in nature.[59] The data points and error bars on this graph are obscured by the theoretical curve.
In 1989 NASA launched the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE). Its findings were consistent with predictions regarding the CMB, finding a residual temperature of 2.726 K (more recent measurements have revised this figure down slightly to 2.725 K) and providing the first evidence for fluctuations (anisotropies) in the CMB, Sony VAIO VGN-FS770W Keyboard
at a level of about one part in 105.[51] John C. Mather and George Smoot were awarded the Nobel Prize for their leadership in this work. During the following decade, CMB anisotropies were further investigated by a large number of ground-based and balloon experiments. In 2000–2001 several experiments, most notably BOOMERanG, found the shape of the Universe to be spatially almost flat by measuring the typical angular size (the size on the sky) of the anisotropies.
In early 2003 the first results of theDell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) were released, yielding what were at the time the most accurate values for some of the cosmological parameters. The results disproved several specific cosmic inflation models, but are consistent with the inflation theory in general.[52] The Planck space probe was launched in May 2009. Other ground and balloon based cosmic microwave background experiments are ongoing.
Abundance of primordial elements
Main article: Big Bang nucleosynthesisK020830M1 US
Using the Big Bang model it is possible to calculate the concentration of helium-4, helium-3, deuterium and lithium-7 in the Universe as ratios to the amount of ordinary hydrogen.[20] The relative abundances depend on a single parameter, the ratio of photons to baryons. This value can be calculated independently from the detailed structure of CMB fluctuations. The ratios predicted (by mass, not by number) are about 0.25 for 4He/H, about 10−3 for 2H/H, about 10−4 for 3He/H and about 10−9 for 7Li/H.[20] Gateway M6805 Keyboard
The measured abundances all agree at least roughly with those predicted from a single value of the baryon-to-photon ratio. The agreement is excellent for deuterium, close but formally discrepant for 4He, and off by a factor of two 7Li; in the latter two cases there are substantial systematic uncertainties. Nonetheless, the general consistency with abundances predicted by Big Bang nucleosynthesis is strong evidence for the Big Bang, as the theory is the only known explanation for the relative abundances of light elements, Acer Aspire 1522LC Keyboard
and it is virtually impossible to "tune" the Big Bang to produce much more or less than 20–30% helium.[60] Indeed there is no obvious reason outside of the Big Bang that, for example, the young Universe (i.e., before star formation, as determined by studying matter supposedly free of stellar nucleosynthesis products) should have more helium than deuterium or more deuterium than 3He, and in constant ratios, too.
Galactic evolution and distribution
Main articles: Galaxy formation and evolution, Large-scale structure of the cosmos, and Structure formationHP G61-110EA Keyboard
This panoramic view of the entire near-infrared sky reveals the distribution of galaxies beyond the Milky Way. The galaxies are color coded by redshift.
Detailed observations of the morphology and distribution of galaxies and quasars provide strong evidence for the Big Bang. A combination of observations and theory suggest that the first quasars and galaxies formed about a billion years after the Big Bang, and since then larger structures have been forming, such as galaxy clusters and superclusters. Sony VAIO VGN-N110E Keyboard
Populations of stars have been aging and evolving, so that distant galaxies (which are observed as they were in the early Universe) appear very different from nearby galaxies (observed in a more recent state). Moreover, galaxies that formed relatively recently appear markedly different from galaxies formed at similar distances but shortly after the Big Bang. These observations are strong arguments against the steady-state model. Observations of star formation, galaxy and quasar distributions and larger structures agree well with Big Bang simulations of the formation of structure in the Universe and are helping to complete details of the theory.[61][62] Compaq Presario C722TU Keyboard
Primordial gas clouds
In 2011 astronomers have found pristine clouds of the primordial gas that formed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. The composition of the gas matches theoretical predictions, providing direct evidence in support of the modern cosmological explanation for the origins of elements in the universe. The researchers discovered the two clouds of pristine gas by analyzing the light from distant quasars, using the HIRES spectrometer on the Keck I Telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. They saw absorption lines in the spectrum where the light was absorbed by the gas, and that allows them to measure the composition of the gas.[ Asus F82 Keyboard
Other lines of evidence
The age of Universe as estimated from the Hubble expansion and the CMB is now in good agreement with other estimates using the ages of the oldest stars, both as measured by applying the theory of stellar evolution to globular clusters and through radiometric dating of individual Population II stars.[65]
The prediction that the CMB temperature was higher in the past has been experimentally supported by observations of very low temperature absorption lines in gas clouds at high redshift.[66] Compaq Presario C500 Keyboard
This prediction also implies that the amplitude of the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect in clusters of galaxies does not depend directly on redshift. Observations have found this to be roughly true, but this effect depends on cluster properties that do change with cosmic time, making precise measurements difficult.[67][68]
Features and problems
While the scientific community now supports the Big Bang model over other cosmological models, it was once divided between supporters of the Big Bang and those of alternative cosmological models. Throughout the historical development of the subject, problems with the Big Bang theory were posed in the context of a scientific controversy regarding which model could best describe the cosmological observations. With the overwhelming consensus in the community today supporting the Big Bang model, HP G72-b66US Keyboard
many of these problems are remembered as being mainly of historical interest; the solutions to them have been obtained either through modifications to the theory or as the result of better observations.[citation needed]
The core ideas of the Big Bang—the expansion, the early hot state, the formation of helium, the formation of galaxies—are derived from many observations that are independent from any cosmological model; these include the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure, and the Hubble diagram for Type Ia supernovae. Gateway NV-59 Keyboard
Precise modern models of the Big Bang appeal to various exotic physical phenomena that have not been observed in terrestrial laboratory experiments or incorporated into the Standard Model of particle physics. Of these features, dark matter is currently the subject to the most active laboratory investigations.[69] Remaining issues, such as the cuspy halo problem and the dwarf galaxy problem of cold dark matter, are not fatal to the dark matter explanation as solutions to such problems exist which involve only further refinements of the theory. Sony KFRMBA220A Keyboard
Dark energy is also an area of intense interest for scientists, but it is not clear whether direct detection of dark energy will be possible.[70]
On the other hand, inflation and baryogenesis remain somewhat more speculative features of current Big Bang models: they explain important features of the early universe, but could be replaced by alternative ideas without affecting the rest of the theory.[notes 5][citation needed] Viable, quantitative explanations for such phenomena are still being sought. Acer eMachines E730 Keyboard
These are currently unsolved problems in physics.
Horizon problem
Main article: Horizon problem
The horizon problem results from the premise that information cannot travel faster than light. In a Universe of finite age this sets a limit—the particle horizon—on the separation of any two regions of space that are in causal contact.[71] The observed isotropy of the CMB is problematic in this regard: if the Universe had been dominated by radiation or matter at all times up to the epoch of last scattering, Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001
the particle horizon at that time would correspond to about 2 degrees on the sky. There would then be no mechanism to cause wider regions to have the same temperature.
A resolution to this apparent inconsistency is offered by inflationary theory in which a homogeneous and isotropic scalar energy field dominates the Universe at some very early period (before baryogenesis). During inflation, the Universe undergoes exponential expansion, and the particle horizon expands much more rapidly than previously assumed, Satellite U305-S7448
so that regions presently on opposite sides of the observable Universe are well inside each other's particle horizon. The observed isotropy of the CMB then follows from the fact that this larger region was in causal contact before the beginning of inflation.
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle predicts that during the inflationary phase there would be quantum thermal fluctuations, which would be magnified to cosmic scale. These fluctuations serve as the seeds of all current structure in the Universe. Inflation predicts that the primordial fluctuations are nearly scale invariant and Gaussian, Packard Bell PEW91 keyboard
which has been accurately confirmed by measurements of the CMB.
If inflation occurred, exponential expansion would push large regions of space well beyond our observable horizon.
Flatness problem
Main article: Flatness problem
The overall geometry of the Universe is determined by whether the Omega cosmological parameter is less than, equal to or greater than 1. Shown from top to bottom are a closed Universe with positive curvature, SONY VAIO VGN-CS21S/V
a hyperbolic Universe with negative curvature and a flat Universe with zero curvature.
The flatness problem (also known as the oldness problem) is an observational problem associated with a Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric.[71] The Universe may have positive, negative or zero spatial curvature depending on its total energy density. Curvature is negative if its density is less than the critical density, positive if greater, and zero at the critical density, in which case space is said to be flat. The problem is that any small departure from the critical density grows with time, and yet the Universe today remains very close to flat.[notes 6] Given that a natural timescale for departure from flatness might be the Planck time, 10−43 seconds, the fact that the Universe has reached neitherThinkPad Edge E520
a heat death nor a Big Crunch after billions of years requires some explanation. For instance, even at the relatively late age of a few minutes (the time of nucleosynthesis), the Universe density must have been within one part in 1014 of its critical value, or it would not exist as it does today.[72]
A resolution to this problem is offered by inflationary theory. During the inflationary period, spacetime expanded to such an extent that its curvature would have been smoothed out. Thus, it is theorized that inflation drove the Universe to a very nearly spatially flat state, with almost exactly the critical density. HP 640892-001
Dark energy
Main article: Dark energy
Measurements of the redshift–magnitude relation for type Ia supernovae indicate that the expansion of the Universe has been accelerating since the Universe was about half its present age. To explain this acceleration, general relativity requires that much of the energy in the Universe consists of a component with large negative pressure, dubbed "dark energy". Dark energy is indicated by several other lines of evidence. Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
Measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate that the Universe is very nearly spatially flat, and therefore according to general relativity the Universe must have almost exactly the critical density of mass/energy. But the mass density of the Universe can be measured from its gravitational clustering, and is found to have only about 30% of the critical density.[23] Since dark energy does not cluster in the usual way it is the best explanation for the "missing" energy density. Dark energy is also required by two geometrical measures of the overall curvature of the Universe, one using the frequency of gravitational lenses, and the other using the characteristic pattern of the large-scale structure as a cosmic ruler. Packard Bell PEW91 keyboard
Best visible at 21:00 (9 p.m.) during the month of December.
Aries is one of the constellations of the zodiac, the groups of stars through which the apparent course of the sun passes during the year. It is located in the Northern Hemisphere between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east. The name Aries is Latin for ram, and its symbol is (Unicode ♈), representing a ram's horns. Sony Vaio PCG-K23 Keyboard
It is one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is a mid-sized constellation, ranking 39th overall size, with an area of 441 square degrees (1.1% of the celestial sphere).
Although Aries came to represent specifically the ram whose fleece became the Golden Fleece of Ancient Greek mythology, it has represented a ram since late Babylonian times. Pior to that, the stars of Aries were perceived to form a farmhand. Different cultures have incorporated the stars of Aries into different constellations including twin inspectors in China and a porpoise in the Marshall Islands. HP Pavilion dv5-1115es Keyboard
Aries is a relatively dim constellation, possessing only three bright stars: Hamal (Alpha Arietis, second magnitude), Sheratan (Beta Arietis, third magnitude), and Mesartim (Gamma Arietis, fourth magnitude). The few deep-sky objects within the constellation are quite faint and include several pairs of interacting galaxies. Several meteor showers appear to radiate from Aries, including the Daytime Arietids and the Epsilon Arietids.
Aries is now recognized as an official constellation, albeit as a specific region of the sky, by the International Astronomical Union. Acer Travelmate 8571 Keyboard
It was originally defined in ancient texts as a specific pattern of stars, and has remained a constellation since ancient times; it now includes the ancient pattern as well as the surrounding stars.[4] In the description of the Babylonian zodiac given in the clay tablets known as the MUL.APIN, the constellation now known as Aries was the final station along the ecliptic. The MUL.APIN was a comprehensive table of the risings and settings of stars, which likely served as an agricultural calendar. Modern-day Aries was known as MULLÚ.ḪUN.GÁ, "The Agrarian Worker" or "The Hired Man".[5] Although likely compiled in the 12th or 11th century BCE, the MUL.APIN reflects a tradition which marks the Pleiades as the vernal equinox, Dell NSK-DP101 Keyboard
which was the case with some precision at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. The earliest identifiable reference to Aries as a distinct constellation comes from the boundary stones that date from 1350 to 1000 BCE. On several boundary stones, a zodiacal ram figure is distinct from the other characters present. The shift in identification from the constellation as the Agrarian Worker to the Ram likely occurred in later Babylonian tradition because of its growing association with Dumuzi the Shepherd. By the time the MUL.APIN was created—by 1000 BCE—modern Aries was identified with both Dumuzi's ram and a hired laborer. The exact timing of this shift is difficult to determine due to the lack of images of Aries or other ram figures.[6] Acer Aspire 2023WLMi Keyboard
In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Aries was associated with the god Amon-Ra, who was depicted as a man with a ram's head and represented fertility and creativity. Because it was the location of the vernal equinox, it was called the "Indicator of the Reborn Sun".[7] During the times of the year when Aries was prominent, priests would process statues of Amon-Ra to temples, a practice that was modified by Persian astronomers centuries later. Aries acquired the title of "Lord of the Head" in Egypt, referring to its symbolic and mythological importance.[8] Toshiba Satellite L755-S5214 Keyboard
Aries and Musca Borealis as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825
Aries was not fully accepted as a constellation until classical times.[9] In Hellenistic astrology, the constellation of Aries is associated with the golden ram of Greek mythology that rescued Phrixos and Helle on orders from Mercury, taking him to the land of Colchis.[10][11][12] Phrixos and Helle were the son and daughter of King Athamas and his first wife Nephele. The king's second wife, Ino, was jealous and wished to kill his children. To accomplish this, HP Pavilion G6-1B79DX Keyboard
she induced a famine in Boeotia, then falsified a message from the Oracle of Delphi that said Phrixos must be sacrificed to end the famine. Athamas was about to sacrifice his son atop Mount Laphystium when Aries, sent by Nephele, arrived.[13] Helle fell off of Aries's back in flight and drowned in the Dardanelles, also called the Hellespont in her honor. After arriving, Phrixos sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the Fleece to Aeëtes of Colchis, NC6320
who rewarded him with an engagement to his daughter Chalciope. Aeëtes hung its skin in a sacred place where it became known as the Golden Fleece and was guarded by a dragon.[2][10] The Golden Fleece was then stolen by Jason and the Argonauts.[12]
Historically, Aries has been depicted as a crouched, wingless ram with its head turned towards Taurus. Ptolemy asserted in his Almagest that Hipparchus depicted Alpha Arietis as the ram's muzzle, though Ptolemy did not include it in his constellation figure. HP Pavilion dm3 Keyboard
Instead, it was listed as an "unformed star", and denoted as "the star over the head". John Flamsteed, in his Atlas Coelestis, followed Ptolemy's description by mapping it above the figure's head.[13][14] Flamsteed followed the general convention of maps by depicting Aries laying down.[7] Astrologically, Aries has been associated with the head and its humors.[15] It was strongly associated with Mars, both the planet and the god. It was considered to govern Western Europe and Syria, and to indicate a strong temper in a person.[16] HP Pavilion dv6-2125ez Keyboard
The First Point of Aries, the location of the vernal equinox, is named for the constellation. This is because the Sun crossed the celestial equator from south to north in Aries more than two millennia ago. Hipparchus defined it in 130 B.C.E. as a point south of Gamma Arietis. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the First Point of Aries has since moved into Pisces and will move into Aquarius by around 2600 C.E. The Sun now appears in Aries from late April through mid May, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of spring.[11][13][17]
Medieval Muslim astronomers depicted Aries in various ways. Toshiba Satellite U305-S5127 Keyboard
Astronomers like al-Sufi saw the constellation as a ram, modeled on the precedent of Ptolemy. However, some Islamic celestial globes depicted Aries as a nondescript four-legged animal with what may be antlers instead of horns.[18] Some early Bedouin observers saw a ram elsewhere in the sky; this constellation featured the Pleiades as the ram's tail.[19] The generally accepted Arabic formation of Aries consisted of thirteen stars in a figure along with five "unformed" stars, four of which were over the animal's hindquarters and one of which was the disputed star over Aries's head.[20] Al-Sufi's depiction differed from both other Arab astronomers' and Flamsteed's, in that his Aries was running and looking behind itself.[7] Packard Bell Easynote TM99 keyboard
The obsolete constellations introduced in Aries (Musca Borealis, Vespa, and Apis) have all been composed of the northern stars.[21] Musca Borealis was created from the stars 33 Arietis, 35 Arietis, 39 Arietis, and 41 Arietis.[22] In 1612, Petrus Plancius introduced Apis, a constellation representing a bee. In 1624, the same stars were used by Jakob Bartsch to create a constellation called Vespa, representing a wasp. Neither constellation became widely accepted. Johann Hevelius renamed the constellation "Musca" in 1690 in his Firmamentum Sobiescianum. To differentiate it from Musca, the southern fly, it was later renamed Musca Borealis but it did not gain acceptance and its stars were ultimately officially reabsorbed into Aries.[22] Sony VAIO VGN-N365E/B Keyboard
In 1922, the IAU defined its recommended three-letter abbreviation, "Ari".[1] The official boundaries of Aries were defined in 1930 by Eugène Delporte as a polygon of 12 segments. Its right ascension is between 1h 46.4m and 3h 29.4m and its declination is between 10.36° and 31.22° in the equatorial coordinate system.[23]
[edit]In non-Western astronomy
In traditional Chinese astronomy, stars from Aries were used in several constellations. The brightest stars—Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis—formed a constellation called Lou, variously translated as "bond", "lasso", and "sickle",Sony VAIO VGN-N170G/T Keyboard
which was associated with the ritual sacrifice of cattle. This name was shared by the 16th lunar mansion, the location of the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. The lunar mansion represented the area where animals were gathered before sacrifice around that time.[13] This constellation has also been associated with harvest-time as it could represent a woman carrying a basket of food on her head.[7] 35, 39, and 41 Arietis were part of a constellation called Wei, which represented a fat abdomen and was the namesake of the 17th lunar mansion, Dell Vostro 3450 Keyboard
which represented granaries. Delta and Zeta Arietis were a part of the constellation Tianyin, thought to represent the Emperor's hunting partner. Zuogeng (Tso-kang), a constellation depicting a marsh and pond inspector, was composed of Mu, Nu, Omicron, Pi, and Sigma Arietis.[7][13] He was accompanied by Yeou-kang, a constellation depicting an official in charge of pasture distribution.[7]
In a similar system to the Chinese, the first lunar mansion in Hindu astronomy was called "Aswini", after the traditional names for Beta and Gamma Arietis, the Aswins. Because the Hindu new year began with the vernal equinox, Pavilion dv6-3022ee
the Rig Veda contains over 50 new-year's related hymns to the twins, making them some of the most prominent characters in the work. Aries itself was known as "Aja" and "Mesha".[16] The Hebrew people named Aries "Teli"; it signified either Simeon or Gad, and generally symbolizes the "Lamb of the World". The neighboring Syrians named the constellation "Amru", and the bordering Turks named it "Kuzi".[16] Half a world away, in the Marshall Islands, several stars from Aries were incorporated into a constellation depicting a porpoise, along with stars from Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Triangulum. HP Pavilion dv5t-1200se CTO Keyboard
Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis formed the head of the porpoise, while stars from Andromeda formed the body and the bright stars of Cassiopeia formed the tail.[24] In indigenous Peruvian astronomy, a constellation with most of the same stars as Aries existed. It was called the "Market Moon" and the "Kneeling Terrace", as a reminder for when to hold the annual harvest festival, Ayri Huay.[16]
Notable featuresSony VGN-FE790G/N Keyboard
The constellation Aries as it can be seen with the naked eye
Further information: List of stars in Aries
Aries has three prominent stars, designated Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis by Johann Bayer. All three are commonly used for navigation.[25] α Arietis, called Hamal, is the brightest star in Aries. Its traditional name is derived from the Arabic word for "lamb" or "head of the ram" (ras al-hamal), which references Aries's mythological background.[17] With a spectral class of K2[12] and a luminosity class of III, it is an orange giant with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.00, which lies 66 light-years from Earth.[11][26] Hamal has a luminosity of 96 L☉Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
and its absolute magnitude is −0.1.[27]
β Arietis, also known as Sheratan, is a blue-white star with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.64. Its traditional name is derived from "sharatayn", the Arabic word for "the two signs", referring to both Beta and Gamma Arietis in their position as heralds of the vernal equinox. The two stars were known to the Bedouin as "qarna al-hamal", "horns of the ram".[28] It is 59 light-years from Earth.[29] It has a luminosity of 11 L☉ and its absolute magnitude is 2.1.[27] It is a spectroscopic binary star, 45N2141
one in which the companion star is only known through analysis of the spectra.[30] The spectral class of the primary is A5.[12] Hermann Carl Vogel determined that Sheratan was a spectroscopic binary in 1903; its orbit was determined by Hans Ludendorff in 1907. It has since been studied for its eccentric orbit.[30]
γ Arietis, with a common name of Mesartim, is a binary star with two white-hued components, located in a rich field of magnitude 8–12 stars. Its traditional name has conflicting derivations. It may be derived from a corruption of "al-sharatan", the Arabic word meaning "pair" or a word for "fat ram".[13][17][31] However, Compaq Presario CQ50-142US Keyboard
it may also come from the Sanskrit for "first star of Aries" or the Hebrew for "ministerial servants", both of which are unusual languages of origin for star names.[17] Along with Beta Arietis, it was known to the Bedouin as "qarna al-hamal".[28] The primary is of magnitude 4.59 and the secondary is of magnitude 4.68.[27] The system is 164 light-years from Earth.[32] The two components are separated by 7.8 arcseconds,[2] and the system as a whole has an apparent magnitude of 3.9.[12] The primary has a luminosity of 60 L☉ 45N2141and the secondary has a luminosity of 56 L☉; the primary is an A-type star with an absolute magnitude of 0.2 and the secondary is a B9-type star with an absolute magnitude of 0.4.[27] The angle between the two components is 1°.[2] Mesartim was discovered to be a double star by Robert Hooke in 1664, one of the earliest such telescopic discoveries. The primary, γ1 Arietis, is an Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variable star that has a range of 0.02 magnitudes and a period of 2.607 days. It is unusual because of its strong silicon emission lines.[30] Toshiba MP-09N13US-698 Keyboard
The constellation is home to several double stars, including Epsilon, Lambda, and Pi Arietis. ε Arietis is a binary star with two white components. The primary is of magnitude 5.2 and the secondary is of magnitude 5.5. The system is 290 light-years from Earth.[11] Its overall magnitude is 4.63, and the primary has an absolute magnitude of 1.4. Its spectral class is A2. The two components are separated by 1.5 arcseconds.[27] λ Arietis is a wide double star with a white-hued primary and a yellow-hued secondary. The primary is of magnitude 4.8 and the secondary is of magnitude 7.3.[11] Acer Aspire 3680 Keyboard
The primary is 129 light-years from Earth.[33] It has an absolute magnitude of 1.7 and a spectral class of F0.[27] The two components are separated by 36 arcseconds at an angle of 50°; the two stars are located 0.5° east of 7 Arietis.[2] π Arietis is a close binary star with a blue-white primary and a white secondary. The primary is of magnitude 5.3 and the secondary is of magnitude 8.5.[11] The primary is 776 light-years from Earth.[34] The primary itself is a wide double star with a separation of 25.2 arcseconds; the tertiary has a magnitude of 10.8. The primary and secondary are separated by 3.2 arcseconds.[27] HP Pavilion G6-1119TU Keyboard
Most of the other stars in Aries visible to the naked eye have magnitudes between 3 and 5. δ Ari, called Boteïn, is a star of magnitude 4.35, 170 light-years away. It has an absolute magnitude of −0.1 and a spectral class of K2.[27][35] ζ Arietis is a star of magnitude 4.89, 263 light-years away. Its spectral class is A0 and its absolute magnitude is 0.0.[27][36] 14 Arietis is a star of magnitude 4.98, 288 light-years away. Its spectral class is F2 and its absolute magnitude is 0.6.[27][37] 39 Arietis is a similar star of magnitude 4.51, 172 light-years away. Sony VAIO VGN-CR120E Keyboard
Its spectral class is K1 and its absolute magnitude is 0.0.[27][38] 35 Arietis is a dim star of magnitude 4.55, 343 light-years away. Its spectral class is B3 and its absolute magnitude is −1.7.[27][39] 41 Arietis, known both as c Arietis and Nair al Butain, is a brighter star of magnitude 3.63, 165 light-years away. Its spectral class is B8 and it has a luminosity of 105 L☉. Its absolute magnitude is −0.2.[27][40] 53 Arietis is a runaway star of magnitude 6.09, 815 light-years away.[30][41] Its spectral class is B2. It was likely ejected from the Orion Nebula approximately five million years ago, possibly due to supernovae.[30] Finally, Acer Aspire 4736G Keyboard
Teegarden's Star is the closest star to Earth in Aries. It is a brown dwarf of magnitude 15.14 and spectral class M6.5V. With a proper motion of 5.1 arcseconds per year, it is the 24th closest star to Earth overall.[3]
Aries has its share of variable stars, including R and U Arietis, Mira-type variable stars, and T Arietis, a semi-regular variable star. R Arietis is a Mira variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 13.7 to a maximum of 7.4 with a period of 186.8 days.[27] It is 4,080 light-years away.[42] U Arietis is another Mira variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 15.2 to a maximum of 7.2 with a period of 371.1 days.[27] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
T Arietis is a semiregular variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 11.3 to a maximum of 7.5 with a period of 317 days.[27] It is 1,630 light-years away.[43] One particularly interesting variable in Aries is SX Arietis, a rotating variable star considered to be the prototype of its class, helium variable stars. SX Arietis stars have very prominent emission lines of Helium I and Silicon III. They are normally main-sequence B0p—B9p stars, and their variations are not usually visible to the naked eye. Therefore, they are observed photometrically, usually having periods that fit in the course of one night. Similar to Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4080 Keyboard
SX Arietis stars have periodic changes in their light and magnetic field, which correspond to the periodic rotation; they differ from the Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables in their higher temperature. There are between 39 and 49 SX Arietis variable stars currently known; ten are noted as being "uncertain" in the General Catalog of Variable Stars.[44]
[edit]Deep-sky objects
The few deep-sky objects in Aries are very dim. Nevertheless, several scientifically interesting galaxies lie within its borders; it has spiral, elliptical, and interacting galaxies.
NGC 772, with a notated supernova. Toshiba Satellite L755-S5214 Keyboard
NGC 772 is a spiral galaxy with an integrated magnitude of 10.3, located southeast of β Arietis and 15 arcminutes west of 15 Arietis.[12] It is a relatively bright galaxy and shows obvious nebulosity and ellipticity in an amateur telescope. It is 7.2 by 4.2 arcminutes, meaning that its surface brightness, magnitude 13.6, is significantly lower than its integrated magnitude. NGC 772 is a class SA(s)b galaxy, which means that it is an unbarred spiral galaxy without a ring that possesses a somewhat prominent bulge and spiral arms that are wound somewhat tightly.[2] The main arm, on the northwest side of the galaxy,[30] HP Pavilion G4-1020TX LQ375PA Keyboard
is home to many star forming regions; this is due to previous gravitational interactions with other galaxies. NGC 772 has a small companion galaxy, NGC 770, that is about 113,000 light-years away from the larger galaxy. The two galaxies together are also classified as Arp 78 in the Arp peculiar galaxy catalog. NGC 772 has a diameter of 240,000 light-years and the system is 114 million light-years from Earth.[45] Another spiral galaxy in Aries is NGC 673, a face-on class SAB(s)c galaxy. It is a weakly barred spiral galaxy with loosely wound arms. It has no ring and a faint bulge and is 2.5 by 1.9 arcminutes. Sony VAIO VGN-FS630 Keyboard
It has two primary arms with fragments located farther from the core. 171,000 light-years in diameter, NGC 673 is 235 million light-years from Earth.[45]
NGC 678 and NGC 680 are a pair of galaxies in Aries that are only about 200,000 light-years apart. Part of the NGC 691 group of galaxies, both are at a distance of approximately 130 million light-years. NGC 678 is an edge-on spiral galaxy that is 4.5 by 0.8 arcminutes. NGC 680, an elliptical galaxy with an asymmetrical boundary, is the brighter of the two at magnitude 12.9; NGC 678 has a magnitude of 13.35. Both galaxies have bright cores, but NGC 678 is the larger galaxy at a diameter of 171,000 light-years; NGC 680 has a diameter of 72,000 light-years. NGC 678 is further distinguished by its prominent dust lane. Acer Aspire 5611 Keyboard
NGC 691 itself is a spiral galaxy slightly inclined to our line of sight. It has multiple spiral arms and a bright core. Because it is so diffuse, it has a low surface brightness. It has a diameter of 126,000 light-years and is 124 million light-years away.[45] NGC 877 is the brightest member of an 8-galaxy group that also includes NGC 870, NGC 871, and NGC 876, with a magnitude of 12.53. It is 2.4 by 1.8 arcminutes and is 178 million light-years away with a diameter of 124,000 light-years. Its companion is NGC 876, which is about 103,000 light-years from the core of NGC 877. They are interacting gravitationally, Toshiba Satellite L755-S5242BN Keyboard
as they are connected by a faint stream of gas and dust.[45] Arp 276 is a different pair of interacting galaxies in Aries, consisting of NGC 935 and IC 1801.[46]
NGC 821 is an E6 elliptical galaxy. It is unusual because it has hints of an early spiral structure, which is normally only found in lenticular and spiral galaxies. NGC 821 is 2.6 by 2.0 arcminutes and has a visual magnitude of 11.3. Its diameter is 61,000 light-years and it is 80 million light-years away.[45] Another unusual galaxy in Aries is Segue 2. Segue 2 is a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, recently discovered to be a potential relic of the epoch of reionization.[47] Compaq Presario CQ35-100 Keyboard
[edit]Meteor showers
Aries is home to several meteor showers. The Daytime Arietid meteor shower is one of the strongest meteor showers that occurs during the day, lasting from 22 May to 2 June. It is an annual shower associated with the Marsden group of comets that peaks on 7 June with a maximum zenithal hourly rate of 54 meteors.[48][49] Its parent body may be the asteroid Icarus. The meteors are sometimes visible before dawn, because the radiant is 32 degrees away from the Sun. They usually appear at a rate of 1–2 per hour as "earthgrazers", Ideapad Y450
meteors that last several seconds and often begin at the horizon. Because most of the Daytime Arietids are not visible to the naked eye, they are observed in the radio spectrum. This is possible because of the ionized gas they leave in their wake.[50][51] Other meteor showers radiate from Aries during the day; these include the Daytime Epsilon Arietids and the Northern and Southern Daytime May Arietids.[52] The Jodrell Bank Observatory discovered the Daytime Arietids in 1947 when James Hey and G.S. Stewart adapted the World War II-era radar systems for meteor observations.[51] Dell NSK-D9001 Keyboard
The Delta Arietids are another meteor shower radiating from Aries. Peaking on 9 December with a low peak rate, the shower lasts from 8 December to 14 January, with the highest rates visible from 8 to 14 December. The average Delta Aquarid meteor is very slow, with an average velocity of 13.2 kilometres (8.2 mi) per second. However, this shower sometimes produces bright fireballs.[53] This meteor shower has northern and southern components, both of which are likely associated with 1990 HA, a near-earth asteroid.[54] Acer Aspire 7736ZG Keyboard
The Autumn Arietids also radiate from Aries. The shower lasts from 7 September to 27 October and peaks on 9 October. Its peak rate is low.[55] The Epsilon Arietids appear from 12 to 23 October.[7] Other meteor showers radiating from Aries include the October Delta Arietids, Daytime Epsilon Arietids, Daytime May Arietids, Sigma Arietids, Nu Arietids, and Beta Arietids.[52] The Sigma Arietids, a class IV meteor shower, are visible from 12 to 19 October, with a maximum zenithal hourly rate of less than two meteors per hour on 19 October.[56]
[edit]Planetary systemsAsus X53S Keyboard
Aries contains several stars with extrasolar planets. HIP 14810, a G5 type star, is orbited by three giant planets (those more than ten times the mass of Earth).[57] HD 12661, like HIP 14810, is a G-type main sequence star, slightly larger than the Sun, with two orbiting planets. One planet is 2.3 times the mass of Jupiter, and the other is 1.57 times the mass of Jupiter.[58] HD 20367 is a G0 type star, approximately the size of the Sun, with one orbiting planet. The planet, discovered in 2002, has a mass 1.07 times that of Jupiter and orbits every 500 days.[59]
[edit]See also
Big Bang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPackard Bell PEW91 keyboard
This article is about the cosmological model. For other uses, see Big Bang (disambiguation).
"Big Bang theory" redirects here. For other uses, see Big Bang Theory (disambiguation).
According to the Big Bang model, the Universe expanded from an extremely dense and hot state and continues to expand today. A common analogy explains that space itself is expanding, carrying galaxies with it, like spots on an inflating balloon. The graphic scheme above is an artist's concept illustrating the expansion of a portion of a flat universe.
Key topics in
Physical cosmology
Universe · Big Bang
Age of the universeSony 9J.N0U82.001 Keyboard
Timeline of the Big Bang
Early universe[show]
Expanding universe[show]
Structure formation[show]
Future of universe[show]
Components[show]
History of cosmological theories[show]
Experiments[show]
Scientists[show] Toshiba G83C0000EA10 Keyboard
Social impact[show]
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe.[1] According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the Universe to cool and resulted in its present continuously expanding state. The most recent measurements and observations are in agreement with a Big Bang that would have occurred approximately 13.75 billion years ago,[2][3] which is thus considered the age of the Universe.[4][5] According to the theory, after its initial expansion from a singularity, Toshiba Satellite A200-110 Keyboard
the Universe would have cooled sufficiently to allow energy to be converted into various subatomic particles, including protons, neutrons, and electrons. While protons and neutrons would have combined to form the first atomic nuclei only a few minutes after the Big Bang, it would then have taken thousands of years for electrons to combine with them and create electrically neutral atoms. The first element produced would then be hydrogen, along with traces of helium and lithium. Giant clouds of these primordial elements would then coalesce through gravity to form stars and galaxies, Toshiba Satellite P300-19P Keyboard
and the heavier elements would be synthesized either within stars or during supernovae.
The Big Bang is a well-developed scientific theory which is widely accepted within the scientific community because it offers an accurate and comprehensive explanation for a broad range of phenomena that astronomers observe. Since its conception, abundant evidence has arisen to further develop and strengthen the model.[6] Georges Lemaître first proposed what would become the Big Bang theory in what he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom." Over time, scientists would build on his initial ideas to form the modern synthesis. Asus A6Km Keyboard
The framework for the Big Bang model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions such as homogeneity and isotropy of space. The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. In 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts—an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927. Hubble's observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point: the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity.[7] HP Pavilion dv6-4008tx Keyboard
As the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, the theory states that everything was closer together in the past. This idea has been considered in detail back in time to extreme densities and temperatures,[8][9][10] and large particle accelerators have been built to experiment on and test such conditions, resulting in significant confirmation and further development of this model. On the other hand, these accelerators have limited capabilities to probe into such high energy regimes. Compaq Presario CQ57-315NR Keyboard
There is little evidence regarding the absolute earliest instant of the expansion. Thus, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on. The observed abundances of the light elements throughout the cosmos closely match the calculated predictions for the formation of these elements from nuclear processes in the rapidly expanding and cooling first minutes of the universe, HP G72-b80SB Keyboard
as logically and quantitatively detailed according to Big Bang nucleosynthesis. After the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, and especially when its spectrum (i.e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength) was found to match that of thermal radiation from a black body, most scientists had become fairly convinced that some version of the Big Bang scenario best fit observations.
Contents [hide]
Main article: Timeline of the Big BangHP Pavilion G6-1B87CL Keyboard
A graphical timeline is available at
Graphical timeline of the Big Bang
Extrapolation of the expansion of the Universe backwards in time using general relativity yields an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past.[11] This singularity signals the breakdown of general relativity. How closely we can extrapolate towards the singularity is debated—certainly no closer than the end of the Planck epoch. This singularity is sometimes called "the Big Bang",[12] but the term can also refer to the early hot, dense phase itself,[13][notes 1] which can be considered the "birth" of our Universe. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5057 Keyboard
Based on measurements of the expansion using Type Ia supernovae, measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, and measurements of the correlation function of galaxies, the Universe has a calculated age of 13.75 ± 0.11 billion years.[15] The agreement of these three independent measurements strongly supports the ΛCDM model that describes in detail the contents of the Universe.
The earliest phases of the Big Bang are subject to much speculation. Gateway MX3700 Keyboard
In the most common models the Universe was filled homogeneously and isotropically with an incredibly high energy density and huge temperatures and pressures and was very rapidly expanding and cooling. Approximately 10−37 seconds into the expansion, a phase transition caused a cosmic inflation, during which the Universe grew exponentially.[16] After inflation stopped, the Universe consisted of a quark–gluon plasma, as well as all other elementary particles.[17] Compaq Presario CQ71-413SG Keyboard
Temperatures were so high that the random motions of particles were at relativistic speeds, and particle–antiparticle pairs of all kinds were being continuously created and destroyed in collisions. At some point an unknown reaction called baryogenesis violated the conservation of baryon number, leading to a very small excess of quarks and leptons over antiquarks and antileptons—of the order of one part in 30 million. This resulted in the predominance of matter over antimatter in the present Universe.[18] Ideapad S9
The Universe continued to grow in size and fall in temperature, hence the typical energy of each particle was decreasing. Symmetry breaking phase transitions put the fundamental forces of physics and the parameters of elementary particles into their present form.[19] After about 10−11 seconds, the picture becomes less speculative, since particle energies drop to values that can be attained in particle physics experiments. At about 10−6 seconds, quarks and gluons combined to form baryons such as protons and neutrons. Toshiba Satellite L350-ST2121 Keyboard
The small excess of quarks over antiquarks led to a small excess of baryons over antibaryons. The temperature was now no longer high enough to create new proton–antiproton pairs (similarly for neutrons–antineutrons), so a mass annihilation immediately followed, leaving just one in 1010 of the original protons and neutrons, and none of their antiparticles. A similar process happened at about 1 second for electrons and positrons. After these annihilations, the remaining protons, neutrons and electrons were no longer moving relativistically and the energy density of the Universe was dominated by photons (with a minor contribution from neutrinos). Toshiba Satellite L655-S5100 Keyboard
A few minutes into the expansion, when the temperature was about a billion (one thousand million; 109; SI prefix giga-) kelvin and the density was about that of air, neutrons combined with protons to form the Universe's deuterium and helium nuclei in a process called Big Bang nucleosynthesis.[20] Most protons remained uncombined as hydrogen nuclei. As the Universe cooled, the rest mass energy density of matter came to gravitationally dominate that of the photon radiation. Packard Bell Easynote TK81 keyboard
After about 379,000 years the electrons and nuclei combined into atoms (mostly hydrogen); hence the radiation decoupled from matter and continued through space largely unimpeded. This relic radiation is known as the cosmic microwave background radiation.[21]
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field showcases galaxies from an ancient era when the Universe was younger, denser, and warmer according to the Big Bang theory.
Over a long period of time, the slightly denser regions of the nearly uniformly distributed matter gravitationally attracted nearby matter and thus grew even denser, Sony VAIO VGN-CS16G/Q Keyboard
forming gas clouds, stars, galaxies, and the other astronomical structures observable today. The details of this process depend on the amount and type of matter in the Universe. The four possible types of matter are known as cold dark matter, warm dark matter, hot dark matter and baryonic matter. The best measurements available (from WMAP) show that the data is well-fit by a Lambda-CDM model in which dark matter is assumed to be cold (warm dark matter is ruled out by early reionization[22]), Sony VAIO VGN-FS315 Keyboard
and is estimated to make up about 23% of the matter/energy of the universe, while baryonic matter makes up about 4.6%.[15] In an "extended model" which includes hot dark matter in the form of neutrinos, then if the "physical baryon density" Ωbh2 is estimated at about 0.023 (this is different from the 'baryon density' Ωb expressed as a fraction of the total matter/energy density, which as noted above is about 0.046), and the corresponding cold dark matter density Ωch2 is about 0.11, the corresponding neutrino density Ωvh2 is estimated to be less than 0.0062.[15] Acer Aspire 4736G Keyboard
Independent lines of evidence from Type Ia supernovae and the CMB imply that the Universe today is dominated by a mysterious form of energy known as dark energy, which apparently permeates all of space. The observations suggest 73% of the total energy density of today's Universe is in this form. When the Universe was very young, it was likely infused with dark energy, but with less space and everything closer together, gravity had the upper hand, and it was slowly braking the expansion. But eventually, Acer Extensa 7720 Keyboard
after numerous billion years of expansion, the growing abundance of dark energy caused the expansion of the Universe to slowly begin to accelerate. Dark energy in its simplest formulation takes the form of the cosmological constant term in Einstein's field equations of general relativity, but its composition and mechanism are unknown and, more generally, the details of its equation of state and relationship with the Standard Model of particle physics continue to be investigated both observationally and theoretically.[23] Toshiba Satellite P100-240 Keyboard
All of this cosmic evolution after the inflationary epoch can be rigorously described and modeled by the ΛCDM model of cosmology, which uses the independent frameworks of quantum mechanics and Einstein's General Relativity. As noted above, there is no well-supported model describing the action prior to 10−15 seconds or so. Apparently a new unified theory of quantum gravitation is needed to break this barrier. Understanding this earliest of eras in the history of the Universe is currently one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics. Compaq Presario CQ57-315NR Keyboard
Underlying assumptions
The Big Bang theory depends on two major assumptions: the universality of physical laws, and the cosmological principle. The cosmological principle states that on large scales the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic.
These ideas were initially taken as postulates, but today there are efforts to test each of them. For example, Acer eMachines G730ZG Keyboard
the first assumption has been tested by observations showing that largest possible deviation of the fine structure constant over much of the age of the universe is of order 10−5.[24] Also, general relativity has passed stringent tests on the scale of the Solar System and binary stars while extrapolation to cosmological scales has been validated by the empirical successes of various aspects of the Big Bang theory.[notes 2]
If the large-scale Universe appears isotropic as viewed from Earth, the cosmological principle can be derived from the simpler Copernican principle, Acer Aspire 5910 Keyboard
which states that there is no preferred (or special) observer or vantage point. To this end, the cosmological principle has been confirmed to a level of 10−5 via observations of the CMB.[notes 3][citation needed] The Universe has been measured to be homogeneous on the largest scales at the 10% level.[25]
FLRW metric
Main articles: Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric and Metric expansion of space
General relativity describes spacetime by a metric, which determines the distances that separate nearby points. The points, which can be galaxies, stars, or other objects, themselves are specified using a coordinate chart or "grid" that is laid down over all spacetime. Acer Aspire 2001 Keyboard
The cosmological principle implies that the metric should be homogeneous and isotropic on large scales, which uniquely singles out the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric (FLRW metric). This metric contains a scale factor, which describes how the size of the Universe changes with time. This enables a convenient choice of a coordinate system to be made, called comoving coordinates. In this coordinate system the grid expands along with the Universe, and objects that are moving only due to the expansion of the Universe remain at fixed points on the grid. While their coordinate distance (comoving distance) remains constant, HP Mini 210-1095CA Keyboard
the physical distance between two such comoving points expands proportionally with the scale factor of the Universe.[26]
The Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe. Instead, space itself expands with time everywhere and increases the physical distance between two comoving points. Because the FLRW metric assumes a uniform distribution of mass and energy, it applies to our Universe only on large scales—local concentrations of matter such as our galaxy are gravitationally bound and as such do not experience the large-scale expansion of space.
HorizonsHP Pavilion G6-1122TU Keyboard
Main article: Cosmological horizon
An important feature of the Big Bang spacetime is the presence of horizons. Since the Universe has a finite age, and light travels at a finite speed, there may be events in the past whose light has not had time to reach us. This places a limit or a past horizon on the most distant objects that can be observed. Conversely, because space is expanding, and more distant objects are receding ever more quickly, light emitted by us today may never "catch up" to very distant objects. This defines a future horizon, which limits the events in the future that we will be able to influence. Toshiba Tecra M10-ST9110 Keyboard
The presence of either type of horizon depends on the details of the FLRW model that describes our Universe. Our understanding of the Universe back to very early times suggests that there is a past horizon, though in practice our view is also limited by the opacity of the Universe at early times. So our view cannot extend further backward in time, though the horizon recedes in space. If the expansion of the Universe continues to accelerate, there is a future horizon as well.[27]
History
Main article: History of the Big Bang theory
See also: Timeline of cosmology
EtymologyToshiba NSK-T4N01 Keyboard
Fred Hoyle is credited with coining the term Big Bang during a 1949 radio broadcast. It is popularly reported that Hoyle, who favored an alternative "steady state" cosmological model, intended this to be pejorative, but Hoyle explicitly denied this and said it was just a striking image meant to highlight the difference between the two models.[28][29][30]
Development
Artist's depiction of the WMAP satellite gathering data to help scientists understand the Big Bang
The Big Bang theory developed from observations of the structure of the Universe and from theoretical considerations. Toshiba Satellite L750D-ST5NX1 Keyboard
In 1912 Vesto Slipher measured the first Doppler shift of a "spiral nebula" (spiral nebula is the obsolete term for spiral galaxies), and soon discovered that almost all such nebulae were receding from Earth. He did not grasp the cosmological implications of this fact, and indeed at the time it was highly controversial whether or not these nebulae were "island universes" outside our Milky Way.[31][32] Ten years later, Alexander Friedmann, a Russian cosmologist and mathematician, derived the Friedmann equations from Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity, showing that the Universe might be expanding in contrast to the static Universe model advocated by Einstein at that time.[33] Toshiba NSK-T4N01 Keyboard
In 1924 Edwin Hubble's measurement of the great distance to the nearest spiral nebulae showed that these systems were indeed other galaxies. Independently deriving Friedmann's equations in 1927, Georges Lemaître, a Belgian physicist and Roman Catholic priest, proposed that the inferred recession of the nebulae was due to the expansion of the Universe.[34]
In 1931 Lemaître went further and suggested that the evident expansion of the universe, if projected back in time, Sony VGN-FE880E/H Keyboard
meant that the further in the past the smaller the universe was, until at some finite time in the past all the mass of the Universe was concentrated into a single point, a "primeval atom" where and when the fabric of time and space came into existence.[35]
Starting in 1924, Hubble painstakingly developed a series of distance indicators, the forerunner of the cosmic distance ladder, using the 100-inch (2,500 mm) Hooker telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. This allowed him to estimate distances to galaxies whose redshifts had already been measured, mostly by Slipher. In 1929 Hubble discovered a correlation between distance and recession velocity—now known as Hubble's law. Dell UW739 Keyboard
[7][36] Lemaître had already shown that this was expected, given the Cosmological Principle.[23]
In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state Universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady state theory.[37] This perception was enhanced by the fact that the originator of the Big Bang theory, Monsignor Georges Lemaître, Acer Aspire 5710Z Keyboard
was a Roman Catholic priest.[38] Arthur Eddington agreed with Aristotle that the universe did not have a beginning in time, viz., that matter is eternal. A beginning in time was "repugnant" to him.[39][40] Lemaître, however, thought that
If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time. 04W0872
During the 1930s other ideas were proposed as non-standard cosmologies to explain Hubble's observations, including the Milne model,[42] the oscillatory Universe (originally suggested by Friedmann, but advocated by Albert Einstein and Richard Tolman)[43] and Fritz Zwicky's tired light hypothesis.[44]
After World War II, two distinct possibilities emerged. One was Fred Hoyle's steady state model, whereby new matter would be created as the Universe seemed to expand. HP Pavilion dv5-1225et Keyboard
In this model the Universe is roughly the same at any point in time.[45] The other was Lemaître's Big Bang theory, advocated and developed by George Gamow, who introduced big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN)[46] and whose associates, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman, predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB).[47] Ironically, it was Hoyle who coined the phrase that came to be applied to Lemaître's theory, referring to it as "this big bang idea" during a BBC Radio broadcast in March 1949.[48][notes 4] For a while, Compaq Presario CQ50-115NR Keyboard
support was split between these two theories. Eventually, the observational evidence, most notably from radio source counts, began to favor Big Bang over Steady State. The discovery and confirmation of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964[50] secured the Big Bang as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the cosmos. Much of the current work in cosmology includes understanding how galaxies form in the context of the Big Bang, understanding the physics of the Universe at earlier and earlier times, and reconciling observations with the basic theory. Dell PVDG3 Keyboard
Significant progress in Big Bang cosmology have been made since the late 1990s as a result of advances in telescope technology as well as the analysis of data from satellites such as COBE,[51] the Hubble Space Telescope and WMAP.[52] Cosmologists now have fairly precise and accurate measurements of many of the parameters of the Big Bang model, and have made the unexpected discovery that the expansion of the Universe appears to be accelerating.
Observational evidence
"[T]he big bang picture is too firmly grounded in data from every area to be proved invalid in its general features." 04W0872
Lawrence Krauss[53]
The earliest and most direct kinds of observational evidence are the Hubble-type expansion seen in the redshifts of galaxies, the detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the relative abundances of light elements produced by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and today also the large scale distribution and apparent evolution of galaxies[54] predicted to occur due to gravitational growth of structure in the standard theory. These are sometimes called "the four pillars of the Big Bang theory".[55]
Hubble's law and the expansion of spaceSony VAIO VGN-CS16G/W Keyboard
Main articles: Hubble's law and Metric expansion of space
See also: Distance measures (cosmology) and Scale factor (universe)
Observations of distant galaxies and quasars show that these objects are redshifted—the light emitted from them has been shifted to longer wavelengths. This can be seen by taking a frequency spectrum of an object and matching the spectroscopic pattern of emission lines or absorption lines corresponding to atoms of the chemical elements interacting with the light. These redshifts are uniformly isotropic, Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard
distributed evenly among the observed objects in all directions. If the redshift is interpreted as a Doppler shift, the recessional velocity of the object can be calculated. For some galaxies, it is possible to estimate distances via the cosmic distance ladder. When the recessional velocities are plotted against these distances, a linear relationship known as Hubble's law is observed:[7]
v = H0D,
where
v is the recessional velocity of the galaxy or other distant object,
D is the comoving distance to the object, andSony VAIO VGN-FS295XP Keyboard
H0 is Hubble's constant, measured to be 70.4 +1.3
−1.4 km/s/Mpc by the WMAP probe.[15]
Hubble's law has two possible explanations. Either we are at the center of an explosion of galaxies—which is untenable given the Copernican principle—or the Universe is uniformly expanding everywhere. This universal expansion was predicted from general relativity by Alexander Friedmann in 1922[33] and Georges Lemaître in 1927,[34] well before Hubble made his 1929 analysis and observations, and it remains the cornerstone of the Big Bang theory as developed by Friedmann, Lemaître, Robertson and Walker. Sony VAIO VGN-FS810 Keyboard
The theory requires the relation v = HD to hold at all times, where D is the comoving distance, v is the recessional velocity, and v, H, and D vary as the Universe expands (hence we write H0 to denote the present-day Hubble "constant"). For distances much smaller than the size of the observable Universe, the Hubble redshift can be thought of as the Doppler shift corresponding to the recession velocity v. However, the redshift is not a true Doppler shift, but rather the result of the expansion of the Universe between the time the light was emitted and the time that it was detected.[56] Sony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard
That space is undergoing metric expansion is shown by direct observational evidence of the Cosmological principle and the Copernican principle, which together with Hubble's law have no other explanation. Astronomical redshifts are extremely isotropic and homogenous,[7] supporting the Cosmological principle that the Universe looks the same in all directions, along with much other evidence. If the redshifts were the result of an explosion from a center distant from us, they would not be so similar in different directions. HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
Measurements of the effects of the cosmic microwave background radiation on the dynamics of distant astrophysical systems in 2000 proved the Copernican principle, that, on a cosmological scale, the Earth is not in a central position.[57] Radiation from the Big Bang was demonstrably warmer at earlier times throughout the Universe. Uniform cooling of the cosmic microwave background over billions of years is explainable only if the Universe is experiencing a metric expansion, and excludes the possibility that we are near the unique center of an explosion.
Cosmic microwave background radiationSony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W Keyboard
Main article: Cosmic microwave background radiation
WMAP image of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The radiation is isotropic to roughly one part in 100,000.[58]
In 1964 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson serendipitously discovered the cosmic background radiation, an omnidirectional signal in the microwave band.[50] Their discovery provided substantial confirmation of the general CMB predictions: the radiation was found to be consistent with an almost perfect black body spectrum in all directions; this spectrum has been redshifted by the expansion of the universe, and today corresponds to approximately 2.725 K. This tipped the balance of evidence in favor of the Big Bang model, Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard
and Penzias and Wilson were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1978.
The surface of last scattering corresponding to emission of the CMB occurs shortly after recombination, the epoch when neutral hydrogen becomes stable. Prior to this, the universe comprised a hot dense photon-baryon plasma sea where photons were quickly scattered from free charged particles. Peaking at around 372±14 ka,[22] the mean free path for a photon becomes long enough to reach the present day and the universe becomes transparent. HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
The cosmic microwave background spectrum measured by the FIRAS instrument on the COBE satellite is the most-precisely measured black body spectrum in nature.[59] The data points and error bars on this graph are obscured by the theoretical curve.
In 1989 NASA launched the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE). Its findings were consistent with predictions regarding the CMB, finding a residual temperature of 2.726 K (more recent measurements have revised this figure down slightly to 2.725 K) and providing the first evidence for fluctuations (anisotropies) in the CMB, Sony VAIO VGN-FS770W Keyboard
at a level of about one part in 105.[51] John C. Mather and George Smoot were awarded the Nobel Prize for their leadership in this work. During the following decade, CMB anisotropies were further investigated by a large number of ground-based and balloon experiments. In 2000–2001 several experiments, most notably BOOMERanG, found the shape of the Universe to be spatially almost flat by measuring the typical angular size (the size on the sky) of the anisotropies.
In early 2003 the first results of theDell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) were released, yielding what were at the time the most accurate values for some of the cosmological parameters. The results disproved several specific cosmic inflation models, but are consistent with the inflation theory in general.[52] The Planck space probe was launched in May 2009. Other ground and balloon based cosmic microwave background experiments are ongoing.
Abundance of primordial elements
Main article: Big Bang nucleosynthesisK020830M1 US
Using the Big Bang model it is possible to calculate the concentration of helium-4, helium-3, deuterium and lithium-7 in the Universe as ratios to the amount of ordinary hydrogen.[20] The relative abundances depend on a single parameter, the ratio of photons to baryons. This value can be calculated independently from the detailed structure of CMB fluctuations. The ratios predicted (by mass, not by number) are about 0.25 for 4He/H, about 10−3 for 2H/H, about 10−4 for 3He/H and about 10−9 for 7Li/H.[20] Gateway M6805 Keyboard
The measured abundances all agree at least roughly with those predicted from a single value of the baryon-to-photon ratio. The agreement is excellent for deuterium, close but formally discrepant for 4He, and off by a factor of two 7Li; in the latter two cases there are substantial systematic uncertainties. Nonetheless, the general consistency with abundances predicted by Big Bang nucleosynthesis is strong evidence for the Big Bang, as the theory is the only known explanation for the relative abundances of light elements, Acer Aspire 1522LC Keyboard
and it is virtually impossible to "tune" the Big Bang to produce much more or less than 20–30% helium.[60] Indeed there is no obvious reason outside of the Big Bang that, for example, the young Universe (i.e., before star formation, as determined by studying matter supposedly free of stellar nucleosynthesis products) should have more helium than deuterium or more deuterium than 3He, and in constant ratios, too.
Galactic evolution and distribution
Main articles: Galaxy formation and evolution, Large-scale structure of the cosmos, and Structure formationHP G61-110EA Keyboard
This panoramic view of the entire near-infrared sky reveals the distribution of galaxies beyond the Milky Way. The galaxies are color coded by redshift.
Detailed observations of the morphology and distribution of galaxies and quasars provide strong evidence for the Big Bang. A combination of observations and theory suggest that the first quasars and galaxies formed about a billion years after the Big Bang, and since then larger structures have been forming, such as galaxy clusters and superclusters. Sony VAIO VGN-N110E Keyboard
Populations of stars have been aging and evolving, so that distant galaxies (which are observed as they were in the early Universe) appear very different from nearby galaxies (observed in a more recent state). Moreover, galaxies that formed relatively recently appear markedly different from galaxies formed at similar distances but shortly after the Big Bang. These observations are strong arguments against the steady-state model. Observations of star formation, galaxy and quasar distributions and larger structures agree well with Big Bang simulations of the formation of structure in the Universe and are helping to complete details of the theory.[61][62] Compaq Presario C722TU Keyboard
Primordial gas clouds
In 2011 astronomers have found pristine clouds of the primordial gas that formed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. The composition of the gas matches theoretical predictions, providing direct evidence in support of the modern cosmological explanation for the origins of elements in the universe. The researchers discovered the two clouds of pristine gas by analyzing the light from distant quasars, using the HIRES spectrometer on the Keck I Telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. They saw absorption lines in the spectrum where the light was absorbed by the gas, and that allows them to measure the composition of the gas.[ Asus F82 Keyboard
Other lines of evidence
The age of Universe as estimated from the Hubble expansion and the CMB is now in good agreement with other estimates using the ages of the oldest stars, both as measured by applying the theory of stellar evolution to globular clusters and through radiometric dating of individual Population II stars.[65]
The prediction that the CMB temperature was higher in the past has been experimentally supported by observations of very low temperature absorption lines in gas clouds at high redshift.[66] Compaq Presario C500 Keyboard
This prediction also implies that the amplitude of the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect in clusters of galaxies does not depend directly on redshift. Observations have found this to be roughly true, but this effect depends on cluster properties that do change with cosmic time, making precise measurements difficult.[67][68]
Features and problems
While the scientific community now supports the Big Bang model over other cosmological models, it was once divided between supporters of the Big Bang and those of alternative cosmological models. Throughout the historical development of the subject, problems with the Big Bang theory were posed in the context of a scientific controversy regarding which model could best describe the cosmological observations. With the overwhelming consensus in the community today supporting the Big Bang model, HP G72-b66US Keyboard
many of these problems are remembered as being mainly of historical interest; the solutions to them have been obtained either through modifications to the theory or as the result of better observations.[citation needed]
The core ideas of the Big Bang—the expansion, the early hot state, the formation of helium, the formation of galaxies—are derived from many observations that are independent from any cosmological model; these include the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure, and the Hubble diagram for Type Ia supernovae. Gateway NV-59 Keyboard
Precise modern models of the Big Bang appeal to various exotic physical phenomena that have not been observed in terrestrial laboratory experiments or incorporated into the Standard Model of particle physics. Of these features, dark matter is currently the subject to the most active laboratory investigations.[69] Remaining issues, such as the cuspy halo problem and the dwarf galaxy problem of cold dark matter, are not fatal to the dark matter explanation as solutions to such problems exist which involve only further refinements of the theory. Sony KFRMBA220A Keyboard
Dark energy is also an area of intense interest for scientists, but it is not clear whether direct detection of dark energy will be possible.[70]
On the other hand, inflation and baryogenesis remain somewhat more speculative features of current Big Bang models: they explain important features of the early universe, but could be replaced by alternative ideas without affecting the rest of the theory.[notes 5][citation needed] Viable, quantitative explanations for such phenomena are still being sought. Acer eMachines E730 Keyboard
These are currently unsolved problems in physics.
Horizon problem
Main article: Horizon problem
The horizon problem results from the premise that information cannot travel faster than light. In a Universe of finite age this sets a limit—the particle horizon—on the separation of any two regions of space that are in causal contact.[71] The observed isotropy of the CMB is problematic in this regard: if the Universe had been dominated by radiation or matter at all times up to the epoch of last scattering, Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001
the particle horizon at that time would correspond to about 2 degrees on the sky. There would then be no mechanism to cause wider regions to have the same temperature.
A resolution to this apparent inconsistency is offered by inflationary theory in which a homogeneous and isotropic scalar energy field dominates the Universe at some very early period (before baryogenesis). During inflation, the Universe undergoes exponential expansion, and the particle horizon expands much more rapidly than previously assumed, Satellite U305-S7448
so that regions presently on opposite sides of the observable Universe are well inside each other's particle horizon. The observed isotropy of the CMB then follows from the fact that this larger region was in causal contact before the beginning of inflation.
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle predicts that during the inflationary phase there would be quantum thermal fluctuations, which would be magnified to cosmic scale. These fluctuations serve as the seeds of all current structure in the Universe. Inflation predicts that the primordial fluctuations are nearly scale invariant and Gaussian, Packard Bell PEW91 keyboard
which has been accurately confirmed by measurements of the CMB.
If inflation occurred, exponential expansion would push large regions of space well beyond our observable horizon.
Flatness problem
Main article: Flatness problem
The overall geometry of the Universe is determined by whether the Omega cosmological parameter is less than, equal to or greater than 1. Shown from top to bottom are a closed Universe with positive curvature, SONY VAIO VGN-CS21S/V
a hyperbolic Universe with negative curvature and a flat Universe with zero curvature.
The flatness problem (also known as the oldness problem) is an observational problem associated with a Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric.[71] The Universe may have positive, negative or zero spatial curvature depending on its total energy density. Curvature is negative if its density is less than the critical density, positive if greater, and zero at the critical density, in which case space is said to be flat. The problem is that any small departure from the critical density grows with time, and yet the Universe today remains very close to flat.[notes 6] Given that a natural timescale for departure from flatness might be the Planck time, 10−43 seconds, the fact that the Universe has reached neitherThinkPad Edge E520
a heat death nor a Big Crunch after billions of years requires some explanation. For instance, even at the relatively late age of a few minutes (the time of nucleosynthesis), the Universe density must have been within one part in 1014 of its critical value, or it would not exist as it does today.[72]
A resolution to this problem is offered by inflationary theory. During the inflationary period, spacetime expanded to such an extent that its curvature would have been smoothed out. Thus, it is theorized that inflation drove the Universe to a very nearly spatially flat state, with almost exactly the critical density. HP 640892-001
Dark energy
Main article: Dark energy
Measurements of the redshift–magnitude relation for type Ia supernovae indicate that the expansion of the Universe has been accelerating since the Universe was about half its present age. To explain this acceleration, general relativity requires that much of the energy in the Universe consists of a component with large negative pressure, dubbed "dark energy". Dark energy is indicated by several other lines of evidence. Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
Measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate that the Universe is very nearly spatially flat, and therefore according to general relativity the Universe must have almost exactly the critical density of mass/energy. But the mass density of the Universe can be measured from its gravitational clustering, and is found to have only about 30% of the critical density.[23] Since dark energy does not cluster in the usual way it is the best explanation for the "missing" energy density. Dark energy is also required by two geometrical measures of the overall curvature of the Universe, one using the frequency of gravitational lenses, and the other using the characteristic pattern of the large-scale structure as a cosmic ruler. Packard Bell PEW91 keyboard
Typing is the process
Typing is the process of inputting text into a device, such as a typewriter, cell phone, computer, or a calculator, by pressing keys on a keyboard. It can be distinguished from other means of input, such as the use of pointing devices like the computer mouse, and text input via speech recognition.
The world's first typist was Lillian Sholes from Wisconsin.[1][2] She was the daughter of Christopher Sholes, the man who invented the first practical typewriter.[1]
User interface features such as spell checker, autocomplete, and autoreplace serve to facilitate and speed up typing and to prevent or correct errors the typist may make.Acer Aspire 3000 Keyboard
Contents [hide]
1 Technique
1.1 Touch typing
1.2 Hunt and peck
1.3 Buffering
1.4 Thumbing
2 Words per minute
2.1 Alphanumeric entry
2.2 Numeric entry
3 Text-entry research
3.1 Error analysis
3.1.1 Deconstructing the text input process
3.1.2 Minimum string distance error rate
3.1.3 Key strokes per character (KSPC)Acer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
3.1.4 Example of MSD and KSPC
3.1.5 Further metrics
3.1.6 Total error rate
4 See also
5 References
[edit]Technique
[edit]Touch typing
Typing zones on a QWERTY keyboard for each finger taken from KTouchAcer Aspire 5740DG Keyboard
Main article: Touch typing
The basic technique stands in contrast to hunt and peck typing as the typist keeps their eyes on the source copy at all times. Touch typing also involves the use of the home row method, where typists keep their wrists up, rather than resting them on a desk or keyboard as this can cause carpal tunnel syndrome. To avoid this, typists using this method should sit up tall leaning slightly forward from the waist, place their feet flat on the floor in front of them with one foot slightly in Acer Aspire 7540G Keyboard
front of the other, keeping their elbows close to their sides with forearms slanted slightly upward to the keyboard, fingers should be curved slightly resting on the home row.
Many touch typists also use keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys when typing on a computer. This allows them to edit their document without having to take their hands off the keyboard to use a mouse. An example of a keyboard shortcut is touching the Ctrl key plus the S key to save a copy as you type, or the Ctrl key plus the Z key to undo a mistake.Acer Aspire 7751 Keyboard
Many experienced typists can feel or sense when they've made an error and can hit the ← Backspace key and make the correction without missing a beat.
[edit]Hunt and peck
Hunt and peck (two-fingered typing), also known as search and peck, is a common form of typing, in which the typist must find and press each key individually. This is usually slower than touch typing. Instead of relying on the memorized position of keys, the typist must find each key by sight. Use of this method may also prevent the typist from being able to see what has been typed without glancing away from the keys. Although good accuracy may be achieved, any typing errors that are made may not be noticed immediately, if at all.Acer Aspire 8930G Keyboard
There is also the disadvantage that because fewer fingers are used, they are forced to move a much greater distance.
Civilian Conservation Corps typing class, 1933
There are many idiosyncratic typing styles in between "hunt and peck" and touch typing; for example, many people will type blindly,Acer Aspire One D150-1322 Keyboard
but use only two to five fingers, and not always in a systematic fashion. Some people have developed advanced forms of "peck minus hunt" that don't require looking at keys, or sacrifice of speed.
[edit]Buffering
Some people combine touch typing and hunt and peck by using a buffering method. In the buffer method, the typist looks at the source copy, mentally stores one or several sentences, then looks at the keyboard and types out the buffer of sentences. Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
This eliminates frequent up and down motions with the head and is used in typing competitions in which the typist is not well versed in touch typing. It is not normally used in day-to-day contact with keyboards, only when time is of the essence.
[edit]Thumbing
A late 20th century trend in typing, Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
primarily used with devices such as PDAs with thumb keyboards or smartphones with small virtual keyboards, is thumbing or thumb typing. This can be accomplished using one or both thumbs. Similar to desktop keyboards and input devices, if a user overuses keys which need hard presses and/or have small and unergonomic layouts, it could cause thumb tendonitis or other repetitive strain injury.[citation needed]Acer eMachines G730 Keyboard
[edit]Words per minute
The following text needs to be harmonized with text in Words per minute.
Further information: Words per minute
Words per minute (WpM) is a measure of typing speed, commonly used in recruitment. For the purposes of WpM measurement a word is standardized to five characters or keystrokes. Therefore, "brown" counts as one word, but "accounted" counts as two.Acer MP-07A23U4-442 Keyboard
The benefits of a standardized measurement of input speed are that it enables comparison across language and hardware boundaries. The speed of an Afrikaans-speaking operator in Cape Town can be compared with a French-speaking operator in Paris.
[edit]Alphanumeric entryAcer PK130AE2000 Keyboard
In one study of average computer users, the average rate for transcription was 33 words per minute, and 19 words per minute for composition.[3] In the same study, when the group was divided into "fast", "moderate" and "slow" groups, the average speeds were 40 wpm, 35 wpm, and 23 wpm respectively. An average professional typist reaches 50 to 80 wpm, while some positions can require 80 to 95 wpm (Acer TravelMate 4060 Keyboard
usually the minimum required for dispatch positions and other typing jobs), and some advanced typists work at speeds above 120 wpm.[4][5] Two-finger typists, sometimes also referred to as "hunt and peck" typists, commonly reach sustained speeds of about 37 wpm for memorized text and 27 wpm when copying text, but in bursts may be able to reach speeds of 60 to 70 wpm.[6] From the 1920s through the 1970s, Acer V104730BS1 Keyboard
typing speed (along with shorthand speed) was an important secretarial qualification and typing contests were popular and often publicized by typewriter companies as promotional tools.
A less common measure of the speed of a typist, CPM is used to identify the number of characters typed per minute. This is a common measurement for typing programs, or typing tutors, as it can give a more accurate measure of a person's typing speed without having to type for a prolonged period of time.Asus A8A Keyboard
The common conversion factor between WPM and CPM is 5. It is also used occasionally for associating the speed of a reader with the amount they have read. CPM has also been applied to 20th century printers, but modern faster printers more commonly use PPM (pages per minute).
The fastest typing speed ever, 216 words per minute, was achieved by Stella Pajunas-Garnand from Chicago in 1946 in one minute on an IBM electric.[7][8][9][10] As of 2005, writer Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, Asus X53S Keyboard
according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she has maintained 150 wpm for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods. She has been clocked at a peak speed of 212 wpm. Blackburn, who failed her QWERTY typing class in high school, first encountered the Dvorak keyboard in 1938, quickly learned to achieve very high speeds, and occasionally toured giving speed-typingCompaq Presario C709LA Keyboard
demonstrations during her secretarial career. She appeared on The David Letterman Show and felt that Letterman made a spectacle of her.[11] Blackburn died in April 2008.[11] However, the recent emergence of several competitive typing websites has allowed several fast typists on computer keyboards to emerge along with new records, though these are unverifiable for the most part. Two of the most notable online records that are considered genuine are 241.82 wpm on an English text on typingzone.comCompaq Presario CQ50-142US Keyboard
by Brazilian Guilherme Sandrini (equivalent to 290.184 wpm using the traditional definition for words per minute since this site defines a word as six characters rather than five)[12] and 256 wpm (a record caught on video) on TypeRacer by American Sean Wrona, the inaugural Ultimate Typing Championship winner, which is considered the highest ever legitimate score ever set on the site.[13] Both of these records are essentially sprint speeds on short text selections lasting much less than one minute and were achieved on the QWERTY keyboard. Wrona also maintained 174 wpm on a 50 minute test taken on hi-games.net, another online typing website to unofficially displace Blackburn as the fastest endurance typist, Compaq Presario CQ56-112SL Keyboard
although disputes might still arise over differences in the difficulty of the texts as well as Wrona's use of a modern computer keyboard as opposed to the typewriter used by Blackburn.[14] "Sean Wrona, official site".
Using a personalized interface,Compaq Presario CQ56-120SM Keyboard
physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, managed to type 15 wpm with a switch and adapted software created by Walt Woltosz. Due to a slowdown of his motor skills, his interface was upgraded with an infrared camera that detects "twitches in the cheek muscle under the eye."[15] Currently he can write approximately one word per minute.[16]Dell Inspiron 8100 Keyboard
[edit]Numeric entry
The numeric entry, or 10-key, speed is a measure of one's ability to manipulate a numeric keypad.
[edit]Text-entry research
[edit]Error analysis
With the introduction of computers and word-processors, there has been a change in how text-entry is performed.Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
In the past, using a typewriter, speed was measured with a stopwatch and errors were tallied by hand. With the current technology, document preparation is more about using word-processors as a composition aid, changing the meaning of error rate and how it is measured. Research performed by R. William Soukoreff and I. Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
Scott MacKenzie, has led to a discovery of the application of a well-known algorithm. Through the use of this algorithm and accompanying analysis technique, two statistics were used, minimum string distance error rate (MSD error rate) and keystrokes per character (KSPC). The two advantages of this technique include:Dell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
1. Participants are allowed to enter text naturally, since they may commit error and correct them.
2. The identification of errors and generation of error rate statistics is easy to automate.
[edit]Deconstructing the text input process
Through analysis of keystrokes, the keystrokes of the input stream were divided into four classes: Correct (C), Incorrect Fixed (IF), Fixes (F),Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
and Incorrect Not Fixed (INF). These key stroke classification are broken down into the following
1. The two classes Correct and Incorrect Not Fixed comprise all of the characters in transcribed text.
2. Fixes (F) keystrokes are easy to identify, and include keystrokes such as backspace, delete, cursor movements, and modifier keys.FujitsuAmilo Mini Ui 3520 Keyboard
3. Incorrect Fixed (IF) keystrokes are found in the input stream, but not the transcribed text, and are not editing keys.
Using these classes, the Minimum String Distance Error Rate and the Key Strokes per Character statistics can both be calculated.
[edit]Minimum string distance error rateFujitsuLifebook E8110 Keyboard
The minimum string distance (MSD) is the number of "primitives" which is the number of insertions, deletions, or substitutions to transform one string into another. The following equation was found for the MSD Error Rate
MSD Error Rate = Gateway 4028GZ Keyboard
[edit]Key strokes per character (KSPC)
With the minimum string distance error, errors that are corrected do not appear in the transcribed text. The following example will show you why this is an important class of errors to consider:
Presented Text: the quick brown
Input Stream: the quix<-ck brownHP 633183-001 Keyboard
Transcribed Text: the quick brown
in the above example, the incorrect character ('x') was deleted with a backspace ('<-'). Since these errors do not appear in the transcribed text, the MSD error rate is 0%. This is why there is the key strokes per character (KSPC) statistic.
KSPC =
The three shortcomings of the KSPC statistic are listed below:HP 636376-001 Keyboard
1. High KSPC values can be related to either many errors which were corrected, or few errors which were not corrected, however there is no way to distinguish the two.
2. KSPC depend on the text input method, and cannot be used to meaningfully compare two different input methods, such as Qwerty-keyboard and a multi-tap input.
3. There is no obvious way to combine KSPC and MSD into an over-all error rate, even though they have an inverse relationship.HP G42-468TU Keyboard
[edit]Example of MSD and KSPC
Presented Text: the quick brown
Input Stream: th quix<-ck brpown
Transcribed Text: th quick brpown
In the above example, there are three errors: an 'e' is omitted,HP G56-130SA Keyboard
there is an extra 'x' that is corrected, and there is an extra 'p' which was not corrected. The key strokes are mapped out below:
Input Stream: |th qui| |x| |<-| |ck br||p| |own|
C: |th qui|, |ck br|, |own| = 14 characters
F: |<-| = 1 character
IF: |x| =1 characterHP G72-a30EM Keyboard
INF:|p| = 2 characters(since the 'e' is missing)
using these numbers the following statistics were calculated
MSD = (2 / 16)*100% = 12.5%
KSPC = (18 / 16) = 1.125
[edit]Further metrics
Using the classes described above, further metrics were defined by R. William Soukoreff and I.Scott MacKenzie:
1. Error correction efficiency refers to the ease with which the participant performed error correction.
Correction Efficiency = IF/FHP G72-b66US Keyboard
2. Participant conscientiousness is the ratio of corrected errors to the total number of error, which helps distinguish perfectionists from apathetic participants.
Participant Conscientiousness = IF / (IF + INF)
3. If C represents the amount of useful information transferred, INF, IF, and F represent the proportion of bandwidth wasted.
Utilized Bandwidth = C / (C + INF + IF + F)
Wasted Bandwidth = (INF + IF + F)/ (C + INF + IF + F)
[edit]Total error rateHP Mini 110-1049TU Keyboard
The classes described also provide an intuitive definition of total error rate:
Total Error Rate = ((INF + IF)/ (C + INF + IF)) * 100%
Not Corrected Error Rate = (INF/ (C + INF + IF)) * 100%
Corrected Error Rate = (IF/ (C + INF + IF)) * 100%
Since these three error rates are ratios,HP Mini 110-3103sl Keyboard
they are comparable between different devices, something that cannot be done with the KSPC statistic, which is device dependent.[17]
[edit]See also
War correspondent typing his dispatch in a wood outside Arnhem, 1944
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
Keyboard layoutHP Mini 210-1023SS Keyboard
Muscle memory
QWERTY
Stenotype
Touch typing
TypingWeb
Copy typist
Audio typist
Data entry clerkHP Mini 210-2004sa Keyboard
The Nannerl Notenbuch, or Notenbuch für Nannerl (English: Nannerl's Music Book) is a book in which Leopold Mozart, from 1759 to about 1764, wrote pieces for his daughter, Maria Anna Mozart (known as 'Nannerl'), to learn and play. His son Wolfgang also used the book, in which his earliest compositions were recorded (some penned by his father). The book contains simple short keyboard (typically harpsichord) pieces, suitable for beginners; there are many anonymous minuets, some works by Leopold,HP Mini 210-2103tu Keyboard
and a few other composers including Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and the Austrian composer Georg Christoph Wagenseil. There are also some technical exercises, a table of intervals, and some modulating figured basses.[1] The notebook originally contained 48 bound pages of music paper, but only 36 pages remain, with some of the missing 12 pages identified in other collections.HP Pavilion dv3-2306tx Keyboard
Contents [hide]
1 Description of the Notenbuch
2 Wolfgang Mozart's compositions in the book
2.1 Andante in C, K. 1a
2.2 Allegro in C, K. 1b
2.3 Allegro in F, K. 1c
2.4 Minuet in F, K. 1d
2.5 Minuet in G, K. 1e
2.6 Minuet in C, K. 1fHP Pavilion dv3-2327tx Keyboard
2.7 Minuet in F, K. 2
2.8 Allegro in B-flat, K. 3
2.9 Minuet in F, K. 4
2.10 Minuet in F, K. 5
2.11 Allegro in C, K. 5a
2.12 Andante in B-flat, K. 5b
3 Table of contents
4 Notes
5 References
6 External linksHP Pavilion dv5-1159se Keyboard
[edit]Description of the Notenbuch
Originally the Notenbuch was a bound volume comprising forty-eight pages of blank music paper, with eight staves on each page. Inscribed with the words Pour le clavecin (French: For the harpsichord), HP Pavilion dv5-1250ec Keyboard
it was presented to Nannerl on the occasion of her eighth name day on 26 July 1759 (or possibly her eighth birthday, which fell on the 30th or 31st day of the same month). Over the course of the next four years or so, the notebook was gradually filled with pieces written out by Leopold and two or three anonymous Salzburg copyists. Wolfgang is thought to have written out four pieces. Curiously none of the pieces was inscribed by Nannerl herself.HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
In later years, twelve individual pages were removed from the notebook for one reason or another. Of these, four are now considered lost, but the remaining eight have been identified by Alan Tyson (1987):
two pages in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris;
one in the Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg;
two in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City;HP Pavilion dv6-2160ep Keyboard
one in the Universitätsbibliothek, Leipzig;
one survives only as a facsimile and consists of the opening measures of K. 5b;
one, now in a private collection, consists of a single leaf containing the rest of K. 5b.
The four lost pages have been tentatively reconstructed using a variety of other sources (Nannerl's letters and Georg Nissen's biography of Mozart).HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
It is believed that in its completed state the Notenbuch contained a total of 64 pieces (including exercises and unfinished compositions), of which 52 are in the surviving 36 pages of the book.
Wolfgang Plath (1982) has deduced the existence of five scribes, from a study of the handwriting in the Notenbuch. In addition to Leopold and Wolfgang,HP Pavilion dv6-3104st Keyboard
three anonymous scribes from Salzburg – known as Anonymous I, Anonymous II and Anonymous III – have been identified. Numbers 58 and 61, thought to be in the four missing pages, are known only from Nissen's material; Plath assumed that these two pieces were copied out by Leopold, who was responsible for more than half the contents of the Notenbuch.
HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
The Notenbuch provides evidence of the collaboration between the young Wolfgang and his father. For example, number 48 is an arrangement of the third movement of Leopold's D major serenade, but the trio also appears as Menuet II in Wolfgang's Sonata K. 6.[2]
The Notenbuch is also useful in providing evidence of Leopold's approach to teaching music. The tables of intervals show that he taught music theory to his children from the start. It seems that he also taught composition from the outset, by means of a given bass line, a melody to be varied, a melody to be continued, and a structural model.[1]HP Pavilion DV7-4061 Keyboard
The earliest compositions by Wolfgang are written in Leopold's hand; the father's gentle suggestions for amendments came later.[3]
[edit]Wolfgang Mozart's compositions in the book
The Notenbuch contains the following pieces by Wolfgang:IBM Thinkpad Z61e Keyboard
[edit]Andante in C, K. 1a
Andante in C (help·info)
This piece of music was probably Mozart's first ever composition. It is an extremely short piece, consisting of just 10 measures, and was notated by the composer's father, Leopold, as Wolfgang was only five years old when he composed it.04W0872
It is normally performed on the harpsichord and is in the key of C. The piece opens with a one-bar phrase in 3/4 time, which is then repeated. A second, modified phrase receives the same treatment. The time signature then changes to 2/4 and in the following four measures Mozart reverts to a typically Baroque style. The piece concludes with a simple authentic cadence.
[edit]Allegro in C, K. 1b0A62075
Allegro in C (help·info)
This is an extremely short piece, consisting of only twelve measures. It was notated by Mozart's father, Leopold, as Wolfgang was only five years old when he composed it.3000 Y510a 15303
It is normally performed on the harpsichord, and is in the key of C. As the tempo indicates, it is a fast and lively piece. Unlike K. 1a, this piece is not based on repeated phrases. It begins with an ascending scale in the right hand from the dominant (G) to the mediant (E) on the first and third beats of the bars, while the left hand adds a counterpoint on the off beats. 3000 Y510
After reaching a peak, the right hand drops down in a series of quarter notes and eighth notes, accompanied by a very simple bass part. Curiously, the final cadence takes place between the eighth and ninth measures: in the last four measures, which make up a quarter of the entire composition, Mozart rings various changes on an unadorned C major triad.
[edit]Allegro in F, K. 1cThinkpad T410
Allegro in F (help·info)
Another very short piece, K. 1c runs to twenty-four measures (including repeats). It was composed by Wolfgang on 11 December 1761 in Salzburg. It was notated by Mozart's father, Leopold, as Wolfgang was just five years old at the time.ThinkPad T510-4314
This piece was written for the harpsichord and is usually performed on that instrument today, though other keyboard instruments may be used. This Allegro is Mozart's earliest extant piece in F major. Like K. 1b, it is in a fast tempo. It is in rounded binary form, with repeat signs at the end of each of the sections: ||:A:||:BA:||, where A and B each consists of four bars. The music is simple and classical in style. This piece has been compared to a "jolly south German folkdance".[4]ThinkPad T510i-4873
[edit]Minuet in F, K. 1d
Minuet in F (help·info)
This minuet in F is another very short piece in extended binary form. The first section is just eight measures long and the second section twelve; both are marked with repeat signs. K. 1d was notated by Leopold Mozart; Wolfgang was five years old when he composed this piece.Thinkpad T520
It was written for the harpsichord and is usually performed on that instrument, though other keyboard instruments may be used. This dance is Mozart's earliest extant composition in minuet form. As a minuet it is, by definition, stately in feeling and written in 3/4 time. Like all Mozart's compositions in the Notenbuch, the clearest influences on the style are to be found in the pieces he was studying by Leopold Mozart and Georg Christoph Wagenseil.[5]SamsungN140 Keyboard
It comprises several phrases each beginning with chords, after which broken chords and triplets are used.
[edit]Minuet in G, K. 1e
Minuet in G (help·info)SamsungNP-N145-JP04 Keyboard
An extremely short piece (just 30 seconds long), it was likely notated by his father, Leopold Mozart, since Wolfgang was five or six years old at the time.
It was written for the harpsichord and is hence usually performed on the harpsichord, though other keyboard instruments may be used. Sony VAIO PCG-FRV26 Keyboard
This minuet in G major is in Mozart's first collection of works. As a minuet, it is relatively fast in 3/4 time. Unlike K. 1d, it is far less influenced by the baroque style.
It is largely constructed of phrases which are repeated: every two bars is announced by a descending fifth, after which 4 chords are played, Sony VAIO PCG-FX776 Keyboard
a tune is constructed within this restraint. Each phrase is 8 bars long. In two part harmony, it consists of 3 sections: the opening, a contrasting trio, and reprise of the original.[Not in the score]
[edit]Minuet in C, K. 1f
An extremely short piece (just 30 seconds long), it was likely notated by his father, Leopold Mozart, since Wolfgang was only five or six years old at the time.Sony Vaio PCG-K33 Keyboard
It was written for the harpsichord and is hence usually performed on the harpsichord, though other keyboard instruments may be used. This minuet is in Mozart's first collection of works. As a minuet it is relatively fast in 3/4 time. It is, unlike K. 1d far less influenced by the baroque style.
It is largely constructed of phrases which are repeated: every two bars is announced by a descending fifth, after which 4 chords are played,Sony Vaio PCG-K415B Keyboard
a tune is constructed within this restraint. Each phrase is 8 bars long. In two part harmony, it consists of 3 sections: the opening, contrasting trio, and a reprise of the original.[Not in the score] It was, in Köchel's first catalogue listed as K. 1 along with Minuet in G, K. 1e.
[edit]Minuet in F, K. 2Sony VAIO VGN-AR130G Keyboard
This piece, dated "Salzburg, January 1762", consists of a single bar motif which is developed into an eight-bar exposition, which is repeated, and then modulated for another eight bars before being repeated again.
[edit]Allegro in B-flat, K. 3
[edit]Minuet in F, K. 4
[edit]Minuet in F, K. 5
[edit]Allegro in C, K. 5a
[edit]Andante in B-flat, K. 5bSony VAIO VGN-AR730E/B Keyboard
Andante in B♭ (fragment) (help·info)
The final surviving piece in the Nannerl Notenbuch, of which only a fragment is left. It runs for 61 measures (including repeats) and usually performed on the Harpsichord, though other keyboard instruments may be used.
[edit]Table of contents
Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
The following table summarizes the contents of the Notenbuch.[6]
No. Piece Copyist Composer K. Added comments Notes
1 Menuett in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
2 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
3 Menuett in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
4 Menuett in G Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
5 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
6 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
7 Menuett in D Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
8 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – Diese vorgehenden 8 Menuetten hat d. Wolfgangerl im 4ten Jahr gelernetSony VAIO VGN-CR36G Keyboard
(Wolfgang learned the preceding 8 minuets in his 4th year) –
9 Menuett in A Leopold Anonymous – – –
10 Menuett in D Leopold Anonymous – – –
11 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – Disen Menuet und Trio hat dr Wolfgangerl den 26ten Januarij 1761 einen Tag vor seinem 5ten Jahr um halbe 10 Uhr in einer halben Stund gelernet
(Wolfgang learned this minuet and trio in half-an-hour around 9:30 on 26 January 1761, one day before his 5th birthday) –
12 Menuett in A Leopold Anonymous – –Sony VAIO VGN-CS15GN/B Keyboard
–
13 Menuett in A Leopold Anonymous – – –
14 Menuett in F Leopold Anonymous – – –
15 Menuett in E Leopold Anonymous – – –
16 Menuett in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
17 Menuett in F Leopold Leopold – – –Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
18 Menuett in B flat Leopold Anonymous – – –
19 Menuett in F Anonymous I Wolfgang K. 32 Diesen Menuet hat d. Wolfgangerl auch im vierten jahr seines alters gelernet
(Wolfgang also learned this minuet when he was four years of age) K. 32 (Gallimathias musicum), No. 14, is an orchestral version of this pieceSony VAIO VGN-FS115Z Keyboard
20 Allegro in C Wolfgang Wolfgang K. 5a – Probably added in 1764
21 Menuett in C Anonymous II Anonymous – – –
22 Marsch in F (I) Anonymous I Anonymous – den 4ten feb. 1761 vom Wolfgangerl gelernet
Learned by Wolfgang on the 4 February 1761 –
23 Marsch in F (II) Leopold Anonymous – – Sony VAIO VGN-FS215S Keyboard
–
24 Allegro in B flat Leopold Wolfgang K. 8 di Wolfgang Mozart à Paris le 21 Novb. 1763
by Wolfgang Mozart in Paris on 21 November 1763 A piano version of the first movement of Violin Sonata No. 3 in B flat, K. 8
25 Andante in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 6 – A piano version of the second movement of Violin Sonata No. 1 in C, K. 6
Probably written in Brussels in October 1763Sony VAIO VGN-FS550 Keyboard
26 Menuett in C Leopold Wolfgang K. 6 – A piano version of Menuet I from the third movement of Violin Sonata No. 1 in C, K. 6
Probably written in Brussels in October 1763
27 Allegro in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
28 Allegro in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
29 Klavierstück in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
30 Allegro in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –Sony VAIO VGN-FS640/W Keyboard
31 Scherzo in C Anonymous I Wagenseil – del Sgr. Wagenseil
(By Signore Wagenseil) –
32 Scherzo in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
33 Allegro in F Leopold Anonymous – – –
34 Allegro in C Leopold Anonymous – – –
35 Tempo di menuetto in F Anonymous II Anonymous – – –
36 Allegro moderato in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
37 Andante in B flat Leopold Anonymous – – –
38 Andante in C Leopold Anonymous – – –Sony VAIO VGN-FS740 Keyboard
39 Arietta con Variazioni in A Anonymous III C.P.E. Bach – – –
40 Allegro in C Leopold Anonymous – – –
41 Allegro in G Leopold Anonymous – – –
42 Allegro in G minor Leopold Anonymous – – –
43 Presto in A Anonymous III J. N. Tischer – – –
44 Polonaise in F Leopold Anonymous – – –Sony VAIO VGN-FS990 Keyboard
45 Allegro in E minor Leopold J. J. Agrell – – –
46 Allegro in C Leopold Wolfgang K. 6 di Wolfgango Mozart d. 14 octob.
(by Wolfgang Mozart on 14 October) A piano version of the first movement of Violin Sonata No. 1, K. 6
Probably composed in Brussels in 1763
47 Menuett in D Leopold Wolfgang K. 7 di Wolfgango Mozart d. 30ten Novbr. 1763 à Paris
(by Wolfgang Mozart in Paris in 1763) A piano version of Menuet I from Violin Sonata No. 2 in D, K. 7Sony VAIO VGN-FZ130EB Keyboard
48 Menuett in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 6 di Wolfgango Mozart d. 16ten Julÿ 1762
(by Wolfgang Mozart on 16 July 1762) A piano version of the third movement of Leopold's Serenade in D and Menuet II from the third movement of Wolfgang's Violin Sonata No. 1 in C
Composed in SalzburgSony VAIO VGN-N345FN/B Keyboard
49 Menuett in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 4 di Wolfgango Mozart d. 11ten Maÿ 1762
(by Wolfgang Mozart on 11 May 1762) Minuet in F, K. 4
Composed in Salzburg
50 Klavierstück in G Leopold Anonymous – – Fragment
51 Konzertsatz in G Leopold Anonymous – – –
52 Fünf technische Übungen Leopold AnonymousSony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard
– – Exercise: Five technical exercises
53 Andante in C Leopold Wolfgang K. 1a – –
54 Allegro in C Leopold Wolfgang K. 1b – –
55 Allegro in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 1c – –
56 Minuet in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 1d Menuetto del Sgr. Wolfgango Mozart 16to Decembris 1761
(Minuet by Wolfgang Mozart on 16 December 1761) –Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/S Keyboard
57 Intervalltabelle Leopold Anonymous – – Exercise: a table of musical intervals
58 Menuett in F Leopold? Wolfgang K. 2 – Minuet in F, K. 2
59 Allegro in B flat Leopold Wolfgang K. 3 del Sgr. Wolfgango Mozart 1762. d. 4ten Martij
(by Wolfgang Mozart on 4 March 1762) Allegro in B flat, K. 3
Composed in Salzburg
60 Drei modulierende Generalbaßübungen Leopold Anonymous – – Exercise: 3 modulating general basses
61 Menuett in F Leopold? Wolfgang K. 5 5. Juli 1762Sony VAIO VGN-NW270F Keyboard
5 July 1762 Minuet in F, K. 5
Composed in Salzburg
62 Menuett in G Wolfgang Wolfgang K. 1e – Minuet in G, K. 1e
Probably added in 1764
63 Menuett in C Wolfgang Wolfgang K. 1f – Minuet in C, K. 1f
Probably added in 1764Sony VAIO VGN-NW350F Keyboard
64 Andante in B flat Wolfgang Wolfgang K. 5b – Fragment of an Andante in B flat, K. 5b (KV 9b in K1)
Probably added in 1764
[edit]Notes
^ a b Eisen and Keefe, p. 322Sony VAIO VGN-NW51FB/N Keyboard
^ Cliff Eisen, 'Leopold Mozart', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 9 May 2006)
^ Eisen and Keefe, p. 323
^ Stanley Sadie (2006), p. 53.
^ Nicholas Kenyon (2005), p. 251.
^ Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Band 20Sony VAIO VGN-SR280Y Keyboard
[edit]References
Eisen, Cliff, Mozart Studies 2, Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19-816343-6
Eisen, Cliff and Keefe, Simon P., The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-521-85659-0
Kenyon, Nicholas, The Faber Pocket Guide to Mozart, Faber and Faber Ltd. (2005), ISBN 0-571-22376-1Sony VAIO VGN-SZ750N Keyboard
Plath, Wolfgang Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, Series IX/27: Klavierstücke, Band (Die Notenbücher) (1982)
Sadie, Stanley, Mozart; The Early years 1756-1781, Oxford University Press (2006), ISBN 978-0-19-816529-3
Tyson, Alan, A Reconstruction of Nannerl Mozart's Music Book (Notenbuch) in Music & Letters, vol. 60, no. 4 (October 1979), pp. 389–400Sony VAIO VPC-F13 Keyboard
The TRS-80 Model 100 was an early portable computer introduced in 1983. It was one of the first notebook-style computers, featuring a keyboard and liquid crystal display, battery powered, in a package roughly the size and shape of notepad or large book.
It was made by Kyocera, and originally sold in Japan as the Kyotronic 85. Sony VGN-FE28H Keyboard
Although a slow seller for Kyocera, the rights to the machine were purchased by Tandy Corporation, and the computer was sold through Radio Shack stores in the United States and Canada as well as affiliated dealers in other countries, Sony VGN-FE31B Keyboard
becoming one of the company's most popular models, with over 6,000,000 units sold worldwide. The Olivetti M-10 and the NEC PC-8201 and PC-8300 were also built on the same Kyocera platform, with some design and hardware differences. It was originally marketed as a Micro Executive Work Station (MEWS), although the term did not catch on and was eventually dropped.
Contents [hide] Sony VGN-FE31H Keyboard
1 Specifications
2 ROM firmware
3 Applications
4 Peers and successors
4.1 Similar computers from other companies
5 Emulator
6 Aftermarket products
7 References
8 External links
[edit]SpecificationsSony VGN-FE770G Keyboard
The internals of the TRS-80 Model 100. The left half is the back.
Processor: 8-bit Intel 80C85, CMOS, 2.4 MHz
Memory: 32 kB ROM, 8, 16, 24, or 32kB static RAM. Machines with less than 32 kB could be expanded in 8 kB increments of plug-in static RAM modules.Sony VGN-FE780G Keyboard
Display: 8 lines, 40 characters LCD with 240 by 64 pixel addressable graphics. The screen was not backlit.
Keyboard: 56 keys, 8 programmable function keys, and 4 dedicated command keys.
Peripherals: The basic package included: Built-in 300 baud modem (North American versions), parallel printer port, serial communication port (shared by internal modem), bar-code reader input, cassette audio tape, real-time clock.Sony VGN-FE865E Keyboard
Dimensions: 300 by 215 x 50 mm, weight about 1.4 kilograms (3.1 lb) with batteries
Power supply: Four penlight (AA) cells, or external power adapter 6V (>180 mA, tip negative configuration)
The 8K and 24K versions sold for US$1099 and US$1399 respectively.[1]Toshiba 9J.N9282.W01 Keyboard
The Model 100 was promoted as being able to run up to 20 hours and maintain memory up to 30 days on a set of four alkaline AA batteries.
The Tandy Portable Disk Drive (TPDD), a serial device capable of storing 100 KB of data on a 3.5 inch diskette was also available. A second version, the TPDD2, could store up to 200 KB, as it used double sided disks.Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
A disk-video interface expansion box was released in 1984, with 5-1/4 inch disk drives and a CRT video adapter. This allowed the Model 100 to display 40 or 80 column video on an external television set or video monitor.
A bar code reader wand was also offered.
[edit]ROM firmware
Toshiba Satellite L355-S7905 Keyboard
When first switched on, the Model 100 displays a menu of applications and files and the date and time. The ROM firmware based system boots instantly, which compares very favourably to disk-based computers. Not only is the machine ready to use immediately on power-up, but it will also continue running, from the same point, the program that was running when the unit was powered off. Cursor keys are used to navigate the menu and select one of the internal or added application programs, or any data file to be worked upon.Toshiba Satellite L40-17S Keyboard
The 32 kilobyte read-only memory of the Model 100 contains the N82 version of the Microsoft BASIC 80 programming language. This is similar to other Microsoft BASICs of the time and includes good support for the hardware features of the machine: pixel addressing of the display, support for the internal modem and serial port, monophonic sound, Toshiba Satellite L655-S5100 Keyboard
access to tape files, and support for the real-time clock and the bar code reader. Unlike other Microsoft BASIC interpreters of the time, the default for floating point numbers is double-precision.
The ROM also contains a terminal program, TELCOM; an address/phone book organizer, ADDRSS; a to-do list organizer, SCHEDL; and a simple text editor, Toshiba Satellite L775-S7248 Keyboard
TEXT. The TELCOM program allows automation of a login sequence to a remote system under control of the BASIC interpreter.
As with other home computers of the era, a vast collection of PEEK and POKE locations were collected by avid hobbyists.Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
Invisible files in the system RAM named "Hayashi" and "Suzuki" commemorate the names of designers Junji Hayashi and Jay Suzuki. Another invisible deleted file named "RickY" refers to Rick Yamashita.[2] The Model 100 firmware was the last Microsoft product that Bill Gates developed personally, along with Suzuki. According to Gates, "part of my nostalgia about this machine is this was the last machine where I wrote a very high percentage of the code in the product".[3]
Added applications and data files are stored in the internal battery-backed RAM; Toshiba Satellite M645-S4114 Keyboard
these can be loaded from and stored to an audio cassette tape recorder or external floppy disk drive. Optional ROMs can be installed in the Model 100, providing a range of customized application software.
The Model 100 ROM has a Y2K bug; the century displayed on the main menu was hard-coded as "19XX". Workarounds exist for this problem.
[edit]ApplicationsToshiba Satellite Pro L670-EZ1715D Keyboard
When introduced, the portability and simplicity of the Model 100 made it attractive to journalists,[4] who could type about 11 pages of text and then transmit it using the built-in modem and TELCOM program for electronic editing and production. The computer is silent when it operates. The keyboard is full-size and uses a standard (QWERTY) layout. It runs for 20 hours on 4 readily available and easily replaceable AA batteries. Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
Data is protected by a built-in rechargeable battery. There is no boot up routine; the Model 100 operates as soon as the switch is flipped and an application selected. There are several simple programs available on the Internet for transferring Model 100 files to a modern personal computer.
The Model 100 was also used in industrial applications as a programming terminal for configuration of control systems and instruments.Toshiba Satellite U305 Keyboard
Third-party peripherals for the Model 100 extended its battery life and file storage capacity. Software was designed, and is still available, to extend the display capabilities and to provide more advanced word-processing or calculation software than the supplied programs. To this day, hobbyists continue to design games, applications, and hardware for this device.
Modern portable computers (laptops) are larger, heavier, and have much shorter battery life than the Model 100. The closest modern successors include the Alphasmart Dana and the Quickpad Pro. These similar modern "slabtop" units typically are targeted at the education market, although they are often used by writers and mobile professionals.Toshiba Satellite U305-S2808 Keyboard
Although much larger, the Model 100 actually bears a close resemblance to modern PDAs. Its TEXT program is similar to the Memo program found on PalmOne products, and ADDRSS and SCHEDL are essentially simplified versions of Contacts, Tasks and Calendar. The Model 100 has the additional advantage of a full size keyboard, a built-in modem and BASIC programming language. By including BASIC, the Model 100's designers made it possible for users to design additional applications. Thinkpad Z61t
Because of its adaptability and features as well as its current relative affordability, the Model 100 and its progeny (Model 102/200/600) enjoy a near cult status among its supporters. Club 100 and Bitchin100 are the center of the Model 100 universe. Model 100 enthusiasts continue to explore this early computer, trading information, participating in contests and designing new applications with existing and newly designed hardware and software.
[edit]Peers and successorsThinkpad R60
A Tandy 200, shown next to a 21st century Windows-based laptop
The Tandy 200 was introduced in 1984 as a more capable sister product of the Model 100. The Tandy 200 had a flip-up 16 line by 40 column display, and came with 24 KB RAM which could be expanded to 72 KB (3 banks of 24 KB). It included Multiplan, a spreadsheet application. It also added DTMF tone dialing for the internal modem, ThinkPad T40 where the Model 100 only supported pulse dialing.
The last new model that could be considered part of this line was the Tandy 600, introduced in October 1985. Similar to the Tandy 200, Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1847it featured a flip-up screen, but with 80 columns rather than 40. Built-in features included a 3.5" diskette drive, rechargeable batteries, and 32K of RAM expandable to 224K. The underlying software platform was Microsoft's 16-bit Hand Held Operating System (Handheld DOS or HHDOS), along with word processing, calendar, database, communication and spreadsheet software. Unlike earlier models, BASIC was an extra-cost option rather than built in.[5] ThinkPad T40p 2378
The last refresh to the product line was the Tandy 102, introduced in 1986 as a direct replacement for the Model 100, having the same software, keyboard and screen, and a nearly identical, but thinner, form factor. Minimum memory was 24 KB RAM.
Later portables from Tandy no longer featured a ROM-based software environment, starting with the Tandy LT1400, which ran a diskette-based MS-DOS operating system.
[edit]Similar computers from other companiesThinkPad T40 2678
The NEC PC-8201 computer
As mentioned previously, the Olivetti M-10 and the NEC PC-8201 and PC-8300 were also built on the same platform as the original Kyocera design. The earlier and smaller Epson HX-20 of 1983 used a much smaller LCD display, four lines of twenty characters, and had an internal cassette tape drive for program and file storage. ThinkPad T41 2679There were several other "calculator-style" laptops available at the time, including the Casio FP-200, the Texas Instruments CC-40, and the Canon X-07.[6]
Systems of about the same size and form-factor as the Model 100, aimed at journalists, were sold by companies such as Teleram, as the Teleram T-3000[7] and GRiD Systems, as the GRiD Compass, which was used by NASA. GRiD was later acquired by Tandy. The Bondwell 2 of 1985 was a CP/M laptop in a similar form factor to the Model 200. ThinkPad T42p 2678
Data General developed the Data General-One (DG-1), a much more powerful (but more costly) MS-DOS portable computer with disk drives and a full-sized LCD screen, similar to the Tandy LT1400. It was released in 1984. The Zenith ZP-150, also of 1984, was introduced prior to the Tandy 600. The two computers were notably similar, although the ZP-150 did include BASIC and could be configured with more memory, but did not have a built-in diskette drive.
The Cambridge Z88 of 1987, developed by British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair, was similar in form and functionality to the Model 100 but had greater expansion capacity. ThinkPad T42 2679
[edit]Emulator
VirtualT An open source Model 100/102/200 emulator with an integrated debugger, hardware access utilities and a complete FX-80 printer emulation.
The world's first typist was Lillian Sholes from Wisconsin.[1][2] She was the daughter of Christopher Sholes, the man who invented the first practical typewriter.[1]
User interface features such as spell checker, autocomplete, and autoreplace serve to facilitate and speed up typing and to prevent or correct errors the typist may make.Acer Aspire 3000 Keyboard
Contents [hide]
1 Technique
1.1 Touch typing
1.2 Hunt and peck
1.3 Buffering
1.4 Thumbing
2 Words per minute
2.1 Alphanumeric entry
2.2 Numeric entry
3 Text-entry research
3.1 Error analysis
3.1.1 Deconstructing the text input process
3.1.2 Minimum string distance error rate
3.1.3 Key strokes per character (KSPC)Acer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
3.1.4 Example of MSD and KSPC
3.1.5 Further metrics
3.1.6 Total error rate
4 See also
5 References
[edit]Technique
[edit]Touch typing
Typing zones on a QWERTY keyboard for each finger taken from KTouchAcer Aspire 5740DG Keyboard
Main article: Touch typing
The basic technique stands in contrast to hunt and peck typing as the typist keeps their eyes on the source copy at all times. Touch typing also involves the use of the home row method, where typists keep their wrists up, rather than resting them on a desk or keyboard as this can cause carpal tunnel syndrome. To avoid this, typists using this method should sit up tall leaning slightly forward from the waist, place their feet flat on the floor in front of them with one foot slightly in Acer Aspire 7540G Keyboard
front of the other, keeping their elbows close to their sides with forearms slanted slightly upward to the keyboard, fingers should be curved slightly resting on the home row.
Many touch typists also use keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys when typing on a computer. This allows them to edit their document without having to take their hands off the keyboard to use a mouse. An example of a keyboard shortcut is touching the Ctrl key plus the S key to save a copy as you type, or the Ctrl key plus the Z key to undo a mistake.Acer Aspire 7751 Keyboard
Many experienced typists can feel or sense when they've made an error and can hit the ← Backspace key and make the correction without missing a beat.
[edit]Hunt and peck
Hunt and peck (two-fingered typing), also known as search and peck, is a common form of typing, in which the typist must find and press each key individually. This is usually slower than touch typing. Instead of relying on the memorized position of keys, the typist must find each key by sight. Use of this method may also prevent the typist from being able to see what has been typed without glancing away from the keys. Although good accuracy may be achieved, any typing errors that are made may not be noticed immediately, if at all.Acer Aspire 8930G Keyboard
There is also the disadvantage that because fewer fingers are used, they are forced to move a much greater distance.
Civilian Conservation Corps typing class, 1933
There are many idiosyncratic typing styles in between "hunt and peck" and touch typing; for example, many people will type blindly,Acer Aspire One D150-1322 Keyboard
but use only two to five fingers, and not always in a systematic fashion. Some people have developed advanced forms of "peck minus hunt" that don't require looking at keys, or sacrifice of speed.
[edit]Buffering
Some people combine touch typing and hunt and peck by using a buffering method. In the buffer method, the typist looks at the source copy, mentally stores one or several sentences, then looks at the keyboard and types out the buffer of sentences. Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
This eliminates frequent up and down motions with the head and is used in typing competitions in which the typist is not well versed in touch typing. It is not normally used in day-to-day contact with keyboards, only when time is of the essence.
[edit]Thumbing
A late 20th century trend in typing, Acer Aspire ONE NAV50 Keyboard
primarily used with devices such as PDAs with thumb keyboards or smartphones with small virtual keyboards, is thumbing or thumb typing. This can be accomplished using one or both thumbs. Similar to desktop keyboards and input devices, if a user overuses keys which need hard presses and/or have small and unergonomic layouts, it could cause thumb tendonitis or other repetitive strain injury.[citation needed]Acer eMachines G730 Keyboard
[edit]Words per minute
The following text needs to be harmonized with text in Words per minute.
Further information: Words per minute
Words per minute (WpM) is a measure of typing speed, commonly used in recruitment. For the purposes of WpM measurement a word is standardized to five characters or keystrokes. Therefore, "brown" counts as one word, but "accounted" counts as two.Acer MP-07A23U4-442 Keyboard
The benefits of a standardized measurement of input speed are that it enables comparison across language and hardware boundaries. The speed of an Afrikaans-speaking operator in Cape Town can be compared with a French-speaking operator in Paris.
[edit]Alphanumeric entryAcer PK130AE2000 Keyboard
In one study of average computer users, the average rate for transcription was 33 words per minute, and 19 words per minute for composition.[3] In the same study, when the group was divided into "fast", "moderate" and "slow" groups, the average speeds were 40 wpm, 35 wpm, and 23 wpm respectively. An average professional typist reaches 50 to 80 wpm, while some positions can require 80 to 95 wpm (Acer TravelMate 4060 Keyboard
usually the minimum required for dispatch positions and other typing jobs), and some advanced typists work at speeds above 120 wpm.[4][5] Two-finger typists, sometimes also referred to as "hunt and peck" typists, commonly reach sustained speeds of about 37 wpm for memorized text and 27 wpm when copying text, but in bursts may be able to reach speeds of 60 to 70 wpm.[6] From the 1920s through the 1970s, Acer V104730BS1 Keyboard
typing speed (along with shorthand speed) was an important secretarial qualification and typing contests were popular and often publicized by typewriter companies as promotional tools.
A less common measure of the speed of a typist, CPM is used to identify the number of characters typed per minute. This is a common measurement for typing programs, or typing tutors, as it can give a more accurate measure of a person's typing speed without having to type for a prolonged period of time.Asus A8A Keyboard
The common conversion factor between WPM and CPM is 5. It is also used occasionally for associating the speed of a reader with the amount they have read. CPM has also been applied to 20th century printers, but modern faster printers more commonly use PPM (pages per minute).
The fastest typing speed ever, 216 words per minute, was achieved by Stella Pajunas-Garnand from Chicago in 1946 in one minute on an IBM electric.[7][8][9][10] As of 2005, writer Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, Asus X53S Keyboard
according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she has maintained 150 wpm for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods. She has been clocked at a peak speed of 212 wpm. Blackburn, who failed her QWERTY typing class in high school, first encountered the Dvorak keyboard in 1938, quickly learned to achieve very high speeds, and occasionally toured giving speed-typingCompaq Presario C709LA Keyboard
demonstrations during her secretarial career. She appeared on The David Letterman Show and felt that Letterman made a spectacle of her.[11] Blackburn died in April 2008.[11] However, the recent emergence of several competitive typing websites has allowed several fast typists on computer keyboards to emerge along with new records, though these are unverifiable for the most part. Two of the most notable online records that are considered genuine are 241.82 wpm on an English text on typingzone.comCompaq Presario CQ50-142US Keyboard
by Brazilian Guilherme Sandrini (equivalent to 290.184 wpm using the traditional definition for words per minute since this site defines a word as six characters rather than five)[12] and 256 wpm (a record caught on video) on TypeRacer by American Sean Wrona, the inaugural Ultimate Typing Championship winner, which is considered the highest ever legitimate score ever set on the site.[13] Both of these records are essentially sprint speeds on short text selections lasting much less than one minute and were achieved on the QWERTY keyboard. Wrona also maintained 174 wpm on a 50 minute test taken on hi-games.net, another online typing website to unofficially displace Blackburn as the fastest endurance typist, Compaq Presario CQ56-112SL Keyboard
although disputes might still arise over differences in the difficulty of the texts as well as Wrona's use of a modern computer keyboard as opposed to the typewriter used by Blackburn.[14] "Sean Wrona, official site".
Using a personalized interface,Compaq Presario CQ56-120SM Keyboard
physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, managed to type 15 wpm with a switch and adapted software created by Walt Woltosz. Due to a slowdown of his motor skills, his interface was upgraded with an infrared camera that detects "twitches in the cheek muscle under the eye."[15] Currently he can write approximately one word per minute.[16]Dell Inspiron 8100 Keyboard
[edit]Numeric entry
The numeric entry, or 10-key, speed is a measure of one's ability to manipulate a numeric keypad.
[edit]Text-entry research
[edit]Error analysis
With the introduction of computers and word-processors, there has been a change in how text-entry is performed.Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
In the past, using a typewriter, speed was measured with a stopwatch and errors were tallied by hand. With the current technology, document preparation is more about using word-processors as a composition aid, changing the meaning of error rate and how it is measured. Research performed by R. William Soukoreff and I. Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
Scott MacKenzie, has led to a discovery of the application of a well-known algorithm. Through the use of this algorithm and accompanying analysis technique, two statistics were used, minimum string distance error rate (MSD error rate) and keystrokes per character (KSPC). The two advantages of this technique include:Dell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
1. Participants are allowed to enter text naturally, since they may commit error and correct them.
2. The identification of errors and generation of error rate statistics is easy to automate.
[edit]Deconstructing the text input process
Through analysis of keystrokes, the keystrokes of the input stream were divided into four classes: Correct (C), Incorrect Fixed (IF), Fixes (F),Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
and Incorrect Not Fixed (INF). These key stroke classification are broken down into the following
1. The two classes Correct and Incorrect Not Fixed comprise all of the characters in transcribed text.
2. Fixes (F) keystrokes are easy to identify, and include keystrokes such as backspace, delete, cursor movements, and modifier keys.FujitsuAmilo Mini Ui 3520 Keyboard
3. Incorrect Fixed (IF) keystrokes are found in the input stream, but not the transcribed text, and are not editing keys.
Using these classes, the Minimum String Distance Error Rate and the Key Strokes per Character statistics can both be calculated.
[edit]Minimum string distance error rateFujitsuLifebook E8110 Keyboard
The minimum string distance (MSD) is the number of "primitives" which is the number of insertions, deletions, or substitutions to transform one string into another. The following equation was found for the MSD Error Rate
MSD Error Rate = Gateway 4028GZ Keyboard
[edit]Key strokes per character (KSPC)
With the minimum string distance error, errors that are corrected do not appear in the transcribed text. The following example will show you why this is an important class of errors to consider:
Presented Text: the quick brown
Input Stream: the quix<-ck brownHP 633183-001 Keyboard
Transcribed Text: the quick brown
in the above example, the incorrect character ('x') was deleted with a backspace ('<-'). Since these errors do not appear in the transcribed text, the MSD error rate is 0%. This is why there is the key strokes per character (KSPC) statistic.
KSPC =
The three shortcomings of the KSPC statistic are listed below:HP 636376-001 Keyboard
1. High KSPC values can be related to either many errors which were corrected, or few errors which were not corrected, however there is no way to distinguish the two.
2. KSPC depend on the text input method, and cannot be used to meaningfully compare two different input methods, such as Qwerty-keyboard and a multi-tap input.
3. There is no obvious way to combine KSPC and MSD into an over-all error rate, even though they have an inverse relationship.HP G42-468TU Keyboard
[edit]Example of MSD and KSPC
Presented Text: the quick brown
Input Stream: th quix<-ck brpown
Transcribed Text: th quick brpown
In the above example, there are three errors: an 'e' is omitted,HP G56-130SA Keyboard
there is an extra 'x' that is corrected, and there is an extra 'p' which was not corrected. The key strokes are mapped out below:
Input Stream: |th qui| |x| |<-| |ck br||p| |own|
C: |th qui|, |ck br|, |own| = 14 characters
F: |<-| = 1 character
IF: |x| =1 characterHP G72-a30EM Keyboard
INF:|p| = 2 characters(since the 'e' is missing)
using these numbers the following statistics were calculated
MSD = (2 / 16)*100% = 12.5%
KSPC = (18 / 16) = 1.125
[edit]Further metrics
Using the classes described above, further metrics were defined by R. William Soukoreff and I.Scott MacKenzie:
1. Error correction efficiency refers to the ease with which the participant performed error correction.
Correction Efficiency = IF/FHP G72-b66US Keyboard
2. Participant conscientiousness is the ratio of corrected errors to the total number of error, which helps distinguish perfectionists from apathetic participants.
Participant Conscientiousness = IF / (IF + INF)
3. If C represents the amount of useful information transferred, INF, IF, and F represent the proportion of bandwidth wasted.
Utilized Bandwidth = C / (C + INF + IF + F)
Wasted Bandwidth = (INF + IF + F)/ (C + INF + IF + F)
[edit]Total error rateHP Mini 110-1049TU Keyboard
The classes described also provide an intuitive definition of total error rate:
Total Error Rate = ((INF + IF)/ (C + INF + IF)) * 100%
Not Corrected Error Rate = (INF/ (C + INF + IF)) * 100%
Corrected Error Rate = (IF/ (C + INF + IF)) * 100%
Since these three error rates are ratios,HP Mini 110-3103sl Keyboard
they are comparable between different devices, something that cannot be done with the KSPC statistic, which is device dependent.[17]
[edit]See also
War correspondent typing his dispatch in a wood outside Arnhem, 1944
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
Keyboard layoutHP Mini 210-1023SS Keyboard
Muscle memory
QWERTY
Stenotype
Touch typing
TypingWeb
Copy typist
Audio typist
Data entry clerkHP Mini 210-2004sa Keyboard
The Nannerl Notenbuch, or Notenbuch für Nannerl (English: Nannerl's Music Book) is a book in which Leopold Mozart, from 1759 to about 1764, wrote pieces for his daughter, Maria Anna Mozart (known as 'Nannerl'), to learn and play. His son Wolfgang also used the book, in which his earliest compositions were recorded (some penned by his father). The book contains simple short keyboard (typically harpsichord) pieces, suitable for beginners; there are many anonymous minuets, some works by Leopold,HP Mini 210-2103tu Keyboard
and a few other composers including Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and the Austrian composer Georg Christoph Wagenseil. There are also some technical exercises, a table of intervals, and some modulating figured basses.[1] The notebook originally contained 48 bound pages of music paper, but only 36 pages remain, with some of the missing 12 pages identified in other collections.HP Pavilion dv3-2306tx Keyboard
Contents [hide]
1 Description of the Notenbuch
2 Wolfgang Mozart's compositions in the book
2.1 Andante in C, K. 1a
2.2 Allegro in C, K. 1b
2.3 Allegro in F, K. 1c
2.4 Minuet in F, K. 1d
2.5 Minuet in G, K. 1e
2.6 Minuet in C, K. 1fHP Pavilion dv3-2327tx Keyboard
2.7 Minuet in F, K. 2
2.8 Allegro in B-flat, K. 3
2.9 Minuet in F, K. 4
2.10 Minuet in F, K. 5
2.11 Allegro in C, K. 5a
2.12 Andante in B-flat, K. 5b
3 Table of contents
4 Notes
5 References
6 External linksHP Pavilion dv5-1159se Keyboard
[edit]Description of the Notenbuch
Originally the Notenbuch was a bound volume comprising forty-eight pages of blank music paper, with eight staves on each page. Inscribed with the words Pour le clavecin (French: For the harpsichord), HP Pavilion dv5-1250ec Keyboard
it was presented to Nannerl on the occasion of her eighth name day on 26 July 1759 (or possibly her eighth birthday, which fell on the 30th or 31st day of the same month). Over the course of the next four years or so, the notebook was gradually filled with pieces written out by Leopold and two or three anonymous Salzburg copyists. Wolfgang is thought to have written out four pieces. Curiously none of the pieces was inscribed by Nannerl herself.HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
In later years, twelve individual pages were removed from the notebook for one reason or another. Of these, four are now considered lost, but the remaining eight have been identified by Alan Tyson (1987):
two pages in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris;
one in the Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg;
two in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City;HP Pavilion dv6-2160ep Keyboard
one in the Universitätsbibliothek, Leipzig;
one survives only as a facsimile and consists of the opening measures of K. 5b;
one, now in a private collection, consists of a single leaf containing the rest of K. 5b.
The four lost pages have been tentatively reconstructed using a variety of other sources (Nannerl's letters and Georg Nissen's biography of Mozart).HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
It is believed that in its completed state the Notenbuch contained a total of 64 pieces (including exercises and unfinished compositions), of which 52 are in the surviving 36 pages of the book.
Wolfgang Plath (1982) has deduced the existence of five scribes, from a study of the handwriting in the Notenbuch. In addition to Leopold and Wolfgang,HP Pavilion dv6-3104st Keyboard
three anonymous scribes from Salzburg – known as Anonymous I, Anonymous II and Anonymous III – have been identified. Numbers 58 and 61, thought to be in the four missing pages, are known only from Nissen's material; Plath assumed that these two pieces were copied out by Leopold, who was responsible for more than half the contents of the Notenbuch.
HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
The Notenbuch provides evidence of the collaboration between the young Wolfgang and his father. For example, number 48 is an arrangement of the third movement of Leopold's D major serenade, but the trio also appears as Menuet II in Wolfgang's Sonata K. 6.[2]
The Notenbuch is also useful in providing evidence of Leopold's approach to teaching music. The tables of intervals show that he taught music theory to his children from the start. It seems that he also taught composition from the outset, by means of a given bass line, a melody to be varied, a melody to be continued, and a structural model.[1]HP Pavilion DV7-4061 Keyboard
The earliest compositions by Wolfgang are written in Leopold's hand; the father's gentle suggestions for amendments came later.[3]
[edit]Wolfgang Mozart's compositions in the book
The Notenbuch contains the following pieces by Wolfgang:IBM Thinkpad Z61e Keyboard
[edit]Andante in C, K. 1a
Andante in C (help·info)
This piece of music was probably Mozart's first ever composition. It is an extremely short piece, consisting of just 10 measures, and was notated by the composer's father, Leopold, as Wolfgang was only five years old when he composed it.04W0872
It is normally performed on the harpsichord and is in the key of C. The piece opens with a one-bar phrase in 3/4 time, which is then repeated. A second, modified phrase receives the same treatment. The time signature then changes to 2/4 and in the following four measures Mozart reverts to a typically Baroque style. The piece concludes with a simple authentic cadence.
[edit]Allegro in C, K. 1b0A62075
Allegro in C (help·info)
This is an extremely short piece, consisting of only twelve measures. It was notated by Mozart's father, Leopold, as Wolfgang was only five years old when he composed it.3000 Y510a 15303
It is normally performed on the harpsichord, and is in the key of C. As the tempo indicates, it is a fast and lively piece. Unlike K. 1a, this piece is not based on repeated phrases. It begins with an ascending scale in the right hand from the dominant (G) to the mediant (E) on the first and third beats of the bars, while the left hand adds a counterpoint on the off beats. 3000 Y510
After reaching a peak, the right hand drops down in a series of quarter notes and eighth notes, accompanied by a very simple bass part. Curiously, the final cadence takes place between the eighth and ninth measures: in the last four measures, which make up a quarter of the entire composition, Mozart rings various changes on an unadorned C major triad.
[edit]Allegro in F, K. 1cThinkpad T410
Allegro in F (help·info)
Another very short piece, K. 1c runs to twenty-four measures (including repeats). It was composed by Wolfgang on 11 December 1761 in Salzburg. It was notated by Mozart's father, Leopold, as Wolfgang was just five years old at the time.ThinkPad T510-4314
This piece was written for the harpsichord and is usually performed on that instrument today, though other keyboard instruments may be used. This Allegro is Mozart's earliest extant piece in F major. Like K. 1b, it is in a fast tempo. It is in rounded binary form, with repeat signs at the end of each of the sections: ||:A:||:BA:||, where A and B each consists of four bars. The music is simple and classical in style. This piece has been compared to a "jolly south German folkdance".[4]ThinkPad T510i-4873
[edit]Minuet in F, K. 1d
Minuet in F (help·info)
This minuet in F is another very short piece in extended binary form. The first section is just eight measures long and the second section twelve; both are marked with repeat signs. K. 1d was notated by Leopold Mozart; Wolfgang was five years old when he composed this piece.Thinkpad T520
It was written for the harpsichord and is usually performed on that instrument, though other keyboard instruments may be used. This dance is Mozart's earliest extant composition in minuet form. As a minuet it is, by definition, stately in feeling and written in 3/4 time. Like all Mozart's compositions in the Notenbuch, the clearest influences on the style are to be found in the pieces he was studying by Leopold Mozart and Georg Christoph Wagenseil.[5]SamsungN140 Keyboard
It comprises several phrases each beginning with chords, after which broken chords and triplets are used.
[edit]Minuet in G, K. 1e
Minuet in G (help·info)SamsungNP-N145-JP04 Keyboard
An extremely short piece (just 30 seconds long), it was likely notated by his father, Leopold Mozart, since Wolfgang was five or six years old at the time.
It was written for the harpsichord and is hence usually performed on the harpsichord, though other keyboard instruments may be used. Sony VAIO PCG-FRV26 Keyboard
This minuet in G major is in Mozart's first collection of works. As a minuet, it is relatively fast in 3/4 time. Unlike K. 1d, it is far less influenced by the baroque style.
It is largely constructed of phrases which are repeated: every two bars is announced by a descending fifth, after which 4 chords are played, Sony VAIO PCG-FX776 Keyboard
a tune is constructed within this restraint. Each phrase is 8 bars long. In two part harmony, it consists of 3 sections: the opening, a contrasting trio, and reprise of the original.[Not in the score]
[edit]Minuet in C, K. 1f
An extremely short piece (just 30 seconds long), it was likely notated by his father, Leopold Mozart, since Wolfgang was only five or six years old at the time.Sony Vaio PCG-K33 Keyboard
It was written for the harpsichord and is hence usually performed on the harpsichord, though other keyboard instruments may be used. This minuet is in Mozart's first collection of works. As a minuet it is relatively fast in 3/4 time. It is, unlike K. 1d far less influenced by the baroque style.
It is largely constructed of phrases which are repeated: every two bars is announced by a descending fifth, after which 4 chords are played,Sony Vaio PCG-K415B Keyboard
a tune is constructed within this restraint. Each phrase is 8 bars long. In two part harmony, it consists of 3 sections: the opening, contrasting trio, and a reprise of the original.[Not in the score] It was, in Köchel's first catalogue listed as K. 1 along with Minuet in G, K. 1e.
[edit]Minuet in F, K. 2Sony VAIO VGN-AR130G Keyboard
This piece, dated "Salzburg, January 1762", consists of a single bar motif which is developed into an eight-bar exposition, which is repeated, and then modulated for another eight bars before being repeated again.
[edit]Allegro in B-flat, K. 3
[edit]Minuet in F, K. 4
[edit]Minuet in F, K. 5
[edit]Allegro in C, K. 5a
[edit]Andante in B-flat, K. 5bSony VAIO VGN-AR730E/B Keyboard
Andante in B♭ (fragment) (help·info)
The final surviving piece in the Nannerl Notenbuch, of which only a fragment is left. It runs for 61 measures (including repeats) and usually performed on the Harpsichord, though other keyboard instruments may be used.
[edit]Table of contents
Sony Vaio VGN-AW310J/H Keyboard
The following table summarizes the contents of the Notenbuch.[6]
No. Piece Copyist Composer K. Added comments Notes
1 Menuett in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
2 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
3 Menuett in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
4 Menuett in G Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
5 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
6 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
7 Menuett in D Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
8 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – Diese vorgehenden 8 Menuetten hat d. Wolfgangerl im 4ten Jahr gelernetSony VAIO VGN-CR36G Keyboard
(Wolfgang learned the preceding 8 minuets in his 4th year) –
9 Menuett in A Leopold Anonymous – – –
10 Menuett in D Leopold Anonymous – – –
11 Menuett in F Anonymous I Anonymous – Disen Menuet und Trio hat dr Wolfgangerl den 26ten Januarij 1761 einen Tag vor seinem 5ten Jahr um halbe 10 Uhr in einer halben Stund gelernet
(Wolfgang learned this minuet and trio in half-an-hour around 9:30 on 26 January 1761, one day before his 5th birthday) –
12 Menuett in A Leopold Anonymous – –Sony VAIO VGN-CS15GN/B Keyboard
–
13 Menuett in A Leopold Anonymous – – –
14 Menuett in F Leopold Anonymous – – –
15 Menuett in E Leopold Anonymous – – –
16 Menuett in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
17 Menuett in F Leopold Leopold – – –Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
18 Menuett in B flat Leopold Anonymous – – –
19 Menuett in F Anonymous I Wolfgang K. 32 Diesen Menuet hat d. Wolfgangerl auch im vierten jahr seines alters gelernet
(Wolfgang also learned this minuet when he was four years of age) K. 32 (Gallimathias musicum), No. 14, is an orchestral version of this pieceSony VAIO VGN-FS115Z Keyboard
20 Allegro in C Wolfgang Wolfgang K. 5a – Probably added in 1764
21 Menuett in C Anonymous II Anonymous – – –
22 Marsch in F (I) Anonymous I Anonymous – den 4ten feb. 1761 vom Wolfgangerl gelernet
Learned by Wolfgang on the 4 February 1761 –
23 Marsch in F (II) Leopold Anonymous – – Sony VAIO VGN-FS215S Keyboard
–
24 Allegro in B flat Leopold Wolfgang K. 8 di Wolfgang Mozart à Paris le 21 Novb. 1763
by Wolfgang Mozart in Paris on 21 November 1763 A piano version of the first movement of Violin Sonata No. 3 in B flat, K. 8
25 Andante in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 6 – A piano version of the second movement of Violin Sonata No. 1 in C, K. 6
Probably written in Brussels in October 1763Sony VAIO VGN-FS550 Keyboard
26 Menuett in C Leopold Wolfgang K. 6 – A piano version of Menuet I from the third movement of Violin Sonata No. 1 in C, K. 6
Probably written in Brussels in October 1763
27 Allegro in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
28 Allegro in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
29 Klavierstück in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
30 Allegro in C Anonymous I Anonymous – – –Sony VAIO VGN-FS640/W Keyboard
31 Scherzo in C Anonymous I Wagenseil – del Sgr. Wagenseil
(By Signore Wagenseil) –
32 Scherzo in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
33 Allegro in F Leopold Anonymous – – –
34 Allegro in C Leopold Anonymous – – –
35 Tempo di menuetto in F Anonymous II Anonymous – – –
36 Allegro moderato in F Anonymous I Anonymous – – –
37 Andante in B flat Leopold Anonymous – – –
38 Andante in C Leopold Anonymous – – –Sony VAIO VGN-FS740 Keyboard
39 Arietta con Variazioni in A Anonymous III C.P.E. Bach – – –
40 Allegro in C Leopold Anonymous – – –
41 Allegro in G Leopold Anonymous – – –
42 Allegro in G minor Leopold Anonymous – – –
43 Presto in A Anonymous III J. N. Tischer – – –
44 Polonaise in F Leopold Anonymous – – –Sony VAIO VGN-FS990 Keyboard
45 Allegro in E minor Leopold J. J. Agrell – – –
46 Allegro in C Leopold Wolfgang K. 6 di Wolfgango Mozart d. 14 octob.
(by Wolfgang Mozart on 14 October) A piano version of the first movement of Violin Sonata No. 1, K. 6
Probably composed in Brussels in 1763
47 Menuett in D Leopold Wolfgang K. 7 di Wolfgango Mozart d. 30ten Novbr. 1763 à Paris
(by Wolfgang Mozart in Paris in 1763) A piano version of Menuet I from Violin Sonata No. 2 in D, K. 7Sony VAIO VGN-FZ130EB Keyboard
48 Menuett in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 6 di Wolfgango Mozart d. 16ten Julÿ 1762
(by Wolfgang Mozart on 16 July 1762) A piano version of the third movement of Leopold's Serenade in D and Menuet II from the third movement of Wolfgang's Violin Sonata No. 1 in C
Composed in SalzburgSony VAIO VGN-N345FN/B Keyboard
49 Menuett in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 4 di Wolfgango Mozart d. 11ten Maÿ 1762
(by Wolfgang Mozart on 11 May 1762) Minuet in F, K. 4
Composed in Salzburg
50 Klavierstück in G Leopold Anonymous – – Fragment
51 Konzertsatz in G Leopold Anonymous – – –
52 Fünf technische Übungen Leopold AnonymousSony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard
– – Exercise: Five technical exercises
53 Andante in C Leopold Wolfgang K. 1a – –
54 Allegro in C Leopold Wolfgang K. 1b – –
55 Allegro in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 1c – –
56 Minuet in F Leopold Wolfgang K. 1d Menuetto del Sgr. Wolfgango Mozart 16to Decembris 1761
(Minuet by Wolfgang Mozart on 16 December 1761) –Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/S Keyboard
57 Intervalltabelle Leopold Anonymous – – Exercise: a table of musical intervals
58 Menuett in F Leopold? Wolfgang K. 2 – Minuet in F, K. 2
59 Allegro in B flat Leopold Wolfgang K. 3 del Sgr. Wolfgango Mozart 1762. d. 4ten Martij
(by Wolfgang Mozart on 4 March 1762) Allegro in B flat, K. 3
Composed in Salzburg
60 Drei modulierende Generalbaßübungen Leopold Anonymous – – Exercise: 3 modulating general basses
61 Menuett in F Leopold? Wolfgang K. 5 5. Juli 1762Sony VAIO VGN-NW270F Keyboard
5 July 1762 Minuet in F, K. 5
Composed in Salzburg
62 Menuett in G Wolfgang Wolfgang K. 1e – Minuet in G, K. 1e
Probably added in 1764
63 Menuett in C Wolfgang Wolfgang K. 1f – Minuet in C, K. 1f
Probably added in 1764Sony VAIO VGN-NW350F Keyboard
64 Andante in B flat Wolfgang Wolfgang K. 5b – Fragment of an Andante in B flat, K. 5b (KV 9b in K1)
Probably added in 1764
[edit]Notes
^ a b Eisen and Keefe, p. 322Sony VAIO VGN-NW51FB/N Keyboard
^ Cliff Eisen, 'Leopold Mozart', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 9 May 2006)
^ Eisen and Keefe, p. 323
^ Stanley Sadie (2006), p. 53.
^ Nicholas Kenyon (2005), p. 251.
^ Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Band 20Sony VAIO VGN-SR280Y Keyboard
[edit]References
Eisen, Cliff, Mozart Studies 2, Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19-816343-6
Eisen, Cliff and Keefe, Simon P., The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-521-85659-0
Kenyon, Nicholas, The Faber Pocket Guide to Mozart, Faber and Faber Ltd. (2005), ISBN 0-571-22376-1Sony VAIO VGN-SZ750N Keyboard
Plath, Wolfgang Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, Series IX/27: Klavierstücke, Band (Die Notenbücher) (1982)
Sadie, Stanley, Mozart; The Early years 1756-1781, Oxford University Press (2006), ISBN 978-0-19-816529-3
Tyson, Alan, A Reconstruction of Nannerl Mozart's Music Book (Notenbuch) in Music & Letters, vol. 60, no. 4 (October 1979), pp. 389–400Sony VAIO VPC-F13 Keyboard
The TRS-80 Model 100 was an early portable computer introduced in 1983. It was one of the first notebook-style computers, featuring a keyboard and liquid crystal display, battery powered, in a package roughly the size and shape of notepad or large book.
It was made by Kyocera, and originally sold in Japan as the Kyotronic 85. Sony VGN-FE28H Keyboard
Although a slow seller for Kyocera, the rights to the machine were purchased by Tandy Corporation, and the computer was sold through Radio Shack stores in the United States and Canada as well as affiliated dealers in other countries, Sony VGN-FE31B Keyboard
becoming one of the company's most popular models, with over 6,000,000 units sold worldwide. The Olivetti M-10 and the NEC PC-8201 and PC-8300 were also built on the same Kyocera platform, with some design and hardware differences. It was originally marketed as a Micro Executive Work Station (MEWS), although the term did not catch on and was eventually dropped.
Contents [hide] Sony VGN-FE31H Keyboard
1 Specifications
2 ROM firmware
3 Applications
4 Peers and successors
4.1 Similar computers from other companies
5 Emulator
6 Aftermarket products
7 References
8 External links
[edit]SpecificationsSony VGN-FE770G Keyboard
The internals of the TRS-80 Model 100. The left half is the back.
Processor: 8-bit Intel 80C85, CMOS, 2.4 MHz
Memory: 32 kB ROM, 8, 16, 24, or 32kB static RAM. Machines with less than 32 kB could be expanded in 8 kB increments of plug-in static RAM modules.Sony VGN-FE780G Keyboard
Display: 8 lines, 40 characters LCD with 240 by 64 pixel addressable graphics. The screen was not backlit.
Keyboard: 56 keys, 8 programmable function keys, and 4 dedicated command keys.
Peripherals: The basic package included: Built-in 300 baud modem (North American versions), parallel printer port, serial communication port (shared by internal modem), bar-code reader input, cassette audio tape, real-time clock.Sony VGN-FE865E Keyboard
Dimensions: 300 by 215 x 50 mm, weight about 1.4 kilograms (3.1 lb) with batteries
Power supply: Four penlight (AA) cells, or external power adapter 6V (>180 mA, tip negative configuration)
The 8K and 24K versions sold for US$1099 and US$1399 respectively.[1]Toshiba 9J.N9282.W01 Keyboard
The Model 100 was promoted as being able to run up to 20 hours and maintain memory up to 30 days on a set of four alkaline AA batteries.
The Tandy Portable Disk Drive (TPDD), a serial device capable of storing 100 KB of data on a 3.5 inch diskette was also available. A second version, the TPDD2, could store up to 200 KB, as it used double sided disks.Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
A disk-video interface expansion box was released in 1984, with 5-1/4 inch disk drives and a CRT video adapter. This allowed the Model 100 to display 40 or 80 column video on an external television set or video monitor.
A bar code reader wand was also offered.
[edit]ROM firmware
Toshiba Satellite L355-S7905 Keyboard
When first switched on, the Model 100 displays a menu of applications and files and the date and time. The ROM firmware based system boots instantly, which compares very favourably to disk-based computers. Not only is the machine ready to use immediately on power-up, but it will also continue running, from the same point, the program that was running when the unit was powered off. Cursor keys are used to navigate the menu and select one of the internal or added application programs, or any data file to be worked upon.Toshiba Satellite L40-17S Keyboard
The 32 kilobyte read-only memory of the Model 100 contains the N82 version of the Microsoft BASIC 80 programming language. This is similar to other Microsoft BASICs of the time and includes good support for the hardware features of the machine: pixel addressing of the display, support for the internal modem and serial port, monophonic sound, Toshiba Satellite L655-S5100 Keyboard
access to tape files, and support for the real-time clock and the bar code reader. Unlike other Microsoft BASIC interpreters of the time, the default for floating point numbers is double-precision.
The ROM also contains a terminal program, TELCOM; an address/phone book organizer, ADDRSS; a to-do list organizer, SCHEDL; and a simple text editor, Toshiba Satellite L775-S7248 Keyboard
TEXT. The TELCOM program allows automation of a login sequence to a remote system under control of the BASIC interpreter.
As with other home computers of the era, a vast collection of PEEK and POKE locations were collected by avid hobbyists.Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
Invisible files in the system RAM named "Hayashi" and "Suzuki" commemorate the names of designers Junji Hayashi and Jay Suzuki. Another invisible deleted file named "RickY" refers to Rick Yamashita.[2] The Model 100 firmware was the last Microsoft product that Bill Gates developed personally, along with Suzuki. According to Gates, "part of my nostalgia about this machine is this was the last machine where I wrote a very high percentage of the code in the product".[3]
Added applications and data files are stored in the internal battery-backed RAM; Toshiba Satellite M645-S4114 Keyboard
these can be loaded from and stored to an audio cassette tape recorder or external floppy disk drive. Optional ROMs can be installed in the Model 100, providing a range of customized application software.
The Model 100 ROM has a Y2K bug; the century displayed on the main menu was hard-coded as "19XX". Workarounds exist for this problem.
[edit]ApplicationsToshiba Satellite Pro L670-EZ1715D Keyboard
When introduced, the portability and simplicity of the Model 100 made it attractive to journalists,[4] who could type about 11 pages of text and then transmit it using the built-in modem and TELCOM program for electronic editing and production. The computer is silent when it operates. The keyboard is full-size and uses a standard (QWERTY) layout. It runs for 20 hours on 4 readily available and easily replaceable AA batteries. Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
Data is protected by a built-in rechargeable battery. There is no boot up routine; the Model 100 operates as soon as the switch is flipped and an application selected. There are several simple programs available on the Internet for transferring Model 100 files to a modern personal computer.
The Model 100 was also used in industrial applications as a programming terminal for configuration of control systems and instruments.Toshiba Satellite U305 Keyboard
Third-party peripherals for the Model 100 extended its battery life and file storage capacity. Software was designed, and is still available, to extend the display capabilities and to provide more advanced word-processing or calculation software than the supplied programs. To this day, hobbyists continue to design games, applications, and hardware for this device.
Modern portable computers (laptops) are larger, heavier, and have much shorter battery life than the Model 100. The closest modern successors include the Alphasmart Dana and the Quickpad Pro. These similar modern "slabtop" units typically are targeted at the education market, although they are often used by writers and mobile professionals.Toshiba Satellite U305-S2808 Keyboard
Although much larger, the Model 100 actually bears a close resemblance to modern PDAs. Its TEXT program is similar to the Memo program found on PalmOne products, and ADDRSS and SCHEDL are essentially simplified versions of Contacts, Tasks and Calendar. The Model 100 has the additional advantage of a full size keyboard, a built-in modem and BASIC programming language. By including BASIC, the Model 100's designers made it possible for users to design additional applications. Thinkpad Z61t
Because of its adaptability and features as well as its current relative affordability, the Model 100 and its progeny (Model 102/200/600) enjoy a near cult status among its supporters. Club 100 and Bitchin100 are the center of the Model 100 universe. Model 100 enthusiasts continue to explore this early computer, trading information, participating in contests and designing new applications with existing and newly designed hardware and software.
[edit]Peers and successorsThinkpad R60
A Tandy 200, shown next to a 21st century Windows-based laptop
The Tandy 200 was introduced in 1984 as a more capable sister product of the Model 100. The Tandy 200 had a flip-up 16 line by 40 column display, and came with 24 KB RAM which could be expanded to 72 KB (3 banks of 24 KB). It included Multiplan, a spreadsheet application. It also added DTMF tone dialing for the internal modem, ThinkPad T40 where the Model 100 only supported pulse dialing.
The last new model that could be considered part of this line was the Tandy 600, introduced in October 1985. Similar to the Tandy 200, Lenovo ThinkPad R51e-1847it featured a flip-up screen, but with 80 columns rather than 40. Built-in features included a 3.5" diskette drive, rechargeable batteries, and 32K of RAM expandable to 224K. The underlying software platform was Microsoft's 16-bit Hand Held Operating System (Handheld DOS or HHDOS), along with word processing, calendar, database, communication and spreadsheet software. Unlike earlier models, BASIC was an extra-cost option rather than built in.[5] ThinkPad T40p 2378
The last refresh to the product line was the Tandy 102, introduced in 1986 as a direct replacement for the Model 100, having the same software, keyboard and screen, and a nearly identical, but thinner, form factor. Minimum memory was 24 KB RAM.
Later portables from Tandy no longer featured a ROM-based software environment, starting with the Tandy LT1400, which ran a diskette-based MS-DOS operating system.
[edit]Similar computers from other companiesThinkPad T40 2678
The NEC PC-8201 computer
As mentioned previously, the Olivetti M-10 and the NEC PC-8201 and PC-8300 were also built on the same platform as the original Kyocera design. The earlier and smaller Epson HX-20 of 1983 used a much smaller LCD display, four lines of twenty characters, and had an internal cassette tape drive for program and file storage. ThinkPad T41 2679There were several other "calculator-style" laptops available at the time, including the Casio FP-200, the Texas Instruments CC-40, and the Canon X-07.[6]
Systems of about the same size and form-factor as the Model 100, aimed at journalists, were sold by companies such as Teleram, as the Teleram T-3000[7] and GRiD Systems, as the GRiD Compass, which was used by NASA. GRiD was later acquired by Tandy. The Bondwell 2 of 1985 was a CP/M laptop in a similar form factor to the Model 200. ThinkPad T42p 2678
Data General developed the Data General-One (DG-1), a much more powerful (but more costly) MS-DOS portable computer with disk drives and a full-sized LCD screen, similar to the Tandy LT1400. It was released in 1984. The Zenith ZP-150, also of 1984, was introduced prior to the Tandy 600. The two computers were notably similar, although the ZP-150 did include BASIC and could be configured with more memory, but did not have a built-in diskette drive.
The Cambridge Z88 of 1987, developed by British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair, was similar in form and functionality to the Model 100 but had greater expansion capacity. ThinkPad T42 2679
[edit]Emulator
VirtualT An open source Model 100/102/200 emulator with an integrated debugger, hardware access utilities and a complete FX-80 printer emulation.
Apple keyboard
The XO-1, previously known as the $100 Laptop,[2] Children's Machine,[3] and 2B1,[4] is an inexpensive subnotebook computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world,[5] to provide them with access to knowledge, and opportunities to "explore, experiment and express themselves" (constructionist learning).[6] The laptop is developed by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization and manufactured by Quanta Computer. HP Envy 15-1050nr Keyboard
The subnotebooks are designed for sale to government-education systems which then give each primary school child their own laptop. Pricing was set to start at $188 in 2006, with a stated goal to reach the $100 mark in 2008 and the 50-dollar mark by 2010.[7] When offered for sale in the Give One, Get One campaigns of Q4 2006 and Q4 2007, the laptop was sold at $199.[8]
Thinkpad T410
These rugged, low-power computers use flash memory instead of a hard drive, and come with a distribution of Linux derived from Red Hat's Fedora as their pre-installed operating system with the new Sugar GUI.[9] Mobile ad-hoc networking via 802.11s WiFi mesh networking protocol is used to allow many machines to share Internet access as long as at least one of them can see and connect to a router or other access point. Dell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
The XO-1 is also nicknamed ceibalita in Uruguay after the Ceibal project.[10]
Contents
[hide] 1 History
2 Design 2.1 Hardware 2.1.1 Major builds
2.1.2 Intentionally omitted features
2.1.3 Power consumption
2.1.4 Display 2.1.4.1 Display resolution
HP G72-a30EM Keyboard
2.1.5 Wireless mesh networking
2.1.6 Shell
2.1.7 Keyboard and touchpad
2.2 Software 2.2.1 Desktop environments
Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
3 Gallery
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Sony VAIO VGN-N345FN/B Keyboard
[edit] History
Main article: One Laptop per Child
OLPC XO-1 original design proposal
The first early prototype was unveiled by the project's founder Nicholas Negroponte and then-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on November 16, 2005, at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia.[11] The device shown was a rough prototype using a standard development board. Sony VAIO VGN-FS115Z Keyboard
Negroponte estimated that the screen alone required three more months of development.[citation needed] The first working prototype was demonstrated at the project's Country Task Force Meeting on May 23, 2006.[citation needed]
In 2006 there was a major controversy because Microsoft had suddenly developed an interest in the XO project and wanted the formerly open source effort to run Windows. Negroponte agreed to provide engineer assistance to Microsoft to facilitate their efforts. Sony VAIO VGN-FS640/W Keyboard
During this time, the project mission statement changed to remove mentions of "open source". A number of developers, such as Ivan Krstić and Walter Bender, resigned because of these changes in strategy.[12][13][14] As of 2011, no laptops have been shipped by OLPC with Windows installed.[citation needed]
Approximately 400 developer boards (Alpha-1) were distributed in mid-2006; 875 working prototypes (Beta 1) were delivered in late 2006; 2400 Beta-2 machines were distributed at the end of February 2007;[15] full-scale production started November 6, 2007. Sony VAIO VGN-CR36G Keyboard
[16] Quanta Computer, the project's contract manufacturer, said in February 2007 that it had confirmed orders for one million units. Quanta indicated that it could ship five million to ten million units that year because seven nations had committed to buy the XO-1 for their schoolchildren: Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand, and Uruguay.[17] Quanta plans to offer machines very similar to the XO-1 on the open market.[18] Sony VAIO VGN-NW15G/S Keyboard
The OLPC project originally stated that a consumer version of the XO laptop was not planned.[19] The project later established, in 2007 the laptopgiving.org website for outright donations and for a "Give 1 Get 1" offer valid (but only to the United States, its territories, and Canadian addresses) from November 12, 2007 until December 31, 2007.[20] For each computer purchased at a cost of $399, an XO is also sent to a child in a developing nation.[20] OLPC again restarted the G1G1 program through Amazon.com in November 2008, but has since stopped as of December 31 (2008 or 2009).[21] Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
On May 20, 2008, OLPC announced the next generation of XO, OLPC XO-2[22] which was thereafter cancelled in favor of the tablet-like designed XO-3. In late 2008, the NYC Department of Education began a project to purchase large numbers of XO computers for use by New York schoolchildren.[23]
The design received the Community category award of the 2007 Index: Award.[24][25]
Toshiba Satellite Pro L670-EZ1715D Keyboard
According to Computer Aid International, in a test conducted in April 2009, the device was ranked as the most power saving among other information and communication technologies in education solutions.[26]
[edit] Design
OLPC XO-1 laptop in Ebook-Mode. Sony VAIO VGN-NW270F Keyboard
The XO-1 is designed to be low-cost, small, durable, and efficient. It is shipped with a slimmed-down version of Fedora Linux and a GUI named Sugar that is intended to help young children collaborate. The XO-1 includes a video camera, a microphone, long-range Wi-Fi, and a hybrid stylus/touch pad. In addition to a standard plug-in power supply, human power and solar power sources are available, allowing operation far from a commercial power grid. Mary Lou Jepsen has listed the design goals of the device as follows:[27] Toshiba 9J.N9282.W01 Keyboard
minimal power consumption, with a design target of 2–3 W total power consumption
minimal production cost, with a target of US$100 per laptop for production runs of millions of units
a "cool" look, implying innovative styling in its physical appearance
e-book functionality with extremely low power consumption Sony VAIO VGN-FS740 Keyboard
open source and free software provided with the laptop
Various use models had been explored by OLPC with the help of Design Continuum and Fuseproject, including: laptop, e-book, theatre, simulation, tote, and tablet architectures. The current design, by Fuseproject, uses a transformer hinge to morph between laptop, e-book, and router modes.[citation needed] Dell Inspiron 8100 Keyboard
[edit] Hardware
The latest GA version of the XO-1 is XO 1.5. The specs for older builds are documented in the Major Builds section, below. Data about the XO-1 comes from the hardware specification.[28]
Toshiba Satellite M645-S4114 Keyboard
Production version (4th generation) – functional survey
XO-1 motherboard XO 1 CPU: 433 MHz x86 AMD Geode LX-700 at 0.8 watts, with integrated graphics controller
256 MB of Dual (DDR266) 133 MHz DRAM (in 2006 the specification called for 128 MB of RAM)[29] HP Pavilion dv3-2327tx Keyboard
1024 kB (1 MB) flash ROM with open-source Open Firmware
1024 MB of SLC NAND flash memory (in 2006 the specifications called for 512 MB of flash memory)[30]
Average battery life 3 hrs
XO 1.5[31] Release Date early 2010 HP Mini 110-3103sl Keyboard
CPU: 400 MHz to 1000 MHz x86 VIA C7 at 0.8 watts, with integrated graphics controller
512 to 1024 MB of Dual (DDR266) 133 MHz DRAM
1024 kB (1 MB) flash ROM with open-source Open Firmware
4 GB of SLC NAND flash memory (upgradable, microSD)
Average battery life 3-5 hrs (varies w/ active suspend) IBM Thinkpad R40 Keyboard
XO 1.75[32][33] Release Date TBD late 2011 ?
CPU: 400 MHz to 1000 MHz ARM Marvell Armada 610 at 0.8 watts, with integrated graphics controller
1024 to 2048 MB of DDR3 (TBD)
1024 TBD kB (1 MB) flash ROM with open-source Open Firmware
4-8 GB of SLC NAND flash memory (upgradable, microSD) Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
Accelerometer
Average battery life 5-10 hrs
Screen 1200×900 7.5 inch (19 cm) diagonal LCD (200 dpi) that uses 0.1 to 1.0 W depending on mode. The two modes are: Reflective (backlight off) monochrome mode for low-power use in sunlight. This mode provides very sharp images for high-quality text.
Backlit color mode, with an alternance of red,green and blue pixels. See below for details.
XO 1.75 developmental version for XO-3 has an optional touch screen IBM Thinkpad Z61e Keyboard
Storage Internal SD card slot[34]
Wireless Wireless networking using an “Extended Range” 802.11b/g and 802.11s (mesh) Marvell 8388 wireless chip, chosen due to its ability to autonomously forward packets in the mesh even if the CPU is powered off. When connected in a mesh, it is run at a low bitrate (2 Mbit/s) to minimize power consumption. Despite the wireless chip's minimalism, it supports WPA.[35] An ARM processor is included. Sony VAIO VGN-SR280Y Keyboard
Dual adjustable antennas for diversity reception.
Inputs/Ports Water-resistant membrane keyboard, customized to the locale in which it will be distributed.[36] The multiplication and division symbols are included. The keyboard is designed for the small hands of children.
Five-key cursor-control pad; four directional keys plus Enter Sony VAIO VGN-FZ130EB Keyboard
Four "Game Buttons" (functionally PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End) modeled after the PlayStation controller layout (, , , and ).
Touchpad for mouse control and handwriting input
Built-in color camera, to the right of the display, VGA resolution (640×480)
Built-in stereo speakers HP Pavilion dv5-1250ec Keyboard
Built-in microphone
Audio based on the AC'97 codec, with jacks for external stereo speakers and microphones, Line-out, and Mic-in
3 external USB 2.0 ports.
Power sources: DC input, ±11–18 V, maximum 15 W power draw
5-cell rechargeable NiMH battery pack, 3000 mAh minimum 3050 mAh typical 80% usable, charge at 0…45°C (deprecated in 2009) Acer TravelMate 4060 Keyboard
2-cell rechargeable LiFePO4 battery pack, 2800 mAh minimum 2900 mAh typical 100% usable, charge at 0…60°C
4-cell rechargeable LiFePO4 battery pack, 3100 mAh minimum 3150 mAh typical 100% usable, charge at −10…50°C
External manual power options included a clamp-on crank generator similar to the original built-in one (see photo in the Gallery, below), but they generated 1/4 the power initially hoped, and less than a thousand were produced. A pull-string generator was also designed by Potenco[37] but never mass produced. HP Pavilion dv3-2306tx Keyboard
External power options include 110–240 Volt AC as well as input from an external solar panel.[38] Solar is the predominant alternate power source for schools using XOs.
[edit] Major builds
Acer Aspire 5740DG Keyboard
XO 1 has major builds indicated by build numbers or less-than-one increments of the version number. The changes made in each build are to be documented in this section. Other versions (OLPC XO-3) are documented in other articles.
The hardware specifications that were different in older versions of the XO-1 are listed below.
XO prototype, displayed in 2005. Power option: built-in hand-crank generator.
XO-1 beta. Released in early 2007. Power option: separate hand-crank generator. HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
XO-1. Released in late 2007. as of November 2007 are:[39] Power option: solar panel.
XO 1.5. Released in early 2010. Via/x86 CPU 4.5 W Fewer physical parts Lower power consumption Power option: solar panel.
XO 1.75. Released in TBD late 2011. Slated to have: 2 Watt ARM CPU Fewer physical parts, 40% lower power consumption. Power option: solar panel.[40]
XO 2. Previously scheduled for release in 2010, canceled in favor of FujitsuLifebook E8110 Keyboard
XO 3. Price target $75. Elegant, lighter, folding dual touch-screen design (See photo in the Gallery section, below). Hardware would have been open-source and sold by various manufacturers. Choice of OS (Windows XP or Linux) outside of the US. $150 price target in the USA includes 2 computers, one donated.[41]
XO 3. Scheduled for release in late 2012. One solid color multi-touch screen design. For details see OLPC XO-3. Power option: solar panel in cover or carrying case.
[edit] Intentionally omitted features Acer PK130AE2000 Keyboard
In keeping with its goals of robustness and low power consumption, the design of the laptop intentionally omits all motor-driven moving parts; it has no hard drive, no optical (CD/DVD) media, no floppy drives and no fans (the device is passively cooled). An ATA interface is unnecessary due to the lack of hard drive. There is also no PC card slot, although an SD slot is available, as well as USB ports.
Acer Aspire 8930G Keyboard
A built-in hand-crank generator was part of the notebook in the original design, however it is now an optional clamp-on peripheral (See a photo in the Gallery, below).[30]
[edit] Power consumption
This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the section; suggestions may be found on the talk page. (October 2009)
Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
XO-1 multi-battery charger
The laptop design specification goals are consumption of about 2 W of power during normal use, far less than the 10 W to 45 W of conventional laptops.[15] With build 656, power consumption is between 5 and 8 watts measured on G1G1 laptop. Future software builds are expected to meet the 2-watt target.
Toshiba Satellite A305-S6833 Keyboard
In e-book mode (XO 1.5), all hardware sub-systems except the monochrome dual-touch display are powered down. When the user moves to a different page, the other systems wake up, render the new page on the display, and then go back to sleep. Power consumption in this e-book mode is estimated to be 0.3 to 0.8 W. The XO 2.0 is planned to consume even less power than earlier versions, less than 1.0 W in full color mode.
Toshiba Satellite M645-S4047 Keyboard
Power options include batteries, solar power panels, and human-powered generators, which make the XO self-powered equipment. 10 batteries at once can be charged from the school building power in the XO multi-battery charger (see photo). The low power consumption combined with these power options are useful in many countries that lack a power infrastructure where students would use it.
HP G56-128CA Keyboard
[edit] Display
The first-generation OLPC laptops have a novel low-cost LCD. Later generations of the OLPC laptop are expected to use low-cost, low-power and high-resolution color displays with an appearance similar to electronic paper.
The display is the most expensive component in most laptops. In April 2005, Negroponte hired Mary Lou Jepsen—who was interviewing to join the Media Arts and Sciences faculty at the MIT Media Lab in September 2008[42]—as OLPC HP Mini 210-2037la Keyboard
Chief Technology Officer. Jepsen developed a new display for the first-generation OLPC laptop, inspired by the design of small LCDs used in portable DVD players, which she estimated would cost about $35. In the OLPC XO-1, the screen is estimated to be the second most expensive component (after the CPU and chipset).[43]
Jepsen has described the removal of the filters that color the RGB subpixels as the critical design innovation in the new LCD. Instead of using subtractive color filters, the display uses a plastic diffraction grating and lenses on the rear of the LCD Toshiba Qosmio F40/86EBL Keyboard
to illuminate each pixel.[dubious – discuss] This grating pattern is stamped using the same technology used to make DVDs. The grating splits the light from the white backlight into a spectrum. The red, green and blue components are diffracted into the correct positions to illuminate the corresponding pixel with R, G or B. This innovation results in a much brighter display for a given amount of backlight illumination: while the HP Pavilion dv6-2117eo Keyboard
color filters in a regular display typically absorb 85% of the light that hits them, this display absorbs little of that light. Most LCD screens use cold cathode fluorescent lamp backlights which are fragile, difficult or impossible to repair, require a high voltage power supply, are relatively power-hungry, and account for 50% of the screens' cost (sometimes 60%). The LED backlight in the XO-1 is easily replaceable, rugged, and inexpensive.[44][45]
HP NSK-CG0SV Keyboard
The remainder of the LCD uses existing display technology and can be made using existing manufacturing equipment. Even the masks can be made using combinations of existing materials and processes.
Comparison of the XO-1 display (left) with a typical liquid crystal display (LCD). The images show 1×1 mm of each screen. A typical LCD addresses groups of 3 locations as pixels. The OLPC XO LCD addresses each location as a separate pixel. Ideapad B470
[edit] Display resolution
When lit primarily from the rear with the white LED backlight, the display shows a color image composed of both RGB and grayscale information.[46] When lit primarily from the front by ambient light, for example from the sun, the display shows a monochromatic (black and white) image composed of just the grayscale information. Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
"Mode" change occurs by varying the relative amounts backlight and ambient light. With more backlight, a higher chrominance is available and a color image display is seen. As ambient light levels, such as sunlight, exceed the backlight, a grayscale display is seen; this can be useful when reading e-books for an extended time in bright light such as sunlight. The backlight brightness can also be adjusted to vary the level of color seen in the display and to conserve battery power.
04W0872
In color mode (when lit primarily from the rear), the display does not use the common RGB pixel geometry for liquid crystal computer displays, in which each pixel contains three tall thin rectangles of the primary colors. Instead, the XO-1 display provides one color for each pixel. The colors align along diagonals that run from upper-right to lower left (see diagram on the right). To reduce the color artifacts caused by this pixel geometry, Acer Aspire 4320 Keyboard
the color component of the image is blurred by the display controller as the image is sent to the screen. Despite the color blurring, the display still has high resolution for its physical size; normal displays as of February 2007 put about 588(H)×441(V) to 882(H)×662(V) pixels in this amount of physical area[citation needed] and support subpixel rendering for slightly higher perceived resolution. A Philips Research study measured the XO-1 HP Mini 210-1023SS Keyboard
display's perceived color resolution as effectively 984(H)×738(V).[47][48][49] A conventional liquid crystal display with the same number of green pixels (green carries most brightness or luminance information for human eyes) as the OLPC XO-1 would be 693×520.[citation needed] Unlike a standard RGB LCD, resolution of the XO-1 display varies with angle. Resolution is greatest from upper-right to lower left, and lowest from upper-left to lower-right. Images which approach or exceed this resolution will lose detail and gain color artifacts. The display gains resolution when in bright light; this comes at the expense of color (as the backlight is overpowered) and color resolution can never reach the full 200 dpi sharpness of grayscale mode because of the blur which is applied to images in color mode. ThinkPad T410s-2912
[edit] Wireless mesh networking
This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help improve the article by updating it. There may be additional information on the talk page. (October 2009)
XO-1 Internet access through wireless mesh networking Asus A6R Keyboard
An "active antenna" for extending network reach
IEEE 802.11b support will be provided using a Wi-Fi “Extended Range” chip set. Jepsen has said the wireless chip set will be run at a low bit rate, 2 Mbit/s maximum rather than the usual higher speed 5.5 Mbit/s or 11 Mbit/s to minimize power consumption. The conventional IEEE 802.11b system only handles traffic within a local cloud of wireless devices in a manner similar to an Ethernet network. Each node transmits and receives its own data, but does not route packets between two nodes that cannot communicate directly. The OLPC laptop will use IEEE 802.11s to form the wireless mesh network. HP G42-355TX Keyboard
Whenever the laptop is powered on it can participate in a mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) with each node operating in a peer-to-peer fashion with other laptops it can hear, forwarding packets across the cloud[when?]. If a computer in the cloud has access to the Internet—either directly or indirectly—then all computers in the cloud are able to share that access. The data rate across this network will not be high; however, similar networks, HP Pavilion dv6-2120ej Keyboard
such as the store and forward Motoman project[50] have supported email services to 1000 schoolchildren in Cambodia, according to Negroponte. The data rate should be sufficient for asynchronous network applications (such as email) to communicate outside the cloud; interactive uses, such as web browsing, or high-bandwidth applications, such as video streaming should be possible inside the cloud. The IP assignment for the meshed network is intended to be automatically configured, so no server administrator or an administration of IP addresses is needed.
Building a MANET is still untested under the OLPC's current configuration and hardware environment. Although one goal of the laptop is that all of its software be open source, the source code for this routing protocol is currently closed source. Sony VGN-FE41E Keyboard
While there are open-source alternatives such as OLSR or B.A.T.M.A.N., none of these options is yet available running at the data-link layer (Layer 2) on the Wi-Fi subsystem's co-processor; this is critical to OLPC's power efficiency scheme. Whether Marvell Technology Group, the producer of the wireless chip set and owner of the current meshing protocol software, will make the firmware open source is still an unanswered question. As of 2011, it has not done so.
[edit] Shell
Sony VAIO VGN-NW100 Keyboard
Yves Behar is the chief designer of the present XO shell. The shell of the laptop is resistant to dirt and moisture, and is constructed with 2 mm thick plastic (50% thicker than typical laptops). It contains a pivoting, reversible display, movable rubber WiFi antennas, and a sealed rubber-membrane keyboard.
[edit] Keyboard and touchpad
Close-up of the OLPC keyboard Sony VAIO VGN-SR130N Keyboard
More than twenty different keyboards have been laid out, to suit local needs to match the standard keyboard for the country in which a laptop is intended. Around half of these have been manufactured for prototype machines.[36][51] There are parts of the world which do not have a standard keyboard representing their language. As Negroponte states this is “because there's no real commercial interest in making a keyboard”.[52] One example of where the OLPC has bridged this gap is in creating an Amharic keyboard[53] for Ethiopia.
SamsungNP-N102-JA01DX Keyboard
Negroponte has demanded that the keyboard not contain a caps lock key, which frees up keyboard space for new keys such as a future "view source" key.[54]
Beneath the keyboard was a large area that resembled a very wide touchpad that Jepsen referred to as the "mousepad".[citation needed] The capacitive portion of the mousepad was an Alps GlidePoint trackpad,[55][56] which was in the central third of the sensor and could be used with a finger. The full width was a resistive sensor which, though never supported by software, was intended to be used with a stylus. This unusual feature was eliminated in the CL1A hardware revision because it suffered from erratic pointer motion. Alps Electronics provided both the capacitive and resistive components of the mousepad.[55]
HP Pavilion dv6-3203tx Keyboard
[edit] Software
See also: Sugar (GUI)
This section's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help improve the article by updating it. There may be additional information on the talk page. (October 2009)
Toshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
Mock-up of the “neighborhood view” showing children collaborating on various tasks, within the mesh network. By clicking on the icon, communication by Wi-Fi is activated.
Countries are expected to remove and add software to best adapt the laptop to the local laws and educational needs. As supplied by OLPC, all of the software on the laptop will be free and open source.[54] All core software is intended to be localized to the languages of the target countries.[57] The underlying software[58] includes:
A pared-down version of Fedora Linux as the operating system, with students receiving root access (although not normally operating in that mode).[59]
Open Firmware, written in a variant of Forth[60] Toshiba Satellite M645-S4061 Keyboard
A simple custom web browser based upon the Gecko engine used by Mozilla Firefox.
A word processor based on AbiWord.
Email through the web-based Gmail service.[15]
Online chat and VoIP programs.
Python 2.5 is the primary programming language used to develop Sugar "Activities". Several other interpreted programming languages are included, such as JavaScript, Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
Csound, the eToys version of Squeak, and Turtle Art[61]
A music sequencer with digital instruments: Jean Piché's TamTam
Audio and video player software: Totem or Helix.
The laptop will use the Sugar graphical user interface, written in Python, on top of the X Window System and the Matchbox window manager.[60] This interface is not based on the typical desktop metaphor but presents an iconic view of programs and documents and a map-like view of nearby connected users. The current active program is displayed in full-screen mode.[15] Much of the core Sugar interface uses icons, bypassing localization issues. Sugar is also defined as having no folders present in the UI. 45N2240
Steve Jobs had offered Mac OS X free of charge for use in the laptop, but according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders, the designers wanted an operating system that can be tinkered with: “We declined because it’s not open source.”[62] Therefore Linux was chosen. However, after a deal with Microsoft, the laptop will now be offered with Windows XP along with an open source alternative.[63] Compaq Presario R4000 Keyboard
Activity, home, friends and neighborhood software levels
Jim Gettys, responsible for the laptops' system software, has called for a re-education of programmers, saying that many applications use too much memory or even leak memory. “There seems to be a common fallacy among programmers that Sony VAIO VGN-SZ210P Keyboard
using memory is good: on current hardware it is often much faster to recompute values than to have to reference memory to get a precomputed value. A full cache miss can be hundreds of cycles, and hundreds of times the power consumption of an instruction that hits in the first level cache.”[29]
On August 4, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that static copies of selected Wikipedia articles would be included on the laptops. Jimmy Wales, HP Pavilion G6-1215TX Keyboard
chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, said that "OLPC's mission goes hand in hand with our goal of distributing encyclopedic knowledge, free of charge, to every person in the world. Not everybody in the world has access to a broadband connection."[64] Negroponte had earlier suggested he would like to see Wikipedia on the laptop. Wales feels that Wikipedia is one of the "killer apps" for this device.[65]
IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50 2887 Keyboard
Don Hopkins announced that he is creating a free and open source port of the game SimCity to the OLPC with the blessing of Will Wright and Electronic Arts, and demonstrated SimCity running on the OLPC at the Game Developer's Conference in March 2007.[66] The free and open source SimCity plans were confirmed at the same conference by SJ Klein, director of content for the OLPC, who also asked game developers to create “frameworks and scripting environments—tools with which children themselves could create their own content.”[67][68]
Dell Studio 1458 Keyboard
The laptop's security architecture, known as Bitfrost, was publicly introduced in February 2007. No passwords will be required for ordinary use of the machine. Programs are assigned certain bundles of rights at install time which govern their access to resources; users can later add more rights. Optionally, the laptops can be configured to request leases from a central server and to stop functioning when these leases expire; this is designed as a theft-prevention mechanism.
45N2141
The pre-8.20 software versions were criticized for bad wireless connectivity and other minor issues.[69]
[edit] Desktop environments
Xfce is a lightweight alternative GUI to Sugar. Being only 33 MB (using yum) it does not take up much of an XO's storage space — less than GNOME or KDE. According to the OLPC Wiki: "Xfce is a lightweight but powerful desktop environment that Sony VAIO VGN-NW21JF/S Keyboard
will work well on the XO"[70] Information on installation is available at: OLPC Wiki: Xfce.The XO is also now available dual boot and can run a version of MS Windows.
The Apple Keyboard is a keyboard designed by Apple first for the Apple line, then the Macintosh line of computers. Dozens of models have been released over time, including the Apple Extended Keyboard.
Acer 90.4CD07.S1D Keyboard
There are currently three models of keyboards offered by Apple, a full-sized version using USB, a smaller USB keyboard without the numeric keypad, and the Apple Wireless Keyboard, which is similar to the smaller USB model but connects via Bluetooth. All three share a similar look and feel, based on a very thin aluminum chassis and laptop-style low-profile keys. All three sit much closer to the surface than traditional keyboard designs.
Contents IBM Lenovo ThinkPad R50e 2670 Keyboard
[hide] 1 Layout
2 History 2.1 Current keyboards
3 Compatibility
4 Models 4.1 Built-in keyboards
4.2 Apple Numeric Keypad IIe (A2M2003)
4.3 Lisa Keyboard (A6MB101)
4.4 Macintosh Keyboard (M0110)
4.5 Macintosh Numeric Keypad (M0120)
4.6 Macintosh Plus Keyboard (M0110A)
4.7 Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard (A9M0330) Acer V104730BS1 Keyboard
4.8 Apple Keyboard (M0116)
4.9 Apple Extended Keyboard (M0115)
4.10 Apple Keyboard II (M0487)
4.11 Apple Extended Keyboard II
4.12 Apple Adjustable Keyboard (M1242)
4.13 Newton Keyboard (X0044)
4.14 AppleDesign Keyboard (M2980) Acer KB.I170A.083 Keyboard
4.15 Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh Keyboard (M3459)
4.16 Apple USB Keyboard (M2452)
4.17 Apple Pro Keyboard (M7803)
4.18 Apple Keyboard (109 keys)
4.19 Apple Wireless Keyboard
5 See also Sony VAIO VGN-CS13M/Q Keyboard
6 References
7 External links
[edit] Layout
An old version Command key, bearing the Apple logo
An older version Option key HP Pavilion G6-1122TU Keyboard
The modifier keys
To serve the functionality of the Mac OS (and because of historical differences), the Apple Keyboard's layout differs somewhat from that of the more ubiquitous IBM PC keyboard, mainly in its modifier and special keys. Features different from other keyboards include:
The Command key (⌘), used in most Mac keyboard shortcuts. The key functions as a Meta key in Unix-like environments, and is semantically equivalent to the Windows key in Windows environments, although in common applications it performs the same HP Pavilion DV9000 Keyboard
function as the Windows Control key. Compared to their equivalents of the standard IBM PC keyboard layout the Command key and the Option key are located in reverse order. The "open" (hollow) & separate "closed" (solid) Apple logo keys on the Apple II series, served functions similar to that of the Command key. The open-Apple key was combined with the Command key on Apple Desktop Bus keyboards (which were used on both the Apple IIgs and several years of Macintosh models) where it remained after the Apple II line was discontinued.
Toshiba Satellite M645-SP6001L Keyboard
The Option key (⌥), for entering diacritics and other special characters. Like the Shift and Control keys, the Option key serves as a modifier for the Command key shortcuts, as well as being used to type many special characters. It serves the function of the solid-Apple key in Apple II applications. It functions as the Alt key in Unix and Windows environments. Compared to their equivalents of the standard IBM PC keyboard layout the Command key and the Option key are located in reverse order. IBM 42T4026 Keyboard
Full-sized desktop keyboards with a dedicated numpad have function keys that can range up to F15, F16, or F19.[1] F17-F19 keys were introduced with the aluminium USB keyboard.[2] Compact keyboards such as the bluetooth wireless aluminium keyboard and the built-in keyboards on all Intel-based Macintosh notebooks range from F1-F12 only, just like IBM PC keyboards.
A Clear key, instead of a Num Lock key, on models with full numeric keypads, as these are dedicated to numeric input and not generally used for cursor control. Sony VAIO VGN-FS670FG Keyboard
An "equals" key (=) added to the numeric keypad.
A Help key, instead of an Insert key, or on the most recent aluminum keyboards, a fn key, which toggles the function of the function keys between their default functions and special functions (volume control, exposé, etc.). Acer Aspire 7745 Keyboard
Notebook computers typically include additional assignments shared with function keys – reduce and increase brightness, volume up, volume down, mute, and eject (⏏). Apple, since the release of the Pro Keyboard, provides these last four keys on desktop keyboards above the numeric keypad where status indicator lights are on many IBM PC keyboards. On the newest aluminium keyboard, these functions are accessed with the function keys, just like on the Apple laptops. Toshiba Mini NB 255-N245 Keyboard
On Apple Desktop Bus keyboards, a power key (◁), used to turn on computers that supported it (and to type the Mac three-finger salute). On keyboards with function keys, it was placed either on the left or right edge of the same keyboard row as the function keys; on keyboards without function keys it was placed in a central location above the other keys. The power key was replaced with a more conventional power button on IBM Thinkpad T60 Keyboard IBM Thinkpad T60 Keyboard
early USB keyboards, thanks to a proprietary pin wired to the Macintosh's power supply in Apple's early USB implementations, subsequently eliminated on the Pro Keyboard along with the special power supply pin. Most of its functions were transferred to the eject (⏏) key in such later keyboards (holding down the control key simultaneously to make the eject key act like the power key).
[edit] History
Asus X53S Keyboard
Six keys from a 2003 PowerBook G4 keyboard.
The Macintosh keyboards are somewhat reminiscent of the keyboards used for the Apple II.
Apple's very first offering, the Apple I, was initially sold as a naked PCB without a keyboard (or a case), although some resellers and users fitted their own cases with built-in keyboards and Apple cooperated with at least one such reseller. HP Pavilion G7-1033CL Keyboard
Starting in 1977, the first real Apple keyboards were built into the cases of the Apple II series and the later Apple III series systems. These first keyboards had chocolate brown keycaps with white legends. The Apple II and Apple II+ keyboard had 52 keys, the Apple III keyboard, which included a numeric pad and some other additional keys, had 74. In 1983, the new Apple IIe and Apple III+ models introduced a beige keyboard with smaller black legends. In the same year, Apple introduced its first separate keyboard with the Lisa; Asus F3E Keyboard
it incorporated a numeric keypad and lighter taupe-colored keycaps. It connected via a unique TRS port. The Macintosh updated the look somewhat and separated the (optional) numerical keypad from the alphanumeric unit, all of which connected by telephone-style modular cables. By 1986, the Macintosh Plus re-integrated the numerical keypad and became the standard for all successive keyboards. However, it also marked Sony VAIO PCG-FRV37 Keyboard
the last of the beige Apple-II-era designs which were usurped by the newer Snow White design language.
From the end of 1986 until mid-1998, all new Apple keyboards were "Platinum" gray and connected via the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB). The Apple IIe and IIc line continued with integrated keyboards, as did the PowerBook portable line of course, Dell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
those of the latter being a darker gray color called "Smoke". During the 90s, Apple offered various styles of keyboard, including the large extended keyboards which included the features of their IBM PC AT counterparts.
The release of the first iMac in October 1998 introduced a matching compact, translucent-plastic keyboard based on laptop technology and marked the transition from ADB to USB. In July 2000, it was replaced with the full-sized Pro Keyboard, having slightly HP Pavilion dv6-3134ee Keyboard
translucent black keys and a clear case. The PowerBook and iBook integrated keyboards followed suit with translucent keys first in bronze (PowerBook), then in black (PowerBook) and white (iBook). Coinciding with the introduction of the iMac G4 in 2002, Apple started making its keyboards white. On the Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard, Apple removed the adjustable feet from the back of the keyboard, giving it a solid base. This design was later quietly Acer Aspire One A110-BGb Keyboard
introduced on the wired version. The Aluminum PowerBooks added another color, opaque aluminum with sometimes-backlit translucent legends, to the array of keyboard styles in use.
[edit] Current keyboards
On August 7, 2007 Apple introduced their latest keyboards as of October 2008. The new model is much thinner than its predecessors, requiring less wrist flexing and a slightly lower hand position for most users. Taking a cue from the portables, it has an aluminum enclosure, and the USB ports have been, once again, relocated to the right and left ends Toshiba Satellite L350 Keyboard
of the keyboard case. Software function and hardware control keys have a new arrangement, and there are keys associated with specific features of Mac OS X, such as Dashboard. In order to properly use these new features, a computer must be updated as of the initial ship date of the keyboards, usually with the built-in Software Update.[3]
On March 3, 2009 Apple introduced an additional keyboard to their latest line of keyboards. The new keyboard is similar to the wireless keyboard due to the absence of the numeric keypad, however it is a wired keyboard with 2 USB 2.0 ports similar to the Sony VAIO VGN-FS550 Keyboard
standard keyboard. Until this time the typical keyboard with the numeric keypad was titled "Apple Keyboard", now the more-compact keyboard carries the name "Apple Keyboard" and the standard keyboard with numeric keys is titled "Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad".[4]
[edit] Compatibility
Sony VAIO PCG-792L Keyboard
ADB connector
Apple's oldest keyboards utilizing the phone-style modular connectors are not compatible with any other systems. However a few open-source projects have since developed adapters which allow them to be used on newer equipment and vice-versa.
Apple's older ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) keyboards are compatible with other ADB-based systems, such as those from Sun, Next, HP, and Sony (and vice-versa for their non-Apple ADB keyboards). When using a USB adapter (such as the Griffin iMate), Acer Aspire One D250-1151 Keyboard
they function similarly to Apple's later USB keyboards, although there can be problems using such setups with later versions of Mac OS X. Although external ADB ports ceased to be used after the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White), Apple still used ADB as the internal protocol for their laptop keyboards and trackpads until the last-generation PowerBooks and iBooks; for this reason, ADB drivers can still be found in Mac OS X 10.5 but not Mac OS X 10.6. Even with these operating systems, it is possible to use ADB devices with a USB adapter.
Sony VAIO VGN-CS140F/W Keyboard
Apple's USB keyboards are mostly compatible with Windows computers, and can be remapped (for example in order to regain the functionality of PrintScreen or to swap the ⌘ Cmd and Alt key, using some freeware software[5][6][7]); the Command key works as the Windows key, the ⌥ Option key as the Alt key, the Help key as the Insert key, and the Clear key as the Num Lock key. On the slightly older all-white models, the volume keys function as they would on a Macintosh, and the eject key has no function. With the new mode Dell 01R28D Keyboard
ls released in August 2007 the volume, brightness, Exposé, dashboard, eject and media controls no longer work without installing Apple's Boot Camp software. This software allows for the volume, brightness, eject and media controls buttons to work properly, though the Exposé and dashboard buttons still do nothing because Windows lacks this functionality.
The additional function keys placed where the Print Screen/SysRq, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break keys are on most IBM PC keyboards (F13/F14 through F15/F16) do not work as those keys in Windows without a special driver. Apple has since released a driver, though it is only available bundled with Boot Camp. Acer NSK-AL01D Keyboard
The USB keyboard is also combined with a two-port USB hub, with the hub being USB 1.1 on older keyboards and USB 2.0 on the August 2007 model.
[edit] Models
Sony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W Keyboard
[edit] Built-in keyboards
Apple IIe built-in keyboard Apple II/II Plus Introduced in 1977 the Apple II and II Plus came without a numeric keypad. There was also a black keyboard manufactured for a Bell & Howell edition. Sony VAIO VGN-FW160AE Keyboard
Apple III/III Plus Introduced in 1980 the Apple III and III Plus introduced a numeric keypad and special command keys.
Apple IIe/IIe Platinum The Apple IIe series, introduced in 1983 once again eliminated the integrated numeric keypad, but offered an external one. However it did finally offer a "delete" key. In 1987 with the introduction of the Platinum IIe, the keypad was re-integrated and the keyboard was updated to conform to the newly Sony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
released Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard.
Apple IIc/IIc Plus Introduced in 1984 the Apple IIc was the first portable keyboard and lacked a keypad. In 1988 the keyboard changed color from beige to Platinum and was revised to match the layout of the Apple Desktop Bus keyboard, though still without provision for a keypad.
Macintosh Portable Apple's first truly portable computer, the Macintosh Portable released in 1989 had a full-sized Apple Keyboard with optional built-in Toshiba MP-03433US-930 Keyboard
numeric keypad or trackball mouse.
PowerBook From 1991 to 2005 all of Apple's portable PowerBook computers have included a smaller keyboard ranging in color from dark gray, to black, translucent bronze & charcoal and finally an aluminum finish with backlighting. Along the way, they have also included special function keys and embedded keypads.
eMate The dark green translucent keyboard of the e HP Pavilion G7 Series Keyboard
Mate introduced in 1997 was essentially an Apple Newton keyboard.
iBook In 1999 The iBook series introduced the first ever white keyboards. Debuting in a transparent finish, the later models were opaque.
MacBook/MacBook Pro/MacBook Air In 2006 Apple introduced the MacBook series of computers. The MacBook Pro keyboard continued the Toshiba MP-03433US-930 Keyboard
aluminum treatment of the PowerBook line, while the MacBook remained white like the iBook before it and introduced a black model as well. The MacBook Air also used black keys. The introduction of Unibody MacBooks saw a unification across all of Apple's keyboards to use black keys, the sole white keys remaining on the (now discontinued) white MacBook.
HP G56-100SA Keyboard
[edit] Apple Numeric Keypad IIe (A2M2003)
Apple Numeric Keypad IIe
The Numeric Keypad IIe was Apple's first external keypad. Released as an option specifically for the popular Apple IIe computer in 1983, it helped correct some of the II series' shortcomings. Later the Platinum IIe would incorporate the numeric keypad into its built-in keyboard.
HP G56-150SS Keyboard
[edit] Lisa Keyboard (A6MB101)
The first keyboard not to be integrated into the CPU case like the Apple II & III series before it. Designed for use with the Apple Lisa, HP Pavilion G6-1B59WM Keyboard
it was included with the system introduced in 1983. Like the Apple III before it, it was intended to be a business computer and included an integrated numeric keypad. Like all Apple computers before it, it came in a beige case to match the CPU and connected by a unique TRS connector. In addition it carried over the use of the "open" Apple key from the Apple III as a Command Key (though it was represented by the "close" Apple character) and included a pullout reference guide hidden under the keyboard.
Sony VAIO VGN-FS980 Keyboard
[edit] Macintosh Keyboard (M0110)
Macintosh Keyboard
Introduced and included with the original Macintosh in 1984, it debuted without arrow keys to control the cursor nor an integrated numeric keypad. It used a telephone-cord style connector to the case (also used with the Amstrad PCW models of computers). The keyboard pinouts are "crossed" so it isn't possible to use a standard HP 636191-001 Keyboard
telephone cord as replacement. The keyboard also introduced a unique Command Key similar to the "open" Apple Key on the Lisa.
[edit] Macintosh Numeric Keypad (M0120)
Like the Apple IIe before it, the Macintosh provided an optional external keypad which also included arrow keys that daisy chained to the Toshiba Satellite L775-S7355 Keyboard
CPU via the telephone-cord connectors. Though introduced with the Macintosh in January, 1984, Apple did not ship it until September 1984 at a retail price of US$99.
[edit] Macintosh Plus Keyboard (M0110A)
The Macintosh Plus keyboard used a cable that is similar to a telephone wire. Toshiba Satellite L755-S9532RD Keyboard
Introduced and included with the Macintosh Plus in 1986, it was an extended keyboard that had a built-in numeric keypad. In 1987 it was updated to Apple's new Platinum gray color. It continued to use the telephone-cord style connector to the system and was interchangeable with the M0110. Though Apple switched all other keyboards to Apple Desktop Bus connectors by this time, this keyboard was manufactured unchanged for 4 more years until the Plus was discontinued in 1990.
[edit] Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard (A9M0330) Acer Aspire 7738G Keyboard
Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard.
This was the first Apple keyboard to use the new inputconnection method the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB), first released and sold with the Apple IIGS. Designed Sony VAIO VGN-NW140TJ Keyboard to be used with both the Macintosh and Apple product lines it was the first to combine both the Macintosh Command Key and Apple "open" Apple key. Entirely Platinum gray in color
(the Macintosh Plus has darker gray keys called "Smoke"), it was also the first to use Snow White design language that was similar to the Apple IIc. However, it duplicated the extended design established by the Plus. It was also the first to include an external power/reset button and an extra ADB port. Acer Aspire 7736 Keyboard
[edit] Apple Keyboard (M0116)
Apple (Standard) Keyboard
Also known as the Apple Standard Keyboard, it was the first to officially use this name. Apple would later reuse the name for a series of successive keyboards. The Apple Keyboard was a more solid version of the Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard and optionally included with the Macintosh II and SE in 1987. The heftier design solidified visually the power performance embodied by the upgraded Macs. Aside from weight the main difference was the significantly thicker frame width. It was the first keyboard to be sold separately from the system, giving the customer a choice of the basic or advanced keyboards offered by Apple. Compaq PK13HR60500 Keyboard
[edit] Apple Extended Keyboard (M0115)
Main article: Apple Extended Keyboard
Apple's advanced keyboard, the first to be sold optionally, was essentially a redesigned version of the Apple Keyboard, with an enhanced extended keyboard with FKeys and other PC-style keys. It included template guides above the top row of function keys to accommodate shortcut key references which accommodate many software packages. It was the heaviest of all the Macintosh keyboards and set the standard for many typists. It was sold separately from any Apple computer and retailed for US$163. ThinkPad T410s-2904
[edit] Apple Keyboard II (M0487)
Apple Keyboard II
Introduced and sold with the Macintosh Classic and LC in 1990, this keyboard was almost identical to the original ADB Keyboard, but included flip down feet to change the typing angle and a design change that gave the frame and keys a more streamlined appearance. Internally, the M0487 differed from the original M0116, as the M0487 did not use mechanical keyswitches. In 1993, The Macintosh TV was the first Mac introduced in all black. It came with an identical black Keyboard II (using the same model number). This keyboard marked the return of Apple including a standard keyboard together with the CPU. Thinkpad T420i
[edit] Apple Extended Keyboard II
Main article: Apple Extended Keyboard
A minor update to the Apple Extended Keyboard to coincide with the release of the Macintosh IIsi in 1990, it added an adjustable height feature.
(M0312) was manufactured with the classic Alps mechanisms
(M3501) was manufactured with Mitsumi or Alps mechanisms. HP Pavilion DV7-3060us Keyboard
[edit] Apple Adjustable Keyboard (M1242)
Apple Adjustable Keyboard
Main article: Apple Adjustable Keyboard
The Apple Apple Adjustable Keyboard, sold optionally, was Apple's 1993 foray into the ergonomic adjustable keyboard market. Often criticised for its flimsy construction. It came with a separate keypad (not sold separately), the first to do so since the original Macintosh keyboard. IdeaPad S10 20015
[edit] Newton Keyboard (X0044)
In the mid-90's Apple released the Apple Newton sub-mini keyboard to allow quick input by a means other than hand-recognition which required extensive training to become useful. It connected by means of the Newton's serial interface. Many Mac users favoring the portable size were able to use it on a Mac utilizing a third party enabler. In a foreshadowing of the iPhone to come, the Newton also included a virtual keyboard. Gateway MX3702 Keyboard
[edit] AppleDesign Keyboard (M2980)
The black AppleDesign Keyboard Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
This was the first major redesign of the Apple keyboard, featuring more fluid, curving lines to match the look of the new Apple product style. It was an unpopular replacement for the Apple Extended Keyboard II in 1994. Significantly lighter than its predecessors, it had a much softer and quieter key interface that was unpopular with many typists. It also included only one ADB port for mice or other pointing devices, concealed on the underside, with the keyboard's Toshiba Satellite L355D-S7819 Keyboard
cable permanently attached.[8] The Extended II had an ADB port on either side of the keyboard, allowing the keyboard cable or mouse to be attached to the side preferred by the user. This keyboard was also produced in black using the same model number (like the Apple Keyboard II before it), specifically for inclusion with the black Performa 5420 released primarily in Europe.
[edit] Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh Keyboard (M3459)
Sony VAIO VGN-FS315M Keyboard
Bundled with the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh in 1997, this keyboard once again excluded an integrated keypad, though unlike the Adjustable Keyboard none was offered. Based around a PowerBook form factor it also including an optional built-in trackpad and leather palm rests. This was the last ADB Keyboard Apple would produce and not sold separately.
[edit] Apple USB Keyboard (M2452)
Apple USB Keyboard (Bondi blue)
Released and sold with the iMac in 1998 this became the new standard for all Macintosh models for the next two years. It was the first to use translucent plastics, first in Bondi blue, then in a darker gray in the PowerMac line and fruit-colored for each of the five first color variations of the iMac. It had a built-in adjustable stand. It also marked a return to the standard keyboard with integrated keypad with the enhanced cursor keys above the keypad. Also, the keyboard had a power button on the top right side. This keyboard works with Windows except for the power button.
Sony VAIO VGN-AR770 Keyboard
[edit] Apple Pro Keyboard (M7803)
Apple Pro Keyboard black
Originally introduced as the Apple Pro Keyboard in 2000, but three years later it was discontinued. This keyboard reintroduced the additional extended function keys last seen in the Apple Design Keyboard and debuted in a clear case with black keys. Later a white key version was also offered. One major departure from all previous ADB & USB keyboards was the removal of the remote power key. This keyboard contained 108 keys (ANSI).
[edit] Apple Keyboard (109 keys) Compaq Presario CQ62-306AX Keyboard
Southwestern United States
Southwestern United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Regional definitions vary from source to source. New Mexico and Arizona (in dark red) are almost always considered the core, modern-day Southwest. The striped states may or may not be considered to be part of the same region. With the exception of Texas and Oklahoma (offset in blue) -- which are counted as part of the South -- the Southwestern states are also classified as West by the U.S. Census Bureau. California is often excluded from all definitions of the The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The areas in the United States that were originally part of Mexico (white, dark brown). HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
The Southwestern United States (also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest[1]) is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Narrowly defined, the "core" Southwest is centered around the Four Corner states, with parts of the other states making up the beginnings and endings of the Southwest. The five main southwestern states; Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada are also all considered part of the Mountain West, as well as the southwest. The total population of these states is roughly 19 million people. HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
Most of it was a part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in the Spanish Empire, during the Modern Era. California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Kansas were originally all part of Mexico before the Mexican-American War. Portions of some of the areas in the "divided" states, and including western parts of Texas, were those in dispute after the Texas Revolution. Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard
Panoramic view of the southwestern United States.
Geographer Uriah D. W. Meinig defines the core of the Southwest as the portion of New Mexico west of the Llano Estacado and the portion of Arizona east of the Mohave-Sonoran Desert and south of the "canyonlands", and also including the El Paso district of western Texas and the southernmost part of Colorado.[2] He identifies four distinct subregions with this core. He calls the first subregion "Northern New Mexico", and describes it as focused on Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It extends from the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado to south of Socorro and including the Manzano Mountains, with an east-west breadth[3] in the north stretching from the upper Canadian River to the upper San Juan River. The area around Albuquerque is sometimes called Central New Mexico. Sony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W Keyboard
"Central Arizona" is a vast metropolitan area spread across one contiguous sprawling oasis, essentially equivalent to the Phoenix metropolitan area. The city of Phoenix is the largest urban center, and located in the approximate center of the area which includesTempe, Mesa, and many others.[4]
Meinig calls the third subregion "El Paso, Tucson, and the Southern Borderlands".HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard While El Paso and Tucson are distinctly different cities they share a similar and somewhat overlapping hinterland between them. Tucson occupies a large oasis at the western end of the El Paso-Tucson corridor. The region between the two cities is a major transportation trunk with settlements servicing both highway and railway needs. There are also large mining operations, ranches, and agricultural oases. Both El Paso and Tucson have large military installations nearby; Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range north of El Paso, and, near Tucson, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Sony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard About 70 miles (110 km) to the southeast are the research facilities at Fort Huachuca. These military installations form a kind of hinterland around the El Paso-Tucson region, and are served by scientific and residential communities such as Sierra Vista, Las Cruces, and Alamogordo. El Paso's influence extends north into the Mesilla Valley, and southeast along the Rio Grande into
elicate Arch at Arches National Park
The fourth subregion Meinig calls the "Northern Corridor and Navaholands". A major highway and railway trunk connects Albuquerque and Flagstaff. Just north of the transportation trunk are large blocks of Native American land.[6] Sony VAIO VGN-FS810 Keyboard
Four Corners Monument, often considered the heart of the American Southwest
Phoenix, Tucson, and Las Vegas dominate the western most metropolitan areas in the southwest region, while, Albuquerque, Denver, Colorado Springs, and El Paso dominate the eastern most metropolitan areas of the southwest, not including Northern, Central, and Eastern Texas, and Oklahoma, because they are not always considered part of the southwest. Reno and Salt Lake City also dominate the northernmost metropolitan areas of the southwest. Sony VAIO VGN-FS295XP KeyboardThus the basic spatial structure of the Southwest can be seen as focused on the largest metropolitan areas in each state such as Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and El Paso. Also, the Four Corners of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico is often considered to be the center, or heart, of the American Southwest.[7]
Main articles: History of New Mexico, History of Arizona, History of Utah, History of Nevada, History of California, History of Colorado, History of Oklahoma, and History of Texas
The European colonization of the Americans, New Spain, later to become Mexico was dominant until the 19th century. With Manifest Destiny, United States gradually gained control over the west. Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard Pro-Confederate Texas and Pro-Union Utah were important at this point, although California rapidly became the main western power. Utahns moved west into Nevada and Northern California, whereas Texans moved into New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Parts of New Mexico and Arizona were briefly a Confederate territory, then were transformed into a Union territory, then Union state. Arizona's original government and military were similar to those Texas at the time had. Arizona, in the form of the Gadsden Purchase also has connections to the Republic of Sonora. The Southwestern states take up roughly one third of the United States. Sony VAIO VGN-CS16G/W Keyboard
The Cliff Palace dwellings at Mesa Verde
There were a very large population of Native American tribes in the southwestern states, as well as all of America. Some of the larger and more popular tribes of Native Americans in the southwest were the Ute, Navajo, Apache, Comanche, Paiute, Hopi, and the Anasazi. The Ute formally ruled over most of modern day Utah and Colorado, as well as small parts of northern New Mexico. The Navajo had ruled over much of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah at one point as well. Apache tribes had once ruled over many lands in the southwest. 04W0872Such as, most of New Mexico, eastern Arizona, and parts of southwest Texas. The Jicarilla tribe of Apache also ruled well into southern and southeastern Colorado as well. The Comanche ruled many lands in the southwest as well. Their historic range consisted of present day eastern New Mexico, southern and southeastern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, and most all of west and northwest Texas. The Paiute people were another very large Nativer American civilization. Dell PVDG3 KeyboardThey controlled most all of present day Nevada, western Utah, and northern Arizona. Some of the oldest evidence of Native Americans in the southwest are from the Hopi and the Anasazi people. The Hopi controlled most all of what is modern day Arizona at one point. On the other hand, the Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo peoples) controlled much of the southwest as well. Their ancient territory consisted of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, southeastern Utah, and all of southern Colorado. Some of the more known evidence of the ancient pueblo peoples can be found at Chaco National Park in New Mexico, and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Compaq Presario CQ50-115NR Keyboard
[edit] Origins of the term and historical/cultural variations
The term "Southwest" originally referred to a "major subregion" of the American South, literally being the western frontier of the larger region. This "Old Southwest" of the 19th century included, at varying points in time, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Louisiana. After its revolution and statehood, Texas became considered part of this designation. However, as territories and eventual states to the west were added after the Mexican War, the geographical "Southwest" expanded and the relationship of these new acquisitions to the South itself became "increasingly unclear."[8] HP Pavilion dv5-1225et Keyboard
Texas has long been the focal point of this dichotomy, and is often considered as such to be the "core area" of "the South's Southwest".[8] While the Trans-Pecos area is generally acknowledged to be part of the "desert Southwest"[9] most of Texas and large parts of Oklahoma are often placed into a sub-region of the South, which some consider Southwestern in the general framework of the original application, meaning the "Western South." 04W0872 This is an area containing the basic elements of Southern history, culture, politics, religion, and linguistic and settlement patterns, yet blended with traits of the frontier West. While this particular Southwest is notably different in many ways from the classic "Old South" or Southeast, these features are strong enough to give it a separate Southwestern identity quite different in nature from that of the Interior Southwestern states to the west. Acer Aspire 5710Z Keyboard
One of these distinguishing characteristics in Texas—in addition to being a Confederate state during the Civil War—is that Native and Spanish American culture never played a central role in the development of this area in relative comparrison to the others, as the vast majority of settlers were anglo and blacks from the South.[10] Although the present day state of Oklahoma was Indian Territory until the early 20th Century, many of these Native-Americans were from the southeastern United States and became culturally assimilated early on. Dell UW739 Keyboard
The majority of members of these tribes also allied themselves with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Combined with that once the territory was open for settlement, it was southeastern pioneers which made up a disporportionate number of these newcomers, all lent to the new state having a different character than other parts of the Southwest which also contained a large Indian population.[10]
The fact that a majority of residents of Texas and Oklahoma—unlike those in the other Southwestern states—self-identify as living in the South and considering themselves Southerners, rather than the West and Westerners, also lends to treating these two states as a somewhat distinct and separate entity in terms of regional classification.[11] Sony VGN-FE880E/H Keyboard
The High Plains in Eastern New Mexico, but also located in Eastern Colorado and West Texas.
Vegetation of the Southwest generally includes various types of yucca, along with saguaro cactus, barrel cactus, prickly pear cactus, desert spoon, creosote bush, sagebrush, and greasewood. Although, cacti is thought to only grow in Arizona and New Mexico, many native cacti is grown all throughout Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and West Texas as well. Also, small cacti does grow in Utah and Colorado. These examples (except the saguaro), can be seen growing natively and in large numbers more east throughout the Texas Hill Country and South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. Toshiba NSK-T4N01 KeyboardHowever, none of the vegetation discussed grows natively the further east than the eastern outskirts of Fort Worth. Dallas and Houston, for example, share a smiliar terrain with states further east and are often considered to be more of the American South. In the far eastern parts of the southwest, prairies and grasslands are found all over. These prairies and grasslands are usually located in Eastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, and large areas in West Texas. Steppe is also located all over the high plains areas in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. The mountains of the southwestern states have large alpine trees. Toshiba Satellite L750D-ST5NX1 Keyboard
Landscape features of the core Southwestern areas usually include mountains, mesas, high broad basins, plateaus, desert lands, and some plains. The High Plains region of the Great Plains are also located in the American Southwest. Eastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, and West Texas all have high plains, and rolling land. The entire Southwestern region features semi-arid to arid terrain. The far eastern part of the Southwest in Texas, for example the Texas Hill Country, consists of dry, tall and rugged rocky hills of limestone and granite. Toshiba Tecra M10-ST9110 KeyboardSouth Texas and the Rio Grande Valley is mostly flat with many places consisting of scrub and bare topsoil, much like the deserts further west. Buttes are also located all over the southwestern states. Utah tends to have the most natural buttes, but they do form as far east as some parts of Central Texas.
Desert bighorn sheep
There is a wide variety of wildlife in the Southwestern United States. Bighorn sheep, bobcat, coyote, bear, jackrabbit, cottontail rabbit, mule deer, white-tailed deer, gray fox, mountain lion, river otter, porcupine, pronghorn, raccoon, armadillo, Mexican wolf, and gray wolf can be found in all states across the southwest. HP Pavilion G6-1122TU Keyboard American bison and prairie dogs can be found in the southwest states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Elk in the southwest are usually only found in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. White-nosed coati and collared peccary in the southwest are normally found in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Snakes are also found all over the southwestern United States. Rattlesnakes are found throughout the southwest. Coral snakes can be found in Arizona and New Mexico.
Sonoran Desert terrain near Tucson 04W0872
The Southwestern United States features a semi-arid to arid climate, depending on the location. Much of the southwest is an arid desert climate, but higher elevations in the mountains in each state, with the exception of West Texas, feature alpine climates with very large amounts of snow. The metropolitan areas of Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and El Paso hardly ever receive any snow at all, as they are strictly desert lands with mountains. However, the metro areas of Reno, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Colorado Springs can receive significant snowfalls. Compaq Presario CQ57-404TU KeyboardAlbuquerque falls at an in between, receiving less snow than other cities, but still receive significant snowfalls in the winter time. Although it snows in this region, the snow in this part of the United States melts rapidly, often before nightfall. This is due mainly to the higher altitude and abundant sunshine in these states.
Nevada and Arizona are both generally arid with desert lands and mountains, and receive large amounts of snow in the higher elevations in and near the mountains. New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado are generally arid, with desert lands and mountains as well. Toshiba Satellite L775-S7307 KeyboardColorado and New Mexico do have high plains in the far eastern portions of their state. They all receive decent amounts of snow, and large amounts of snow in the high elevations in the mountains. Although some areas in far southwestern and southern New Mexico do not receive much snow at all. West Texas is generally arid as well, but does not receive the same amount of snow that the other southwestern states receive at their high elevations. The terrain of the West Texas region in the southwest is flat rolling land of the plains, which eventually turns into a desert with some hills, and there are HP Pavilion DV7-3067nr Keyboard
The term "High Desert" is also synonymous with this region. The High Desert is generally defined as the Mojave Desert (which extends into southern Nevada), and the Great Basin Desert. The Great Basin Desert is defined as the desert lands in Nevada, Western Utah, as well as Southeastern Oregon and Southern Idaho. The High Desert also extends into other parts of the Northwest, such as the Red Desert is Southwestern Wyoming. The High Desert is much different than the general desert lands found in Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert. Sony VAIO VGN-FZ490 KeyboardThis area of the desert land generally sits at a very high elevation, much higher than the normal desert land, and can receive very cold temperatures at night in the winter (with the exception of California and southern Nevada), sometimes near zero degrees on very cold nights. The High Desert also receives a decent amount of snowfall in the winter (with the exception of California and southern Nevada), but melts very quickly.
Monument Canyon, some of the high desert lands found in Colorado Toshiba Satellite L40-17U Keyboard
Other areas of the southwest may also be referred to as the "High Desert", such as the Colorado Plateau. The desert lands found in Eastern Utah, Northern Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico are usually referred to as the high desert. Eastern Utah has a huge mass of desert land, which sits at a high elevation, and is sometimes referred to as the "High Desert" as well. Colorado has scattered desert lands found in southern, southwestern, western, and the northwestern parts of the state. Toshiba Satellite M645-S4047 Keyboard
These scattered desert lands are located in and around areas such as, the Roan Plateau, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado National Monument, Royal Gorge, Cortez, Dove Creek, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Four Corners Monument, Montrose, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Pueblo, San Luis Valley, and the Great Sand Dunes. Besides the Chihuahuan Desert lands in southwestern and southern New Mexico, they also have scattered desert lands in the northwestern and northern portions of their state which is referred to as the high desert.
The Great Sand Dunes Toshiba Satellite M645 Keyboard
The Southwestern United States have many national monuments and parks located in the region. Some of the more famous monuments and parks in the southwest are the Grand Canyon National Park, Navajo National Monument, Four Corners Monument, Colorado National Monument, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Arches National Park, Red Rock Canyon, Big Bend National Park, and the White Sands National Monument. Toshiba Satellite M645-SP4010M Keyboard
In Utah there are also many other monuments and parks such as, Nine Mile Canyon, Mexican Hat, Bryce Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Zion National Park, Arches National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument (also in Colorado), Monument Valley (also in Arizona), Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, and the Timpanogos Cave National Monument. HP Pavilion dv5-1235dx Keyboard
In Arizona there is the Agua Fria National Monument, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Chiricahua National Monument, Ironwood Forest National Monument, Montezuma Castle National Monument, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Petrified Forest National Park, Pipe Spring National Monument, Saguaro National Park, Sonoran Desert National Monument, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Tonto National Monument, Tumacacori National Historical Park, Tuzigoot National Monument, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Walnut Canyon National Monument, and the Wupatki National Monument. HP Pavilion dm1-1020er Keyboard
In Colorado there is the Arapaho National Recreation Area, Mesa Verde National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Dinosaur National Monument (small parts also in Utah), Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Rocky Mountain National Park, Royal Gorge, Grand Mesa, Garden of the Gods, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Glenwood Canyon, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Yucca House National Monument, and Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site.
In New Mexico there is also the Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Capulin Volcano National Monument, Compaq Presario CQ50-139WM Keyboard
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, El Malpais National Monument, El Morro National Monument, Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Pecos National Historical Park, Petroglyph National Monument, and the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
In the West Texas part of the southwest, there is the Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, Fort Davis National Historic Site, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, and the Amistad National Recreation Area. Toshiba Satellite L775-S7307 Keyboard
In Nevada there is the Great Basin National Park, Death Valley National Park, and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Denver, the second largest metropolitan area in the Southwest
Salt Lake City, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Southwest
The Southwest is ethnically varied, Toshiba Satellite U305-S7432 Keyboard
with significant Anglo American and Hispanic American populations in addition to more regional African American, Asian American, and Native American populations.
Hispanic Americans (mostly Mexican Americans with large populations of Spanish Americans) can be found in large numbers in every major city in the southwest, Toshiba PK130BH2A00 Keyboard
such as Phoenix (43%), Tucson (41%), Las Vegas (32%), Reno (22%), Denver (32%), Colorado Springs (16%), El Paso (80%), Albuquerque (47%), Provo (15.2%) and Salt Lake City (22%). San Antonio (61%), Austin (35%), Fort Worth (34%), Dallas (43%), and Houston (44%) have large Latino populations as well, but are not always considered part of the Southwest, and are often grouped more with the American South.
Very large Hispanic American populations can also be found in the smaller cities such as, Flagstaff (18%), Yuma (55%), Mesa (27%),Toshiba KFRSBA064A Keyboard
Las Cruces (56%), Santa Fe (48%), Farmington (22%), Roswell (51%), Alamogordo (32%), Pueblo (48%), Greeley (35%), Longmont (25%), Brighton (41%), Carson City (20%), Amarillo (27%), Lubbock (31%), Midland (37%), and Odessa (47%). Many small towns throughout the southwestern states also have significantly large Latino populations.
The largest African American populations in the southwest can be found in Denver (10%), Colorado Springs (7%), Las Vegas (10%), and Phoenix (5%). The Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston areas both have very large African American populations, although those parts of Texas are not usually considered to be part of the southwestern United States. Sony VAIO VGN NR385E/T Keyboard
The largest Asian American populations in the southwest can be found in Nevada and Utah, with some other significant Asian populations in Denver and Phoenix. The most significant Native Americans populations can be found in New Mexico and Arizona.
[edit] Cities and urban areas
The area also contains many of the nation's largest cities and metropolitan areas, despite relatively low population density in rural areas. Acer Aspire 5810TZ-4274 Keyboard
Phoenix is among the top ten most populous cities in the country, and Reno, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, and Salt Lake City[12] are some of the fastest-growing cities in America. Also, the region as a whole has witnessed some of the highest population growth in the United States; HP Pavilion DV9000 Keyboard
and according to the U.S. Census bureau, in 2008–2009, Utah was the fastest growing state in America. As of the 2010 Census, Nevada was the fastest growing state in the United States, with an increase of 35.1% in the last ten years. Additionally, Arizona (24.6%), Utah (23.8%), Texas (20.6%), and Colorado (16.9%) were all in the top ten fastest growing states as well.[13]
Zion Canyon as seen from the top of Angels Landing at sunset
Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to half a mile (800 m) deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest elevation is 3,666 ft (1,117 m) at Coalpits Wash and the highest elevation is 8,726 ft (2,660 m) at Horse Ranch Mountain. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park's unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5067 Keyboard
Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.
Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans; the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Anasazi (300 CE) stem from one of these groups. Sony VGN-FE21M Keyboard
In turn, the Virgin Anasazi culture (500 CE) developed as the Basketmakers settled in permanent communities.[3] A different group, the Parowan Fremont, lived in the area as well. Both groups moved away by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes. Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. In 1909, U.S. President William Howard Taft named the area a National Monument to protect the canyon, under the name of Mukuntuweap National Monument. SamsungN140 Keyboard
In 1918, however, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service changed the park's name to Zion. According to historian Hal Rothman, "The name change played to a prevalent bias of the time. Many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it. The new name, Zion, had greater appeal to an ethnocentric audience." [4] The United States Congress established the monument as a National Park on November 19, 1919. Sony 81-31205001-03 Keyboard
The Kolob section was proclaimed a separate Zion National Monument in 1937, but was incorporated into the park in 1956.
The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes 9 formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that time warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts, and dry near-shore environments covered the area. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateaus lifted the region 10,000 feet (3,000 m) starting 13 million years ago.[5] Acer 9Z.N3K82.01D Keyboard
Zion Canyon near the park entrance
The park is located in southwestern Utah in Washington, Iron, and Kane counties. Geomorphically, it is located on the Markagunt and Kolob plateaus, at the intersection of three North American geographic provinces: the Colorado Plateaus, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. The northern part of the park is known as the Kolob Canyons section and is accessible from Interstate 15, exit 40.[6] Dell Latitude E6410 Keyboard
The 8,726-foot (2,660 m) summit of Horse Ranch Mountain (photo) is the highest point in the park; the lowest point is the 3,666-foot (1,117 m) elevation of Coal Pits Wash, creating a relief of about 5,100 feet (1,600 m).[7]
Streams in the area take rectangular paths because they follow jointing planes in the rocks.[8] The stream gradient of the Virgin River, whose North Fork flows through Zion Canyon in the park, ranges from 50 to 80 feet (15 to 24 m) per mile (0.9–1.5%)—one of the steepest stream gradients
View from the end of the Riverside Trail HP Probook 4325s Keyboard
The road into Zion Canyon is 6 miles (9.7 km) long, ending at the Temple of Sinawava ("Sinawava" refers to the Coyote God of the Paiute Indians).[10] At the Temple the canyon narrows and a foot-trail continues to the mouth of the Zion Narrows, a gorge as narrow as 20 feet (6 m) wide and up to 2,000 feet (610 m) tall.[11] The Zion Canyon road is served by a free shuttle bus from early April to late October and by private vehicles the other months of the year. Other roads in Zion are open to private vehicles year-round. Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912A Keyboard
The east side of the park is served by the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway, which passes through the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel and ends at Mount Carmel Junction, Utah. On the east side of the park notable
The Kolob Terrace area west of Zion Canyon features The Subway, a slot canyon hike, and Lava Point, with a panoramic view of the entire area. The Kolob Canyons section, further west near Cedar City, features one of the world's longest arches, Kolob Arch.[12] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
Spring weather is unpredictable, with stormy, wet days being common, mixed with occasional warm, sunny weather. Precipitation is heaviest in March.[13] Spring wildflowers bloom from April through June, peaking in May. Fall days are usually clear and mild; nights are often cool. Summer days are hot (95 °F to 110 °F; 35 °C to 43 °C), but overnight lows are usually comfortable (65 °F to 70 °F; 18 °C to 21 °C).[13] Afternoon thunderstorms are common from mid-July through mid-September.[13] Storms may produce waterfalls as well as flash floods. Acer TravelMate 292ELMi Keyboard
Autumn tree-color displays begin in September in the high country; inside Zion Canyon, autumn colors usually peak in late October. Winter in Zion Canyon is fairly mild. Winter storms bring rain or light snow to Zion Canyon and heavier snow to the higher elevations. Clear days may become quite warm, reaching 60 °F (16 °C); nights are often 20 °F (−7 °C) to 40 °F (4 °C) .[13] Winter storms can last several days and make roads icy. Zion roads are plowed, except the Kolob Terrace Road which is closed when covered with snow.[13] Winter driving conditions last from November through March.[13] Acer Aspire 5310 Keyboard
Notable geographical features of the park include: Virgin River Narrows, Emerald Pools (photo), Hidden Canyon (photo), Angels Landing (photo), The Great White Throne, Checkerboard Mesa (photo), The Three Patriarchs (photo) and Kolob Arch.
Archaeologists have divided the long span of Zion's human history into three cultural periods: the Archaic, Protohistoric and Historic periods. Each period is characterized by distinctive technological and social adaptations. Toshiba Satellite L355 Keyboard
The first human presence in the region dates to 8,000 years ago when family groups camped where they could hunt or collect plants and seeds.[14] About 2,000 years ago, some groups began growing corn and other crops, leading to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.[15] Later groups in this period built permanent villages called pueblos. Archaeologists call this the Archaic period and it lasted until about 500 CE.[16] Baskets, cordage nets, and yucca fiber sandals have been found and dated to this period. The Archaic toolkits included flaked stone knives, HP Pavilion G6S Series Keyboard
drills, and stemmed dart points. The dart points were attached to wooden shafts and propelled by throwing devices called atlatls.[16]
By 300 CE some of the archaic groups developed into an early branch of seminomadic Anasazi, the Basketmakers.[16] Basketmaker sites have grass- or stone-lined storage cists and shallow, partially underground dwellings called pithouses. They were hunters and gatherers who supplemented their diet with limited agriculture. Locally collected pine nuts were important for
Kaun huts were used by Southern Paiute HP Mini 210-1068TU Keyboard
Both the Virgin Anasazi and the Parowan Fremont disappear from the archaeological record of southwestern Utah by about 1300.[16] Extended droughts in the 11th and 12th centuries, interspersed with catastrophic flooding, may have made horticulture impossible in this arid region.[16] Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
Tradition and archaeological evidence hold that their replacements were Numic-speaking cousins of the Virgin Anasazi, such as the Southern Paiute and Ute.[16] The newcomers migrated on a seasonal basis up and down valleys in search of wild seeds and game animals.[17] Some, particularly the Southern Paiute, also planted fields of corn, sunflowers, and squash to supplement their diet.[17] These more sedentary groups made brownware vessels that were used for storage and cooking.[16] HP Pavilion dv5-1120en Keyboard
[edit] Exploration and settlement by Euro-Americans
The Historic period begins in the late 18th century[16] with the exploration of southern Utah by Padres Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez. The padres passed near what is now the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center on October 13, 1776, becoming the first people of European descent known to visit the area.[18] In 1825, trapper and trader Jedediah Smith explored some of the downstream areas while under contract with the American Fur Company.[18] Acer TravelMate 2403 Series Keyboard
In 1847, Mormon farmers from the Salt Lake area became the first people of European descent to settle the Virgin River region.[9] In 1851, the Parowan and Cedar City, Utah areas were settled by Mormons who used the Kolob Canyons area for timber, and for grazing cattle, sheep, and horses.[19] They prospected for mineral deposits, and diverted Kolob water to irrigate crops in the valley below. Mormon settlers named the area Kolob—in Mormon scripture, the heavenly place nearest the residence of God.[20] HP Pavilion G6-1215TX Keyboard
A ranch located near the mouth of Zion Canyon.
Settlements had expanded 30 miles (48 km) south to the lower Virgin River by 1858.[9] That year, a Southern Paiute guide led young Mormon missionary and interpreter Nephi Johnson into the upper Virgin River area and Zion Canyon.[18] Johnson wrote a favorable report about the agricultural potential of the upper Virgin River basin, and returned later that year to found the town of Virgin. In 1861 or 1862, Joseph Black made the arduous journey to Zion Canyon and was very impressed by its beauty.[3] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
The floor of Zion Canyon was settled in 1863 by Isaac Behunin, who farmed corn, tobacco, and fruit trees.[3] The Behunin family lived in Zion Canyon near the site of today's Zion Lodge during the summer, and wintered in Springdale. Behunin is credited with naming Zion, a reference to a place of peace mentioned in the Bible.[3] Two more families settled Zion Canyon in the next couple of years, bringing with them cattle and other domesticated animals. The canyon floor was farmed until Zion became a Monument in 1909.[9] 63Y0047
The Powell Geographic Expedition entered the area in 1869 after their first trip through the Grand Canyon.[9] John Wesley Powell visited Zion Canyon in 1872 and named it Mukuntuweap, under the impression that that was the Paiute name.[21] Powell Survey photographers John K. Hillers and James Fennemore first visited the Zion Canyon and Kolob Plateau region in the spring of 1872.[9] Hillers returned in April 1873 to add more photographs to the "Virgin River Series" of photographs and stereographs.[22] Hillers described wading the canyon for four days and nearly
Painting of Zion Canyon by Frederick Dellenbaugh (1903) Sony VAIO VPC-F12 Keyboard
Paintings of the canyon by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh were exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904,[9] followed by a glowing article in Scribner's Magazine the next year. That, along with previously created photographs, paintings, and reports, led to U.S. President William Howard Taft's proclamation on July 31, 1909 that created Mukuntuweap National Monument.[18] In 1917, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service visited the canyon and proposed changing its name to Zion from the locally unpopular Mukuntuweap.[23] Dell 0J483C Keyboard
The United States Congress added more land and established Zion National Park on November 19, 1919.[3] A separate Zion National Monument, the Kolob Canyons area, was proclaimed on January 22, 1937, and was incorporated into the park on July 11, 1956.[24]
Travel to the area before it was a national park was rare due to its remote location, lack of accommodations, and the absence of real roads in southern Utah. Old wagon roads were upgraded to the first automobile roads starting about 1910, and the road into Zion Canyon was built in 1917, to as far as The Grotto.[16] Gateway MX7000 Keyboard
1938 poster of Zion National Park
Touring cars could reach Zion Canyon by the summer of 1917.[16] The first visitor lodging in Zion Canyon, called Wylie Camp, was established that same year as a tent camp.[16] The Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, acquired Wylie Camp in 1923, and offered ten-day rail/bus tours to Zion, nearby Bryce Canyon, Kaibab, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.[25] The Zion Lodge complex was built in 1925 at the site of the Wylie tent camp.[16] Architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed Zion Lodge (photo) in the "Rustic Style" and the Utah Parks Company funded the construction.[16] Sony VAIO VPC-F12 Keyboard
Work on the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway started in 1927 to enable reliable access between Springdale and the east side of the park.[3] The road opened in 1930 and park visitation and travel in the area greatly increased.[26] The most famous feature of the highway is the 1.1-mile (1.8 km) Zion - Mt. Carmel Tunnel, which has six large windows cut through the massive sandstone cliff.[9] Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
In 1896, local rancher John Winder improved the Native American footpath up Echo Canyon, which later became the East Rim Trail.[27] Entrepreneur David Flanigan used this trail in 1900 to build cableworks that lowered lumber into Zion Canyon from Cable Mountain. More than 200,000 board feet (470 m3) of lumber were lowered by 1906.[27] The auto road was extended to the Temple of Sinawava, and a trail built from there 1 mile (2 km) to the start of the Narrows.[28] Angel's Landing Trail was constructed in 1926 and two suspension bridges were built over the Virgin River.[21] Other trails were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s.[21] Toshiba Satellite L40-13C Keyboard
Zion Canyon from the trail to Observation Point
Zion Canyon Scenic Drive provides access to Zion Canyon. Traffic congestion in the narrow canyon was recognized as a major problem in the 1990s and a public transportation system using propane-powered shuttle buses was instituted in the year 2000.[29] As part of its shuttle fleet, Zion has two electric trams each holding up to 36 passengers.[30] From April through October, the scenic drive in Zion Canyon is closed to private vehicles and visitors ride the shuttle buses.[29]
On April 12, 1995, heavy rains tDell PVDG3 Keyboard
riggered a landslide that blocked the Virgin River in Zion Canyon.[31] Over a period of two hours, the river carved away part of the only exit road from the canyon, trapping 450 guests and employees in the Zion Lodge.[31] A one-lane temporary road was constructed within 24 hours to allow evacuation of the Lodge.[31] A more stable—albeit temporary—road was completed on May 25, 1995 to allow summer visitors to access the park.[31] This road was replaced with a permanent road during the first half of 1996.[31] Ideapad G470
The Zion–Mount Carmel Highway can be traveled year-round. Access for over-sized vehicles requires a special permit, and is limited to daytime hours, as traffic through the tunnel must be one way to accommodate large vehicles. The 5-mile (8.0 km)-long Kolob Canyons Road was built to provide access to the Kolob Canyons section of the park.[32] This road often closes in the winter. HP Pavilion dv5-1010el Keyboard
In March 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which designated and further protected 124,406 acres (503.5 km2) of park land as the Zion Wilderness.
Virgin River after a snowstorm
[edit] Geology
Main article: Geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons areaIBM 42T3638 Keyboard
The Three Patriarchs in Zion Canyon are made of Navajo Sandstone.
The nine known exposed geologic formations in Zion National Park are part of a super-sequence of rock units called the Grand Staircase. Together, these formations represent about 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in that part of North America. The formations exposed in the Zion area were deposited as sediment in very different environments: Dell Vostro V3350 Keyboard
The warm, shallow (sometimes advancing or retreating) sea of the Kaibab and Moenkopi formations;
Streams, ponds, and lakes of the Chinle, Moenave, and Kayenta formations;
The vast desert of the Navajo and Temple Cap formations; and
The dry near-shore environment of the Carmel Formation.
The Kolob Canyons are a set of finger canyons cut into the Kolob Plateau. Acer Extensa 5235 Keyboard
Uplift affected the entire region, known as the Colorado Plateaus, by slowly raising these formations more than 10,000 feet (3,000 m) higher than where they were deposited.[33] This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral Virgin and other rivers on the plateau.
The faster-moving streams took advantage of uplift-created joints in the rocks. Eventually, all Cenozoic-aged formations were removed and gorges were cut into the plateaus. Zion Canyon was cut by the North Fork of the Virgin River in this way. During the later part of this process, lava flows and cinder cones covered parts of the area.[34] Acer Aspire 7736ZG Keyboard
High water volume in wet seasons does most of the downcutting in the main canyon. These flood events are responsible for transporting most of the 3 million short tons (2.7 million metric tons) of rock and sediment that the Virgin River transports yearly.[9] The Virgin cuts away its canyon faster than its tributaries can cut away their own streambeds, so tributaries end in waterfalls from hanging valleys where they meet the Virgin.[9] The valley between the peaks of the Twin Brothers is a notable example of a hanging valley in the canyon.
Table of formations exposed in Zion National Park[35] Sony VGN-FE21M Keyboard
Shale, loose clay and conglomerate
Taylor Creek with Horse Ranch Mountain in background. Desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest habitats are all visible.
The Great Basin, Mojave Desert, and Colorado Plateau converge at Zion and the Kolob canyons.[36] This, along with the varied topography of canyon–mesa country, differing soil types, and uneven water availability, provides diverse habitat for the equally diverse mix of plants and animals that live in the area. The park is home to 289 bird, 79 mammals, 28 reptiles, 7 fish, and 6 amphibian species.[37] These organisms make their homes in one or more of four life zones found in the Park: desert, riparian, woodland, and Coniferous forest.[38] Sony VAIO VGN-FS750P Keyboard
Desert conditions persist on canyon bottoms and rocky ledges away from perennial streams. Sagebrush, Prickly pear Cactus, and Rabbitbrush, along with Sacred Datura and Indian Paintbrush, are common.[39] Utah Penstemon and Golden Aster can also be found.[40] Milkvetch and Prince's Plume are found in pockets of selenium-rich soils.[38]
Sacred Datura grows on the canyon floor and blooms at night. Compaq Presario CQ57-310 Keyboard
Common daytime animals include Mule Deer, Rock Squirrels, Pinyon Jays, and Whiptail and Collared lizards (photo). Desert Cottontails,[41] Jackrabbits, and Merriam's Kangaroo Rats come out at night. Cougars, Coyotes, Gray Foxes, and Ring-tail Cats are the top predators.[41]
Cooler conditions persist at mid-elevation slopes, from 3,900 to 5,500 feet (1,200 to 1,700 m).[38] Stunted forests of pinyon pine and Juniper coexist here with manzanita shrubs, cliffrose, serviceberry, Scrub Oak, and yucca.[38] Stands of Ponderosa Pine, Gambel Oak, manzanita and aspen populate the mesas and cliffs above 6,000 feet (1,800 m).[38] Asus A4000 Keyboard
Golden Eagles, Red-tailed Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, and White-throated Swifts can be seen in the area.[42] California Condors and Bighorn Sheep were introduced in the 1990s. Nineteen species of bat also live in the area.[43]
Boxelder, Fremont Cottonwood, maple, and willow dominate riparian plant communities.[38] Animals such as Bank Beavers, Flannel-mouth Suckers, Gnatcatchers, Dippers, Canyon Wrens, the Virgin Spinedace, and Water Striders all make their homes in the riparian zones.[44] Gateway M6805 Keyboard
Zion Canyon
Driving through the east side of Zion to U.S. Route 89 allows access to Bryce Canyon National Park in the north or to the north rim of the Grand Canyon in the south. Due to the narrowness of the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel, RVs and buses must obtain a special pass and can only drive through the tunnel during limited hours.[45]
The more primitive sections of Zion include the Kolob Terrace and the Kolob Canyons. Acer Aspire 4735 Keyboard
The Grotto in Zion Canyon, the Visitor Center, and the viewpoint at the end of Kolob Canyons Road have the only designated picnic sites.[7]
Popular hiking trails include The Narrows, The Subway, Angels Landing, and Kolob Arch.
Seven popular trails with round-trip times of half an hour (Weeping Rock) to 4 hours (Angels Landing) are found in Zion Canyon.[46] Two popular trails, Taylor Creek (4 hours round trip) and Kolob Arch (8 hours round trip), are in the Kolob Canyons section of the park, near Cedar City.[46]
Hiking up into The Narrows (Zion National Park) from the Temple of Sinawava is popular in summer. However, hiking beyond Big Springs requires a permit. Gateway MT6706 Keyboard
The entire Narrows from Chamberlain’s Ranch is a 16 mile one way trip that typically takes 12 hours of strenuous hiking.[47] A shorter alternative is to enter the Narrows via Orderville Canyon. Both Orderville and the full Narrows require a back country permit. Entrance to the Parunuweap Canyon section of the park downstream of Labyrinth Falls is prohibited. Other often-used backcountry trails include the West Rim and LaVerkin Creek.[48]
The final ascent at the Top of the Angels Landing Trail HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
Zion is a center for rock climbing,[49] with short walls like Touchstone, Moonlight Buttress, Spaceshot, and Prodigal Son being very popular.[50]
Lodging in the park is available at Zion Lodge, located halfway through Zion Canyon. Zion Lodge is open year-round and has motel units and cabins, as well as a restaurant, café, and gift shop, but rooms fill up fast. Three campgrounds are available: South and Watchman at the far southern side of the park, and a primitive site at Lava Point in the middle of the park off Kolob Terrace Road.[51] Watchman is the only campground in the park that takes reservations. Sony VAIO VGN-FS750P Keyboard
Lava Point has only primitive facilities and is usually open from June to October.[51] Overnight camping in the backcountry requires permits.[52]
Entrance to the Subway from the bottom
Guided horseback riding trips, nature walks, and evening programs are available from late March to early November.[53] The Junior Ranger Program for ages 6 to 12 is active from Memorial Day to Labor Day at the Zion Nature Center.[54] Toshiba Satellite A55-S1063 Keyboard
Rangers at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center and the smaller Kolob Canyons Visitor Center can help visitors plan their stay. A bookstore attached to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, run by the Zion Natural History Association, offers books, maps, and souvenirs for sale, with proceeds benefiting the park.[55]
Adjacent to the park on the south is the town of Springdale, Utah, which offers services such as lodging, food, and entertainment. HP 640436-001 Keyboard
Zion Canyon IMAX in Springdale offers many interesting documentaries about the natural history of Zion Canyon and the American Southwest. Lodging, food, and entertainment are also offered on the east side of the park along the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway and in Mount Carmel Junction.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service. Sony VGN-FE41E Keyboard
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Geological Survey.
1.^ "Listing of acreage as of December 31, 2011". Land Resource Division, National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-03-08.
2.^ "Five Year Annual Recreation Visits Report". Public Use Statistic Office, National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-03-08. Toshiba Satellite L755-S5242BN Keyboard
3.^ a b c d e f Tufts 1998, p. 45
4.^ Rothman, Hal (1989). Preserving Different Pasts: The American National Monuments. University of Illinois Press. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-252-01548-9.
5.^ Tufts 1998, p. 43Acer KB.I170A.083 Keyboard
6.^ NPS website, How to get here
7.^ a b NPS website, Accessibility
8.^ Harris 1997, p. 33
9.^ a b c d e f g h i j Harris 1997, p. 29
10.^ Alexander, Charles P (January 1948). "Records and Descriptions of North American Crane-Flies (Diptera). Part VII. The Tipuloidea of Utah".Acer Aspire 5739G Keyboard
American Midland Naturalist (The University of Notre Dame) 39 (1): 1–82. doi:10.2307/2421428. JSTOR 2421428.
11.^ NPS website, Zion Narrows (archive)
12.^ NPS website, Freestanding Arches
13.^ a b c d e f NPS website, Weather and Climate
14.^ NPS website, History and CultureDell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
15.^ NPS website, Archeology (archive)
16.^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m NPS website, People
17.^ a b NPS website, Human History (archive)
18.^ a b c d Kiver 1999, p. 457
19.^ Arrington, Leonard J.. "Colonization of Utah". Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City, Utah: State of Utah. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
20.^ NPS contributors (Summer 2008). "Zion Map aToshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
nd Guide" (PDF). Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
21.^ a b c Powell, Allen Kent (1996). "Zion National Park". Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press. Retrieved on January 1, 2009.
22.^ a b USGS contributors. Stoffer, Phil. ed. Virgin River Canyons: HP Pavilion DV7-4061 Keyboard
Historic 3D Photographs of Powell Survey in the Zion National Park Area. Washington, D.C.: United States Geological Survey. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008. Retrieved January 18, 2009. (public domain text)
23.^ Albright, Horace M.; Schenck, Marian Albright; Utley, Robert M. (1999). "18 - Exploring a New World of Parks, 1917" (PDF). Dell 0PVDG3 Keyboard
Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Publishing. p. 243. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
24.^ "Appendix C" (pdf). Leave No Trace Principles. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service.
25.^ (PDF) Cape Royal Road. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. after 1968. p. 4. HAER AZ-40. Retrieved January 18, 2009. Acer Aspire 5738 Keyboard
Sunset at Lava Point Harris, Ann G.; Tuttle, Esther; Tuttle, Sherwood D. (1997). "2: Zion National Park, Southwest Utah". Geology of National Parks (5th ed.). Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing. pp. 28–42. ISBN 0-7872-5353-7.
Kiver, Eugene P.; Harris, David V. (1999). Geology of U.S. Parklands (5th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-33218-6.
Leach, Nicky (2007). Zion National Park: Sanctuary in the Desert (6th ed.). Mariposa, California: Sierra Press. ISBN 1-58071-020-4. HP Pavilion dv5-1210es Keyboard
NPS contributors. "Zion National Park, official website". Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. (public domain text)
Schneider, Stuart (2001). Kolob Canyons Road Guide. Zion Natural History Association. ISBN 0-915630-28-1.
Tufts, Lorraine Salem (1998). Secrets in The Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks (3rd ed.). North Palm Beach, Florida: National Photographic Collections. ISBN 0-9620255-3-4. SamsungNP-N145-JP01 Keyboard
Woodbury, Angus M. (July–October 1944). A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks. XII. Utah State Historical Society.
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Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
Geomatics is a branch of geography that has emerged since the quantitative revolution in geography in the mid 1950s. Geomatics involves the use of traditional spatial techniques used in cartography and topography and their application to computers. Geomatics has become a widespread field with many other disciplines, using techniques such as GIS and remote sensing. Geomatics has also led to a revitalization of some geography departments, especially in Northern America where the subject had a declining status during the 1950s. IBM 42T3737 Keyboard
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Regional geography is a branch of geography which studies the regions of all sizes across the Earth. It has a prevailing descriptive character. The main aim is to understand, or define the uniqueness, HP Pavilion DV7-2273cl Keyboard
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Urban planning, regional planning, and spatial planning: Use the science of geography to assist in determining how to develop (or not develop) the land to meet particular criteria, such as safety, beauty, economic opportunities, the preservation of the built or natural heritage, and so on. The planning of towns, cities, and rural areas may be seen as applied geography.
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rely heavily on geographic information systems, particularly for the interpolation (estimate) of unmeasured points. Geographers are making notable contributions to the method of quantitative techniques.
Qualitative methods
Main article: Ethnography
Geographic qualitative methods, or ethnographical research techniques, are used by human geographers. In cultural geography there is a tradition Sony VAIO VGN-CS13G/P Keyboard
of employing qualitative research techniques, also used in anthropology and sociology. Participant observation and in-depth interviews provide human geographers with qualitative data.
The oldest known world maps date back to ancient Babylon from the 9th century BC.[10] The best known Babylonian world map, however, is the Imago Mundi of 600 BC.[11] The map as reconstructed by Eckhard Unger shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by a circular landmass showing Assyria, Urartu[12] and several cities, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4049 Keyboard
in turn surrounded by a "bitter river" (Oceanus), with seven islands arranged around it so as to form a seven-pointed star. The accompanying text mentions seven outer regions beyond the encircling ocean. The descriptions of five of them have survived.[13] In contrast to the Imago Mundi, an earlier Babylonian world map dating back to the 9th century BC depicted Babylon as being further north from the center of the world, though it is not certain what that center was supposed to represent.[10] Sony 147963021 Keyboard
The ideas of Anaximander (c. 610 BC-c. 545 BC): considered by later Greek writers to be the true founder of geography, come to us through fragments quoted by his successors. Anaximander is credited with the invention of the gnomon, the simple, yet efficient Greek instrument that allowed the early measurement of latitude. Thales is also credited with the prediction of eclipses. The foundations of geography can be traced to the ancient cultures, Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
such as the ancient, medieval, and early modern Chinese. The Greeks, who were the first to explore geography as both art and science, achieved this through Cartography, Philosophy, and Literature, or through Mathematics. There is some debate about who was the first person to assert that the Earth is spherical in shape, with the credit going either to Parmenides or Pythagoras. Anaxagoras was able to demonstrate that the profile of the Earth was circular by explaining eclipses. However, he still believed that the Earth was a flat disk, as did many of his contemporaries. One of the first estimates of the radius of the Earth was made by Eratosthenes.[14] Gateway M-6834 Keyboard
The first rigorous system of latitude and longitude lines is credited to Hipparchus. He employed a sexagesimal system that was derived from Babylonian mathematics. The parallels and meridians were sub-divided into 360°, with each degree further subdivided 60′ (minutes). To measure the longitude at different location on Earth, he suggested using eclipses to determine the relative difference in time.[15] The extensive mapping by the Romans as they explored new lands would later provide a high level of information for Ptolemy to construct detailed atlases. He extended the work of Hipparchus, using a grid system on his maps and adopting a length of 56.5 miles for a degree.[16] HP Pavilion G6-1104AX Keyboard
From the 3rd century onwards, Chinese methods of geographical study and writing of geographical literature became much more complex than what was found in Europe at the time (until the 13th century).[17] Chinese geographers such as Liu An, Pei Xiu, Jia Dan, Shen Kuo, Fan Chengda, Zhou Daguan, and Xu Xiake wrote important treatises, yet by the 17th century advanced ideas and methods of Western-style geography were adopted in China.
The Ptolemy world map, reconstituted from Ptolemy's Geographia, written c. 150. HP Pavilion dv3-2050es Keyboard
During the Middle Ages, the fall of the Roman empire led to a shift in the evolution of geography from Europe to the Islamic world.[17] Muslim geographers such as Muhammad al-Idrisi produced detailed world maps (such as Tabula Rogeriana), while other geographers such as Yaqut al-Hamawi, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Ibn Battuta, and Ibn Khaldun provided detailed accounts of their journeys and the geography of the regions they visited. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
Turkish geographer, Mahmud al-Kashgari drew a world map on a linguistic basis, and later so did Piri Reis (Piri Reis map). Further, Islamic scholars translated and interpreted the earlier works of the Romans and the Greeks and established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad for this purpose.[18] Abū Zayd al-Balkhī, originally from Balkh, founded the "Balkhī school" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad.[19] Suhrāb, a late tenth century Muslim geographer accompanied a book of geographical coordinates, with instructions for making a rectangular world map with equirectangular projection or cylindrical equidistant projection.[19][verification needed] Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
Abu Rayhan Biruni (976-1048) first described a polar equi-azimuthal equidistant projection of the celestial sphere.[20][verification needed] He was regarded as the most skilled when it came to mapping cities and measuring the distances between them, which he did for many cities in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. He often combined astronomical readings and mathematical equations, in order to develop methods of pin-pointing locations by recording degrees of latitude and longitude. He also developed similar techniques when it came to measuring the heights of mountains, depths of the valleys, Asus A3E Keyboard
and expanse of the horizon. He also discussed human geography and the planetary habitability of the Earth. He also calculated the latitude of Kath, Khwarezm, using the maximum altitude of the Sun, and solved a complex geodesic equation in order to accurately compute the Earth's circumference, which were close to modern values of the Earth's circumference.[21] His estimate of 6,339.9 km for the Earth radius was only 16.8 km less than the modern value of 6,356.7 km. In contrast to his predecessors, who measured the Earth's circumference byHP Pavilion dv6-2127el Keyboard
sighting the Sun simultaneously from two different locations, al-Biruni developed a new method of using trigonometric calculations, based on the angle between a plain and mountain top, which yielded more accurate measurements of the Earth's circumference, and made it possible for it to be measured by a single person from a single location.[22][verification needed]
Self portrait of Alexander von Humboldt, one of the early pioneers of geography
The European Age of Discovery during the 16th and the 17th centuries, where many new lands were discovered and accounts by European explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Asus F3Sv Keyboard
Marco Polo, and James Cook revived a desire for both accurate geographic detail, and more solid theoretical foundations in Europe. The problem facing both explorers and geographers was finding the latitude and longitude of a geographic location. The problem of latitude was solved long ago but that of longitude remained; agreeing on what zero meridian should be was only part of the problem. It was left to John Harrison to solve it by inventing the chronometer H-4 in 1760, and later in 1884 for the International Meridian Conference to adopt by convention the Greenwich meridian as zero meridian.[23] Acer PK1301K0200 Keyboard
The 18th and the 19th centuries were the times when geography became recognized as a discrete academic discipline, and became part of a typical university curriculum in Europe (especially Paris and Berlin). The development of many geographic societies also occurred during the 19th century, with the foundations of the Société de Géographie in 1821,[24] the Royal Geographical Society in 1830,[25] Russian Geographical Society in 1845,[26] Acer TravelMate 3010 Keyboard
American Geographical Society in 1851,[27] and the National Geographic Society in 1888.[28] The influence of Immanuel Kant, Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, and Paul Vidal de la Blache can be seen as a major turning point in geography from a philosophy to an academic subject.
Over the past two centuries, the advancements in technology with computers have led to the development of geomatics. and new practices such as participant observation and geostatistics being incorporated into geography's portfolio of tools. In the West during the 20th century, Dell 9J.N9182.001 Keyboard
the discipline of geography went through four major phases: environmental determinism, regional geography, the quantitative revolution, and critical geography. The strong interdisciplinary links between geography and the sciences of geology and botany, as well as economics, sociology and demographics have also grown greatly, especially as a result of Earth System Science that seeks to understand the world in a holistic view. Toshiba Satellite 2805-s201 Keyboard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Regional definitions vary from source to source. New Mexico and Arizona (in dark red) are almost always considered the core, modern-day Southwest. The striped states may or may not be considered to be part of the same region. With the exception of Texas and Oklahoma (offset in blue) -- which are counted as part of the South -- the Southwestern states are also classified as West by the U.S. Census Bureau. California is often excluded from all definitions of the The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The areas in the United States that were originally part of Mexico (white, dark brown). HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
The Southwestern United States (also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest[1]) is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Narrowly defined, the "core" Southwest is centered around the Four Corner states, with parts of the other states making up the beginnings and endings of the Southwest. The five main southwestern states; Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada are also all considered part of the Mountain West, as well as the southwest. The total population of these states is roughly 19 million people. HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
Most of it was a part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in the Spanish Empire, during the Modern Era. California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Kansas were originally all part of Mexico before the Mexican-American War. Portions of some of the areas in the "divided" states, and including western parts of Texas, were those in dispute after the Texas Revolution. Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard
Panoramic view of the southwestern United States.
Geographer Uriah D. W. Meinig defines the core of the Southwest as the portion of New Mexico west of the Llano Estacado and the portion of Arizona east of the Mohave-Sonoran Desert and south of the "canyonlands", and also including the El Paso district of western Texas and the southernmost part of Colorado.[2] He identifies four distinct subregions with this core. He calls the first subregion "Northern New Mexico", and describes it as focused on Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It extends from the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado to south of Socorro and including the Manzano Mountains, with an east-west breadth[3] in the north stretching from the upper Canadian River to the upper San Juan River. The area around Albuquerque is sometimes called Central New Mexico. Sony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W Keyboard
"Central Arizona" is a vast metropolitan area spread across one contiguous sprawling oasis, essentially equivalent to the Phoenix metropolitan area. The city of Phoenix is the largest urban center, and located in the approximate center of the area which includesTempe, Mesa, and many others.[4]
Meinig calls the third subregion "El Paso, Tucson, and the Southern Borderlands".HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard While El Paso and Tucson are distinctly different cities they share a similar and somewhat overlapping hinterland between them. Tucson occupies a large oasis at the western end of the El Paso-Tucson corridor. The region between the two cities is a major transportation trunk with settlements servicing both highway and railway needs. There are also large mining operations, ranches, and agricultural oases. Both El Paso and Tucson have large military installations nearby; Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range north of El Paso, and, near Tucson, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Sony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard About 70 miles (110 km) to the southeast are the research facilities at Fort Huachuca. These military installations form a kind of hinterland around the El Paso-Tucson region, and are served by scientific and residential communities such as Sierra Vista, Las Cruces, and Alamogordo. El Paso's influence extends north into the Mesilla Valley, and southeast along the Rio Grande into
elicate Arch at Arches National Park
The fourth subregion Meinig calls the "Northern Corridor and Navaholands". A major highway and railway trunk connects Albuquerque and Flagstaff. Just north of the transportation trunk are large blocks of Native American land.[6] Sony VAIO VGN-FS810 Keyboard
Four Corners Monument, often considered the heart of the American Southwest
Phoenix, Tucson, and Las Vegas dominate the western most metropolitan areas in the southwest region, while, Albuquerque, Denver, Colorado Springs, and El Paso dominate the eastern most metropolitan areas of the southwest, not including Northern, Central, and Eastern Texas, and Oklahoma, because they are not always considered part of the southwest. Reno and Salt Lake City also dominate the northernmost metropolitan areas of the southwest. Sony VAIO VGN-FS295XP KeyboardThus the basic spatial structure of the Southwest can be seen as focused on the largest metropolitan areas in each state such as Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and El Paso. Also, the Four Corners of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico is often considered to be the center, or heart, of the American Southwest.[7]
Main articles: History of New Mexico, History of Arizona, History of Utah, History of Nevada, History of California, History of Colorado, History of Oklahoma, and History of Texas
The European colonization of the Americans, New Spain, later to become Mexico was dominant until the 19th century. With Manifest Destiny, United States gradually gained control over the west. Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard Pro-Confederate Texas and Pro-Union Utah were important at this point, although California rapidly became the main western power. Utahns moved west into Nevada and Northern California, whereas Texans moved into New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Parts of New Mexico and Arizona were briefly a Confederate territory, then were transformed into a Union territory, then Union state. Arizona's original government and military were similar to those Texas at the time had. Arizona, in the form of the Gadsden Purchase also has connections to the Republic of Sonora. The Southwestern states take up roughly one third of the United States. Sony VAIO VGN-CS16G/W Keyboard
The Cliff Palace dwellings at Mesa Verde
There were a very large population of Native American tribes in the southwestern states, as well as all of America. Some of the larger and more popular tribes of Native Americans in the southwest were the Ute, Navajo, Apache, Comanche, Paiute, Hopi, and the Anasazi. The Ute formally ruled over most of modern day Utah and Colorado, as well as small parts of northern New Mexico. The Navajo had ruled over much of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah at one point as well. Apache tribes had once ruled over many lands in the southwest. 04W0872Such as, most of New Mexico, eastern Arizona, and parts of southwest Texas. The Jicarilla tribe of Apache also ruled well into southern and southeastern Colorado as well. The Comanche ruled many lands in the southwest as well. Their historic range consisted of present day eastern New Mexico, southern and southeastern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, and most all of west and northwest Texas. The Paiute people were another very large Nativer American civilization. Dell PVDG3 KeyboardThey controlled most all of present day Nevada, western Utah, and northern Arizona. Some of the oldest evidence of Native Americans in the southwest are from the Hopi and the Anasazi people. The Hopi controlled most all of what is modern day Arizona at one point. On the other hand, the Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo peoples) controlled much of the southwest as well. Their ancient territory consisted of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, southeastern Utah, and all of southern Colorado. Some of the more known evidence of the ancient pueblo peoples can be found at Chaco National Park in New Mexico, and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Compaq Presario CQ50-115NR Keyboard
[edit] Origins of the term and historical/cultural variations
The term "Southwest" originally referred to a "major subregion" of the American South, literally being the western frontier of the larger region. This "Old Southwest" of the 19th century included, at varying points in time, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Louisiana. After its revolution and statehood, Texas became considered part of this designation. However, as territories and eventual states to the west were added after the Mexican War, the geographical "Southwest" expanded and the relationship of these new acquisitions to the South itself became "increasingly unclear."[8] HP Pavilion dv5-1225et Keyboard
Texas has long been the focal point of this dichotomy, and is often considered as such to be the "core area" of "the South's Southwest".[8] While the Trans-Pecos area is generally acknowledged to be part of the "desert Southwest"[9] most of Texas and large parts of Oklahoma are often placed into a sub-region of the South, which some consider Southwestern in the general framework of the original application, meaning the "Western South." 04W0872 This is an area containing the basic elements of Southern history, culture, politics, religion, and linguistic and settlement patterns, yet blended with traits of the frontier West. While this particular Southwest is notably different in many ways from the classic "Old South" or Southeast, these features are strong enough to give it a separate Southwestern identity quite different in nature from that of the Interior Southwestern states to the west. Acer Aspire 5710Z Keyboard
One of these distinguishing characteristics in Texas—in addition to being a Confederate state during the Civil War—is that Native and Spanish American culture never played a central role in the development of this area in relative comparrison to the others, as the vast majority of settlers were anglo and blacks from the South.[10] Although the present day state of Oklahoma was Indian Territory until the early 20th Century, many of these Native-Americans were from the southeastern United States and became culturally assimilated early on. Dell UW739 Keyboard
The majority of members of these tribes also allied themselves with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Combined with that once the territory was open for settlement, it was southeastern pioneers which made up a disporportionate number of these newcomers, all lent to the new state having a different character than other parts of the Southwest which also contained a large Indian population.[10]
The fact that a majority of residents of Texas and Oklahoma—unlike those in the other Southwestern states—self-identify as living in the South and considering themselves Southerners, rather than the West and Westerners, also lends to treating these two states as a somewhat distinct and separate entity in terms of regional classification.[11] Sony VGN-FE880E/H Keyboard
The High Plains in Eastern New Mexico, but also located in Eastern Colorado and West Texas.
Vegetation of the Southwest generally includes various types of yucca, along with saguaro cactus, barrel cactus, prickly pear cactus, desert spoon, creosote bush, sagebrush, and greasewood. Although, cacti is thought to only grow in Arizona and New Mexico, many native cacti is grown all throughout Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and West Texas as well. Also, small cacti does grow in Utah and Colorado. These examples (except the saguaro), can be seen growing natively and in large numbers more east throughout the Texas Hill Country and South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. Toshiba NSK-T4N01 KeyboardHowever, none of the vegetation discussed grows natively the further east than the eastern outskirts of Fort Worth. Dallas and Houston, for example, share a smiliar terrain with states further east and are often considered to be more of the American South. In the far eastern parts of the southwest, prairies and grasslands are found all over. These prairies and grasslands are usually located in Eastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, and large areas in West Texas. Steppe is also located all over the high plains areas in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. The mountains of the southwestern states have large alpine trees. Toshiba Satellite L750D-ST5NX1 Keyboard
Landscape features of the core Southwestern areas usually include mountains, mesas, high broad basins, plateaus, desert lands, and some plains. The High Plains region of the Great Plains are also located in the American Southwest. Eastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, and West Texas all have high plains, and rolling land. The entire Southwestern region features semi-arid to arid terrain. The far eastern part of the Southwest in Texas, for example the Texas Hill Country, consists of dry, tall and rugged rocky hills of limestone and granite. Toshiba Tecra M10-ST9110 KeyboardSouth Texas and the Rio Grande Valley is mostly flat with many places consisting of scrub and bare topsoil, much like the deserts further west. Buttes are also located all over the southwestern states. Utah tends to have the most natural buttes, but they do form as far east as some parts of Central Texas.
Desert bighorn sheep
There is a wide variety of wildlife in the Southwestern United States. Bighorn sheep, bobcat, coyote, bear, jackrabbit, cottontail rabbit, mule deer, white-tailed deer, gray fox, mountain lion, river otter, porcupine, pronghorn, raccoon, armadillo, Mexican wolf, and gray wolf can be found in all states across the southwest. HP Pavilion G6-1122TU Keyboard American bison and prairie dogs can be found in the southwest states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Elk in the southwest are usually only found in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. White-nosed coati and collared peccary in the southwest are normally found in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Snakes are also found all over the southwestern United States. Rattlesnakes are found throughout the southwest. Coral snakes can be found in Arizona and New Mexico.
Sonoran Desert terrain near Tucson 04W0872
The Southwestern United States features a semi-arid to arid climate, depending on the location. Much of the southwest is an arid desert climate, but higher elevations in the mountains in each state, with the exception of West Texas, feature alpine climates with very large amounts of snow. The metropolitan areas of Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and El Paso hardly ever receive any snow at all, as they are strictly desert lands with mountains. However, the metro areas of Reno, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Colorado Springs can receive significant snowfalls. Compaq Presario CQ57-404TU KeyboardAlbuquerque falls at an in between, receiving less snow than other cities, but still receive significant snowfalls in the winter time. Although it snows in this region, the snow in this part of the United States melts rapidly, often before nightfall. This is due mainly to the higher altitude and abundant sunshine in these states.
Nevada and Arizona are both generally arid with desert lands and mountains, and receive large amounts of snow in the higher elevations in and near the mountains. New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado are generally arid, with desert lands and mountains as well. Toshiba Satellite L775-S7307 KeyboardColorado and New Mexico do have high plains in the far eastern portions of their state. They all receive decent amounts of snow, and large amounts of snow in the high elevations in the mountains. Although some areas in far southwestern and southern New Mexico do not receive much snow at all. West Texas is generally arid as well, but does not receive the same amount of snow that the other southwestern states receive at their high elevations. The terrain of the West Texas region in the southwest is flat rolling land of the plains, which eventually turns into a desert with some hills, and there are HP Pavilion DV7-3067nr Keyboard
The term "High Desert" is also synonymous with this region. The High Desert is generally defined as the Mojave Desert (which extends into southern Nevada), and the Great Basin Desert. The Great Basin Desert is defined as the desert lands in Nevada, Western Utah, as well as Southeastern Oregon and Southern Idaho. The High Desert also extends into other parts of the Northwest, such as the Red Desert is Southwestern Wyoming. The High Desert is much different than the general desert lands found in Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert. Sony VAIO VGN-FZ490 KeyboardThis area of the desert land generally sits at a very high elevation, much higher than the normal desert land, and can receive very cold temperatures at night in the winter (with the exception of California and southern Nevada), sometimes near zero degrees on very cold nights. The High Desert also receives a decent amount of snowfall in the winter (with the exception of California and southern Nevada), but melts very quickly.
Monument Canyon, some of the high desert lands found in Colorado Toshiba Satellite L40-17U Keyboard
Other areas of the southwest may also be referred to as the "High Desert", such as the Colorado Plateau. The desert lands found in Eastern Utah, Northern Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico are usually referred to as the high desert. Eastern Utah has a huge mass of desert land, which sits at a high elevation, and is sometimes referred to as the "High Desert" as well. Colorado has scattered desert lands found in southern, southwestern, western, and the northwestern parts of the state. Toshiba Satellite M645-S4047 Keyboard
These scattered desert lands are located in and around areas such as, the Roan Plateau, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado National Monument, Royal Gorge, Cortez, Dove Creek, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Four Corners Monument, Montrose, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Pueblo, San Luis Valley, and the Great Sand Dunes. Besides the Chihuahuan Desert lands in southwestern and southern New Mexico, they also have scattered desert lands in the northwestern and northern portions of their state which is referred to as the high desert.
The Great Sand Dunes Toshiba Satellite M645 Keyboard
The Southwestern United States have many national monuments and parks located in the region. Some of the more famous monuments and parks in the southwest are the Grand Canyon National Park, Navajo National Monument, Four Corners Monument, Colorado National Monument, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Arches National Park, Red Rock Canyon, Big Bend National Park, and the White Sands National Monument. Toshiba Satellite M645-SP4010M Keyboard
In Utah there are also many other monuments and parks such as, Nine Mile Canyon, Mexican Hat, Bryce Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Zion National Park, Arches National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument (also in Colorado), Monument Valley (also in Arizona), Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, and the Timpanogos Cave National Monument. HP Pavilion dv5-1235dx Keyboard
In Arizona there is the Agua Fria National Monument, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Chiricahua National Monument, Ironwood Forest National Monument, Montezuma Castle National Monument, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Petrified Forest National Park, Pipe Spring National Monument, Saguaro National Park, Sonoran Desert National Monument, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Tonto National Monument, Tumacacori National Historical Park, Tuzigoot National Monument, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Walnut Canyon National Monument, and the Wupatki National Monument. HP Pavilion dm1-1020er Keyboard
In Colorado there is the Arapaho National Recreation Area, Mesa Verde National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Dinosaur National Monument (small parts also in Utah), Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Rocky Mountain National Park, Royal Gorge, Grand Mesa, Garden of the Gods, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Glenwood Canyon, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Yucca House National Monument, and Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site.
In New Mexico there is also the Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Capulin Volcano National Monument, Compaq Presario CQ50-139WM Keyboard
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, El Malpais National Monument, El Morro National Monument, Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Pecos National Historical Park, Petroglyph National Monument, and the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
In the West Texas part of the southwest, there is the Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, Fort Davis National Historic Site, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, and the Amistad National Recreation Area. Toshiba Satellite L775-S7307 Keyboard
In Nevada there is the Great Basin National Park, Death Valley National Park, and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Denver, the second largest metropolitan area in the Southwest
Salt Lake City, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Southwest
The Southwest is ethnically varied, Toshiba Satellite U305-S7432 Keyboard
with significant Anglo American and Hispanic American populations in addition to more regional African American, Asian American, and Native American populations.
Hispanic Americans (mostly Mexican Americans with large populations of Spanish Americans) can be found in large numbers in every major city in the southwest, Toshiba PK130BH2A00 Keyboard
such as Phoenix (43%), Tucson (41%), Las Vegas (32%), Reno (22%), Denver (32%), Colorado Springs (16%), El Paso (80%), Albuquerque (47%), Provo (15.2%) and Salt Lake City (22%). San Antonio (61%), Austin (35%), Fort Worth (34%), Dallas (43%), and Houston (44%) have large Latino populations as well, but are not always considered part of the Southwest, and are often grouped more with the American South.
Very large Hispanic American populations can also be found in the smaller cities such as, Flagstaff (18%), Yuma (55%), Mesa (27%),Toshiba KFRSBA064A Keyboard
Las Cruces (56%), Santa Fe (48%), Farmington (22%), Roswell (51%), Alamogordo (32%), Pueblo (48%), Greeley (35%), Longmont (25%), Brighton (41%), Carson City (20%), Amarillo (27%), Lubbock (31%), Midland (37%), and Odessa (47%). Many small towns throughout the southwestern states also have significantly large Latino populations.
The largest African American populations in the southwest can be found in Denver (10%), Colorado Springs (7%), Las Vegas (10%), and Phoenix (5%). The Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston areas both have very large African American populations, although those parts of Texas are not usually considered to be part of the southwestern United States. Sony VAIO VGN NR385E/T Keyboard
The largest Asian American populations in the southwest can be found in Nevada and Utah, with some other significant Asian populations in Denver and Phoenix. The most significant Native Americans populations can be found in New Mexico and Arizona.
[edit] Cities and urban areas
The area also contains many of the nation's largest cities and metropolitan areas, despite relatively low population density in rural areas. Acer Aspire 5810TZ-4274 Keyboard
Phoenix is among the top ten most populous cities in the country, and Reno, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, and Salt Lake City[12] are some of the fastest-growing cities in America. Also, the region as a whole has witnessed some of the highest population growth in the United States; HP Pavilion DV9000 Keyboard
and according to the U.S. Census bureau, in 2008–2009, Utah was the fastest growing state in America. As of the 2010 Census, Nevada was the fastest growing state in the United States, with an increase of 35.1% in the last ten years. Additionally, Arizona (24.6%), Utah (23.8%), Texas (20.6%), and Colorado (16.9%) were all in the top ten fastest growing states as well.[13]
Zion Canyon as seen from the top of Angels Landing at sunset
Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to half a mile (800 m) deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest elevation is 3,666 ft (1,117 m) at Coalpits Wash and the highest elevation is 8,726 ft (2,660 m) at Horse Ranch Mountain. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park's unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5067 Keyboard
Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.
Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans; the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Anasazi (300 CE) stem from one of these groups. Sony VGN-FE21M Keyboard
In turn, the Virgin Anasazi culture (500 CE) developed as the Basketmakers settled in permanent communities.[3] A different group, the Parowan Fremont, lived in the area as well. Both groups moved away by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes. Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. In 1909, U.S. President William Howard Taft named the area a National Monument to protect the canyon, under the name of Mukuntuweap National Monument. SamsungN140 Keyboard
In 1918, however, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service changed the park's name to Zion. According to historian Hal Rothman, "The name change played to a prevalent bias of the time. Many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it. The new name, Zion, had greater appeal to an ethnocentric audience." [4] The United States Congress established the monument as a National Park on November 19, 1919. Sony 81-31205001-03 Keyboard
The Kolob section was proclaimed a separate Zion National Monument in 1937, but was incorporated into the park in 1956.
The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes 9 formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that time warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts, and dry near-shore environments covered the area. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateaus lifted the region 10,000 feet (3,000 m) starting 13 million years ago.[5] Acer 9Z.N3K82.01D Keyboard
Zion Canyon near the park entrance
The park is located in southwestern Utah in Washington, Iron, and Kane counties. Geomorphically, it is located on the Markagunt and Kolob plateaus, at the intersection of three North American geographic provinces: the Colorado Plateaus, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. The northern part of the park is known as the Kolob Canyons section and is accessible from Interstate 15, exit 40.[6] Dell Latitude E6410 Keyboard
The 8,726-foot (2,660 m) summit of Horse Ranch Mountain (photo) is the highest point in the park; the lowest point is the 3,666-foot (1,117 m) elevation of Coal Pits Wash, creating a relief of about 5,100 feet (1,600 m).[7]
Streams in the area take rectangular paths because they follow jointing planes in the rocks.[8] The stream gradient of the Virgin River, whose North Fork flows through Zion Canyon in the park, ranges from 50 to 80 feet (15 to 24 m) per mile (0.9–1.5%)—one of the steepest stream gradients
View from the end of the Riverside Trail HP Probook 4325s Keyboard
The road into Zion Canyon is 6 miles (9.7 km) long, ending at the Temple of Sinawava ("Sinawava" refers to the Coyote God of the Paiute Indians).[10] At the Temple the canyon narrows and a foot-trail continues to the mouth of the Zion Narrows, a gorge as narrow as 20 feet (6 m) wide and up to 2,000 feet (610 m) tall.[11] The Zion Canyon road is served by a free shuttle bus from early April to late October and by private vehicles the other months of the year. Other roads in Zion are open to private vehicles year-round. Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912A Keyboard
The east side of the park is served by the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway, which passes through the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel and ends at Mount Carmel Junction, Utah. On the east side of the park notable
The Kolob Terrace area west of Zion Canyon features The Subway, a slot canyon hike, and Lava Point, with a panoramic view of the entire area. The Kolob Canyons section, further west near Cedar City, features one of the world's longest arches, Kolob Arch.[12] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
Spring weather is unpredictable, with stormy, wet days being common, mixed with occasional warm, sunny weather. Precipitation is heaviest in March.[13] Spring wildflowers bloom from April through June, peaking in May. Fall days are usually clear and mild; nights are often cool. Summer days are hot (95 °F to 110 °F; 35 °C to 43 °C), but overnight lows are usually comfortable (65 °F to 70 °F; 18 °C to 21 °C).[13] Afternoon thunderstorms are common from mid-July through mid-September.[13] Storms may produce waterfalls as well as flash floods. Acer TravelMate 292ELMi Keyboard
Autumn tree-color displays begin in September in the high country; inside Zion Canyon, autumn colors usually peak in late October. Winter in Zion Canyon is fairly mild. Winter storms bring rain or light snow to Zion Canyon and heavier snow to the higher elevations. Clear days may become quite warm, reaching 60 °F (16 °C); nights are often 20 °F (−7 °C) to 40 °F (4 °C) .[13] Winter storms can last several days and make roads icy. Zion roads are plowed, except the Kolob Terrace Road which is closed when covered with snow.[13] Winter driving conditions last from November through March.[13] Acer Aspire 5310 Keyboard
Notable geographical features of the park include: Virgin River Narrows, Emerald Pools (photo), Hidden Canyon (photo), Angels Landing (photo), The Great White Throne, Checkerboard Mesa (photo), The Three Patriarchs (photo) and Kolob Arch.
Archaeologists have divided the long span of Zion's human history into three cultural periods: the Archaic, Protohistoric and Historic periods. Each period is characterized by distinctive technological and social adaptations. Toshiba Satellite L355 Keyboard
The first human presence in the region dates to 8,000 years ago when family groups camped where they could hunt or collect plants and seeds.[14] About 2,000 years ago, some groups began growing corn and other crops, leading to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.[15] Later groups in this period built permanent villages called pueblos. Archaeologists call this the Archaic period and it lasted until about 500 CE.[16] Baskets, cordage nets, and yucca fiber sandals have been found and dated to this period. The Archaic toolkits included flaked stone knives, HP Pavilion G6S Series Keyboard
drills, and stemmed dart points. The dart points were attached to wooden shafts and propelled by throwing devices called atlatls.[16]
By 300 CE some of the archaic groups developed into an early branch of seminomadic Anasazi, the Basketmakers.[16] Basketmaker sites have grass- or stone-lined storage cists and shallow, partially underground dwellings called pithouses. They were hunters and gatherers who supplemented their diet with limited agriculture. Locally collected pine nuts were important for
Kaun huts were used by Southern Paiute HP Mini 210-1068TU Keyboard
Both the Virgin Anasazi and the Parowan Fremont disappear from the archaeological record of southwestern Utah by about 1300.[16] Extended droughts in the 11th and 12th centuries, interspersed with catastrophic flooding, may have made horticulture impossible in this arid region.[16] Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
Tradition and archaeological evidence hold that their replacements were Numic-speaking cousins of the Virgin Anasazi, such as the Southern Paiute and Ute.[16] The newcomers migrated on a seasonal basis up and down valleys in search of wild seeds and game animals.[17] Some, particularly the Southern Paiute, also planted fields of corn, sunflowers, and squash to supplement their diet.[17] These more sedentary groups made brownware vessels that were used for storage and cooking.[16] HP Pavilion dv5-1120en Keyboard
[edit] Exploration and settlement by Euro-Americans
The Historic period begins in the late 18th century[16] with the exploration of southern Utah by Padres Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez. The padres passed near what is now the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center on October 13, 1776, becoming the first people of European descent known to visit the area.[18] In 1825, trapper and trader Jedediah Smith explored some of the downstream areas while under contract with the American Fur Company.[18] Acer TravelMate 2403 Series Keyboard
In 1847, Mormon farmers from the Salt Lake area became the first people of European descent to settle the Virgin River region.[9] In 1851, the Parowan and Cedar City, Utah areas were settled by Mormons who used the Kolob Canyons area for timber, and for grazing cattle, sheep, and horses.[19] They prospected for mineral deposits, and diverted Kolob water to irrigate crops in the valley below. Mormon settlers named the area Kolob—in Mormon scripture, the heavenly place nearest the residence of God.[20] HP Pavilion G6-1215TX Keyboard
A ranch located near the mouth of Zion Canyon.
Settlements had expanded 30 miles (48 km) south to the lower Virgin River by 1858.[9] That year, a Southern Paiute guide led young Mormon missionary and interpreter Nephi Johnson into the upper Virgin River area and Zion Canyon.[18] Johnson wrote a favorable report about the agricultural potential of the upper Virgin River basin, and returned later that year to found the town of Virgin. In 1861 or 1862, Joseph Black made the arduous journey to Zion Canyon and was very impressed by its beauty.[3] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
The floor of Zion Canyon was settled in 1863 by Isaac Behunin, who farmed corn, tobacco, and fruit trees.[3] The Behunin family lived in Zion Canyon near the site of today's Zion Lodge during the summer, and wintered in Springdale. Behunin is credited with naming Zion, a reference to a place of peace mentioned in the Bible.[3] Two more families settled Zion Canyon in the next couple of years, bringing with them cattle and other domesticated animals. The canyon floor was farmed until Zion became a Monument in 1909.[9] 63Y0047
The Powell Geographic Expedition entered the area in 1869 after their first trip through the Grand Canyon.[9] John Wesley Powell visited Zion Canyon in 1872 and named it Mukuntuweap, under the impression that that was the Paiute name.[21] Powell Survey photographers John K. Hillers and James Fennemore first visited the Zion Canyon and Kolob Plateau region in the spring of 1872.[9] Hillers returned in April 1873 to add more photographs to the "Virgin River Series" of photographs and stereographs.[22] Hillers described wading the canyon for four days and nearly
Painting of Zion Canyon by Frederick Dellenbaugh (1903) Sony VAIO VPC-F12 Keyboard
Paintings of the canyon by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh were exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904,[9] followed by a glowing article in Scribner's Magazine the next year. That, along with previously created photographs, paintings, and reports, led to U.S. President William Howard Taft's proclamation on July 31, 1909 that created Mukuntuweap National Monument.[18] In 1917, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service visited the canyon and proposed changing its name to Zion from the locally unpopular Mukuntuweap.[23] Dell 0J483C Keyboard
The United States Congress added more land and established Zion National Park on November 19, 1919.[3] A separate Zion National Monument, the Kolob Canyons area, was proclaimed on January 22, 1937, and was incorporated into the park on July 11, 1956.[24]
Travel to the area before it was a national park was rare due to its remote location, lack of accommodations, and the absence of real roads in southern Utah. Old wagon roads were upgraded to the first automobile roads starting about 1910, and the road into Zion Canyon was built in 1917, to as far as The Grotto.[16] Gateway MX7000 Keyboard
1938 poster of Zion National Park
Touring cars could reach Zion Canyon by the summer of 1917.[16] The first visitor lodging in Zion Canyon, called Wylie Camp, was established that same year as a tent camp.[16] The Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, acquired Wylie Camp in 1923, and offered ten-day rail/bus tours to Zion, nearby Bryce Canyon, Kaibab, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.[25] The Zion Lodge complex was built in 1925 at the site of the Wylie tent camp.[16] Architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed Zion Lodge (photo) in the "Rustic Style" and the Utah Parks Company funded the construction.[16] Sony VAIO VPC-F12 Keyboard
Work on the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway started in 1927 to enable reliable access between Springdale and the east side of the park.[3] The road opened in 1930 and park visitation and travel in the area greatly increased.[26] The most famous feature of the highway is the 1.1-mile (1.8 km) Zion - Mt. Carmel Tunnel, which has six large windows cut through the massive sandstone cliff.[9] Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
In 1896, local rancher John Winder improved the Native American footpath up Echo Canyon, which later became the East Rim Trail.[27] Entrepreneur David Flanigan used this trail in 1900 to build cableworks that lowered lumber into Zion Canyon from Cable Mountain. More than 200,000 board feet (470 m3) of lumber were lowered by 1906.[27] The auto road was extended to the Temple of Sinawava, and a trail built from there 1 mile (2 km) to the start of the Narrows.[28] Angel's Landing Trail was constructed in 1926 and two suspension bridges were built over the Virgin River.[21] Other trails were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s.[21] Toshiba Satellite L40-13C Keyboard
Zion Canyon from the trail to Observation Point
Zion Canyon Scenic Drive provides access to Zion Canyon. Traffic congestion in the narrow canyon was recognized as a major problem in the 1990s and a public transportation system using propane-powered shuttle buses was instituted in the year 2000.[29] As part of its shuttle fleet, Zion has two electric trams each holding up to 36 passengers.[30] From April through October, the scenic drive in Zion Canyon is closed to private vehicles and visitors ride the shuttle buses.[29]
On April 12, 1995, heavy rains tDell PVDG3 Keyboard
riggered a landslide that blocked the Virgin River in Zion Canyon.[31] Over a period of two hours, the river carved away part of the only exit road from the canyon, trapping 450 guests and employees in the Zion Lodge.[31] A one-lane temporary road was constructed within 24 hours to allow evacuation of the Lodge.[31] A more stable—albeit temporary—road was completed on May 25, 1995 to allow summer visitors to access the park.[31] This road was replaced with a permanent road during the first half of 1996.[31] Ideapad G470
The Zion–Mount Carmel Highway can be traveled year-round. Access for over-sized vehicles requires a special permit, and is limited to daytime hours, as traffic through the tunnel must be one way to accommodate large vehicles. The 5-mile (8.0 km)-long Kolob Canyons Road was built to provide access to the Kolob Canyons section of the park.[32] This road often closes in the winter. HP Pavilion dv5-1010el Keyboard
In March 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which designated and further protected 124,406 acres (503.5 km2) of park land as the Zion Wilderness.
Virgin River after a snowstorm
[edit] Geology
Main article: Geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons areaIBM 42T3638 Keyboard
The Three Patriarchs in Zion Canyon are made of Navajo Sandstone.
The nine known exposed geologic formations in Zion National Park are part of a super-sequence of rock units called the Grand Staircase. Together, these formations represent about 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in that part of North America. The formations exposed in the Zion area were deposited as sediment in very different environments: Dell Vostro V3350 Keyboard
The warm, shallow (sometimes advancing or retreating) sea of the Kaibab and Moenkopi formations;
Streams, ponds, and lakes of the Chinle, Moenave, and Kayenta formations;
The vast desert of the Navajo and Temple Cap formations; and
The dry near-shore environment of the Carmel Formation.
The Kolob Canyons are a set of finger canyons cut into the Kolob Plateau. Acer Extensa 5235 Keyboard
Uplift affected the entire region, known as the Colorado Plateaus, by slowly raising these formations more than 10,000 feet (3,000 m) higher than where they were deposited.[33] This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral Virgin and other rivers on the plateau.
The faster-moving streams took advantage of uplift-created joints in the rocks. Eventually, all Cenozoic-aged formations were removed and gorges were cut into the plateaus. Zion Canyon was cut by the North Fork of the Virgin River in this way. During the later part of this process, lava flows and cinder cones covered parts of the area.[34] Acer Aspire 7736ZG Keyboard
High water volume in wet seasons does most of the downcutting in the main canyon. These flood events are responsible for transporting most of the 3 million short tons (2.7 million metric tons) of rock and sediment that the Virgin River transports yearly.[9] The Virgin cuts away its canyon faster than its tributaries can cut away their own streambeds, so tributaries end in waterfalls from hanging valleys where they meet the Virgin.[9] The valley between the peaks of the Twin Brothers is a notable example of a hanging valley in the canyon.
Table of formations exposed in Zion National Park[35] Sony VGN-FE21M Keyboard
Shale, loose clay and conglomerate
Taylor Creek with Horse Ranch Mountain in background. Desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest habitats are all visible.
The Great Basin, Mojave Desert, and Colorado Plateau converge at Zion and the Kolob canyons.[36] This, along with the varied topography of canyon–mesa country, differing soil types, and uneven water availability, provides diverse habitat for the equally diverse mix of plants and animals that live in the area. The park is home to 289 bird, 79 mammals, 28 reptiles, 7 fish, and 6 amphibian species.[37] These organisms make their homes in one or more of four life zones found in the Park: desert, riparian, woodland, and Coniferous forest.[38] Sony VAIO VGN-FS750P Keyboard
Desert conditions persist on canyon bottoms and rocky ledges away from perennial streams. Sagebrush, Prickly pear Cactus, and Rabbitbrush, along with Sacred Datura and Indian Paintbrush, are common.[39] Utah Penstemon and Golden Aster can also be found.[40] Milkvetch and Prince's Plume are found in pockets of selenium-rich soils.[38]
Sacred Datura grows on the canyon floor and blooms at night. Compaq Presario CQ57-310 Keyboard
Common daytime animals include Mule Deer, Rock Squirrels, Pinyon Jays, and Whiptail and Collared lizards (photo). Desert Cottontails,[41] Jackrabbits, and Merriam's Kangaroo Rats come out at night. Cougars, Coyotes, Gray Foxes, and Ring-tail Cats are the top predators.[41]
Cooler conditions persist at mid-elevation slopes, from 3,900 to 5,500 feet (1,200 to 1,700 m).[38] Stunted forests of pinyon pine and Juniper coexist here with manzanita shrubs, cliffrose, serviceberry, Scrub Oak, and yucca.[38] Stands of Ponderosa Pine, Gambel Oak, manzanita and aspen populate the mesas and cliffs above 6,000 feet (1,800 m).[38] Asus A4000 Keyboard
Golden Eagles, Red-tailed Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, and White-throated Swifts can be seen in the area.[42] California Condors and Bighorn Sheep were introduced in the 1990s. Nineteen species of bat also live in the area.[43]
Boxelder, Fremont Cottonwood, maple, and willow dominate riparian plant communities.[38] Animals such as Bank Beavers, Flannel-mouth Suckers, Gnatcatchers, Dippers, Canyon Wrens, the Virgin Spinedace, and Water Striders all make their homes in the riparian zones.[44] Gateway M6805 Keyboard
Zion Canyon
Driving through the east side of Zion to U.S. Route 89 allows access to Bryce Canyon National Park in the north or to the north rim of the Grand Canyon in the south. Due to the narrowness of the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel, RVs and buses must obtain a special pass and can only drive through the tunnel during limited hours.[45]
The more primitive sections of Zion include the Kolob Terrace and the Kolob Canyons. Acer Aspire 4735 Keyboard
The Grotto in Zion Canyon, the Visitor Center, and the viewpoint at the end of Kolob Canyons Road have the only designated picnic sites.[7]
Popular hiking trails include The Narrows, The Subway, Angels Landing, and Kolob Arch.
Seven popular trails with round-trip times of half an hour (Weeping Rock) to 4 hours (Angels Landing) are found in Zion Canyon.[46] Two popular trails, Taylor Creek (4 hours round trip) and Kolob Arch (8 hours round trip), are in the Kolob Canyons section of the park, near Cedar City.[46]
Hiking up into The Narrows (Zion National Park) from the Temple of Sinawava is popular in summer. However, hiking beyond Big Springs requires a permit. Gateway MT6706 Keyboard
The entire Narrows from Chamberlain’s Ranch is a 16 mile one way trip that typically takes 12 hours of strenuous hiking.[47] A shorter alternative is to enter the Narrows via Orderville Canyon. Both Orderville and the full Narrows require a back country permit. Entrance to the Parunuweap Canyon section of the park downstream of Labyrinth Falls is prohibited. Other often-used backcountry trails include the West Rim and LaVerkin Creek.[48]
The final ascent at the Top of the Angels Landing Trail HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
Zion is a center for rock climbing,[49] with short walls like Touchstone, Moonlight Buttress, Spaceshot, and Prodigal Son being very popular.[50]
Lodging in the park is available at Zion Lodge, located halfway through Zion Canyon. Zion Lodge is open year-round and has motel units and cabins, as well as a restaurant, café, and gift shop, but rooms fill up fast. Three campgrounds are available: South and Watchman at the far southern side of the park, and a primitive site at Lava Point in the middle of the park off Kolob Terrace Road.[51] Watchman is the only campground in the park that takes reservations. Sony VAIO VGN-FS750P Keyboard
Lava Point has only primitive facilities and is usually open from June to October.[51] Overnight camping in the backcountry requires permits.[52]
Entrance to the Subway from the bottom
Guided horseback riding trips, nature walks, and evening programs are available from late March to early November.[53] The Junior Ranger Program for ages 6 to 12 is active from Memorial Day to Labor Day at the Zion Nature Center.[54] Toshiba Satellite A55-S1063 Keyboard
Rangers at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center and the smaller Kolob Canyons Visitor Center can help visitors plan their stay. A bookstore attached to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, run by the Zion Natural History Association, offers books, maps, and souvenirs for sale, with proceeds benefiting the park.[55]
Adjacent to the park on the south is the town of Springdale, Utah, which offers services such as lodging, food, and entertainment. HP 640436-001 Keyboard
Zion Canyon IMAX in Springdale offers many interesting documentaries about the natural history of Zion Canyon and the American Southwest. Lodging, food, and entertainment are also offered on the east side of the park along the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway and in Mount Carmel Junction.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service. Sony VGN-FE41E Keyboard
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Geological Survey.
1.^ "Listing of acreage as of December 31, 2011". Land Resource Division, National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-03-08.
2.^ "Five Year Annual Recreation Visits Report". Public Use Statistic Office, National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-03-08. Toshiba Satellite L755-S5242BN Keyboard
3.^ a b c d e f Tufts 1998, p. 45
4.^ Rothman, Hal (1989). Preserving Different Pasts: The American National Monuments. University of Illinois Press. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-252-01548-9.
5.^ Tufts 1998, p. 43Acer KB.I170A.083 Keyboard
6.^ NPS website, How to get here
7.^ a b NPS website, Accessibility
8.^ Harris 1997, p. 33
9.^ a b c d e f g h i j Harris 1997, p. 29
10.^ Alexander, Charles P (January 1948). "Records and Descriptions of North American Crane-Flies (Diptera). Part VII. The Tipuloidea of Utah".Acer Aspire 5739G Keyboard
American Midland Naturalist (The University of Notre Dame) 39 (1): 1–82. doi:10.2307/2421428. JSTOR 2421428.
11.^ NPS website, Zion Narrows (archive)
12.^ NPS website, Freestanding Arches
13.^ a b c d e f NPS website, Weather and Climate
14.^ NPS website, History and CultureDell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
15.^ NPS website, Archeology (archive)
16.^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m NPS website, People
17.^ a b NPS website, Human History (archive)
18.^ a b c d Kiver 1999, p. 457
19.^ Arrington, Leonard J.. "Colonization of Utah". Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City, Utah: State of Utah. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
20.^ NPS contributors (Summer 2008). "Zion Map aToshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
nd Guide" (PDF). Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
21.^ a b c Powell, Allen Kent (1996). "Zion National Park". Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press. Retrieved on January 1, 2009.
22.^ a b USGS contributors. Stoffer, Phil. ed. Virgin River Canyons: HP Pavilion DV7-4061 Keyboard
Historic 3D Photographs of Powell Survey in the Zion National Park Area. Washington, D.C.: United States Geological Survey. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008. Retrieved January 18, 2009. (public domain text)
23.^ Albright, Horace M.; Schenck, Marian Albright; Utley, Robert M. (1999). "18 - Exploring a New World of Parks, 1917" (PDF). Dell 0PVDG3 Keyboard
Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Publishing. p. 243. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
24.^ "Appendix C" (pdf). Leave No Trace Principles. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service.
25.^ (PDF) Cape Royal Road. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. after 1968. p. 4. HAER AZ-40. Retrieved January 18, 2009. Acer Aspire 5738 Keyboard
Sunset at Lava Point Harris, Ann G.; Tuttle, Esther; Tuttle, Sherwood D. (1997). "2: Zion National Park, Southwest Utah". Geology of National Parks (5th ed.). Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing. pp. 28–42. ISBN 0-7872-5353-7.
Kiver, Eugene P.; Harris, David V. (1999). Geology of U.S. Parklands (5th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-33218-6.
Leach, Nicky (2007). Zion National Park: Sanctuary in the Desert (6th ed.). Mariposa, California: Sierra Press. ISBN 1-58071-020-4. HP Pavilion dv5-1210es Keyboard
NPS contributors. "Zion National Park, official website". Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. (public domain text)
Schneider, Stuart (2001). Kolob Canyons Road Guide. Zion Natural History Association. ISBN 0-915630-28-1.
Tufts, Lorraine Salem (1998). Secrets in The Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks (3rd ed.). North Palm Beach, Florida: National Photographic Collections. ISBN 0-9620255-3-4. SamsungNP-N145-JP01 Keyboard
Woodbury, Angus M. (July–October 1944). A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks. XII. Utah State Historical Society.
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Remote sensing is the science of obtaining information about Earth features from measurements made at a distance. Remotely sensed data comes in many forms, such as satellite imagery, aerial photography, and data obtained from hand-held sensors. Geographers increasingly use remotely sensed data to obtain information about the Earth's land surface, Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
ocean, and atmosphere, because it: a) supplies objective information at a variety of spatial scales (local to global), b) provides a synoptic view of the area of interest, c) allows access to distant and inaccessible sites, d) provides spectral information outside the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and e) facilitates studies of how features/areas change over time. Remotely sensed data may be analyzed either independently of, or in conjunction with other digital data layers (e.g., in a Acer Aspire 9300-5349 Keyboard
Geostatistics deal with quantitative data analysis, specifically the application of statistical methodology to the exploration of geographic phenomena. Geostatistics is used extensively in a variety of fields, including hydrology, geology, petroleum exploration, weather analysis, urban planning, logistics, and epidemiology. The mathematical basis for geostatistics derives from cluster analysis, linear discriminant analysis and non-parametric statistical tests, and a variety of other subjects. Applications of geostatistics Sony VAIO VGN-SZ260P Keyboard
rely heavily on geographic information systems, particularly for the interpolation (estimate) of unmeasured points. Geographers are making notable contributions to the method of quantitative techniques.
Qualitative methods
Main article: Ethnography
Geographic qualitative methods, or ethnographical research techniques, are used by human geographers. In cultural geography there is a tradition Sony VAIO VGN-CS13G/P Keyboard
of employing qualitative research techniques, also used in anthropology and sociology. Participant observation and in-depth interviews provide human geographers with qualitative data.
The oldest known world maps date back to ancient Babylon from the 9th century BC.[10] The best known Babylonian world map, however, is the Imago Mundi of 600 BC.[11] The map as reconstructed by Eckhard Unger shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by a circular landmass showing Assyria, Urartu[12] and several cities, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4049 Keyboard
in turn surrounded by a "bitter river" (Oceanus), with seven islands arranged around it so as to form a seven-pointed star. The accompanying text mentions seven outer regions beyond the encircling ocean. The descriptions of five of them have survived.[13] In contrast to the Imago Mundi, an earlier Babylonian world map dating back to the 9th century BC depicted Babylon as being further north from the center of the world, though it is not certain what that center was supposed to represent.[10] Sony 147963021 Keyboard
The ideas of Anaximander (c. 610 BC-c. 545 BC): considered by later Greek writers to be the true founder of geography, come to us through fragments quoted by his successors. Anaximander is credited with the invention of the gnomon, the simple, yet efficient Greek instrument that allowed the early measurement of latitude. Thales is also credited with the prediction of eclipses. The foundations of geography can be traced to the ancient cultures, Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
such as the ancient, medieval, and early modern Chinese. The Greeks, who were the first to explore geography as both art and science, achieved this through Cartography, Philosophy, and Literature, or through Mathematics. There is some debate about who was the first person to assert that the Earth is spherical in shape, with the credit going either to Parmenides or Pythagoras. Anaxagoras was able to demonstrate that the profile of the Earth was circular by explaining eclipses. However, he still believed that the Earth was a flat disk, as did many of his contemporaries. One of the first estimates of the radius of the Earth was made by Eratosthenes.[14] Gateway M-6834 Keyboard
The first rigorous system of latitude and longitude lines is credited to Hipparchus. He employed a sexagesimal system that was derived from Babylonian mathematics. The parallels and meridians were sub-divided into 360°, with each degree further subdivided 60′ (minutes). To measure the longitude at different location on Earth, he suggested using eclipses to determine the relative difference in time.[15] The extensive mapping by the Romans as they explored new lands would later provide a high level of information for Ptolemy to construct detailed atlases. He extended the work of Hipparchus, using a grid system on his maps and adopting a length of 56.5 miles for a degree.[16] HP Pavilion G6-1104AX Keyboard
From the 3rd century onwards, Chinese methods of geographical study and writing of geographical literature became much more complex than what was found in Europe at the time (until the 13th century).[17] Chinese geographers such as Liu An, Pei Xiu, Jia Dan, Shen Kuo, Fan Chengda, Zhou Daguan, and Xu Xiake wrote important treatises, yet by the 17th century advanced ideas and methods of Western-style geography were adopted in China.
The Ptolemy world map, reconstituted from Ptolemy's Geographia, written c. 150. HP Pavilion dv3-2050es Keyboard
During the Middle Ages, the fall of the Roman empire led to a shift in the evolution of geography from Europe to the Islamic world.[17] Muslim geographers such as Muhammad al-Idrisi produced detailed world maps (such as Tabula Rogeriana), while other geographers such as Yaqut al-Hamawi, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Ibn Battuta, and Ibn Khaldun provided detailed accounts of their journeys and the geography of the regions they visited. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
Turkish geographer, Mahmud al-Kashgari drew a world map on a linguistic basis, and later so did Piri Reis (Piri Reis map). Further, Islamic scholars translated and interpreted the earlier works of the Romans and the Greeks and established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad for this purpose.[18] Abū Zayd al-Balkhī, originally from Balkh, founded the "Balkhī school" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad.[19] Suhrāb, a late tenth century Muslim geographer accompanied a book of geographical coordinates, with instructions for making a rectangular world map with equirectangular projection or cylindrical equidistant projection.[19][verification needed] Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
Abu Rayhan Biruni (976-1048) first described a polar equi-azimuthal equidistant projection of the celestial sphere.[20][verification needed] He was regarded as the most skilled when it came to mapping cities and measuring the distances between them, which he did for many cities in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. He often combined astronomical readings and mathematical equations, in order to develop methods of pin-pointing locations by recording degrees of latitude and longitude. He also developed similar techniques when it came to measuring the heights of mountains, depths of the valleys, Asus A3E Keyboard
and expanse of the horizon. He also discussed human geography and the planetary habitability of the Earth. He also calculated the latitude of Kath, Khwarezm, using the maximum altitude of the Sun, and solved a complex geodesic equation in order to accurately compute the Earth's circumference, which were close to modern values of the Earth's circumference.[21] His estimate of 6,339.9 km for the Earth radius was only 16.8 km less than the modern value of 6,356.7 km. In contrast to his predecessors, who measured the Earth's circumference byHP Pavilion dv6-2127el Keyboard
sighting the Sun simultaneously from two different locations, al-Biruni developed a new method of using trigonometric calculations, based on the angle between a plain and mountain top, which yielded more accurate measurements of the Earth's circumference, and made it possible for it to be measured by a single person from a single location.[22][verification needed]
Self portrait of Alexander von Humboldt, one of the early pioneers of geography
The European Age of Discovery during the 16th and the 17th centuries, where many new lands were discovered and accounts by European explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Asus F3Sv Keyboard
Marco Polo, and James Cook revived a desire for both accurate geographic detail, and more solid theoretical foundations in Europe. The problem facing both explorers and geographers was finding the latitude and longitude of a geographic location. The problem of latitude was solved long ago but that of longitude remained; agreeing on what zero meridian should be was only part of the problem. It was left to John Harrison to solve it by inventing the chronometer H-4 in 1760, and later in 1884 for the International Meridian Conference to adopt by convention the Greenwich meridian as zero meridian.[23] Acer PK1301K0200 Keyboard
The 18th and the 19th centuries were the times when geography became recognized as a discrete academic discipline, and became part of a typical university curriculum in Europe (especially Paris and Berlin). The development of many geographic societies also occurred during the 19th century, with the foundations of the Société de Géographie in 1821,[24] the Royal Geographical Society in 1830,[25] Russian Geographical Society in 1845,[26] Acer TravelMate 3010 Keyboard
American Geographical Society in 1851,[27] and the National Geographic Society in 1888.[28] The influence of Immanuel Kant, Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, and Paul Vidal de la Blache can be seen as a major turning point in geography from a philosophy to an academic subject.
Over the past two centuries, the advancements in technology with computers have led to the development of geomatics. and new practices such as participant observation and geostatistics being incorporated into geography's portfolio of tools. In the West during the 20th century, Dell 9J.N9182.001 Keyboard
the discipline of geography went through four major phases: environmental determinism, regional geography, the quantitative revolution, and critical geography. The strong interdisciplinary links between geography and the sciences of geology and botany, as well as economics, sociology and demographics have also grown greatly, especially as a result of Earth System Science that seeks to understand the world in a holistic view. Toshiba Satellite 2805-s201 Keyboard
Southwestern United States
Southwestern United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Regional definitions vary from source to source. New Mexico and Arizona (in dark red) are almost always considered the core, modern-day Southwest. The striped states may or may not be considered to be part of the same region. With the exception of Texas and Oklahoma (offset in blue) -- which are counted as part of the South -- the Southwestern states are also classified as West by the U.S. Census Bureau. California is often excluded from all definitions of the The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The areas in the United States that were originally part of Mexico (white, dark brown). HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
The Southwestern United States (also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest[1]) is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Narrowly defined, the "core" Southwest is centered around the Four Corner states, with parts of the other states making up the beginnings and endings of the Southwest. The five main southwestern states; Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada are also all considered part of the Mountain West, as well as the southwest. The total population of these states is roughly 19 million people. HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
Most of it was a part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in the Spanish Empire, during the Modern Era. California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Kansas were originally all part of Mexico before the Mexican-American War. Portions of some of the areas in the "divided" states, and including western parts of Texas, were those in dispute after the Texas Revolution. Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard
Panoramic view of the southwestern United States.
Geographer Uriah D. W. Meinig defines the core of the Southwest as the portion of New Mexico west of the Llano Estacado and the portion of Arizona east of the Mohave-Sonoran Desert and south of the "canyonlands", and also including the El Paso district of western Texas and the southernmost part of Colorado.[2] He identifies four distinct subregions with this core. He calls the first subregion "Northern New Mexico", and describes it as focused on Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It extends from the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado to south of Socorro and including the Manzano Mountains, with an east-west breadth[3] in the north stretching from the upper Canadian River to the upper San Juan River. The area around Albuquerque is sometimes called Central New Mexico. Sony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W Keyboard
"Central Arizona" is a vast metropolitan area spread across one contiguous sprawling oasis, essentially equivalent to the Phoenix metropolitan area. The city of Phoenix is the largest urban center, and located in the approximate center of the area which includesTempe, Mesa, and many others.[4]
Meinig calls the third subregion "El Paso, Tucson, and the Southern Borderlands".HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard While El Paso and Tucson are distinctly different cities they share a similar and somewhat overlapping hinterland between them. Tucson occupies a large oasis at the western end of the El Paso-Tucson corridor. The region between the two cities is a major transportation trunk with settlements servicing both highway and railway needs. There are also large mining operations, ranches, and agricultural oases. Both El Paso and Tucson have large military installations nearby; Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range north of El Paso, and, near Tucson, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Sony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard About 70 miles (110 km) to the southeast are the research facilities at Fort Huachuca. These military installations form a kind of hinterland around the El Paso-Tucson region, and are served by scientific and residential communities such as Sierra Vista, Las Cruces, and Alamogordo. El Paso's influence extends north into the Mesilla Valley, and southeast along the Rio Grande into
elicate Arch at Arches National Park
The fourth subregion Meinig calls the "Northern Corridor and Navaholands". A major highway and railway trunk connects Albuquerque and Flagstaff. Just north of the transportation trunk are large blocks of Native American land.[6] Sony VAIO VGN-FS810 Keyboard
Four Corners Monument, often considered the heart of the American Southwest
Phoenix, Tucson, and Las Vegas dominate the western most metropolitan areas in the southwest region, while, Albuquerque, Denver, Colorado Springs, and El Paso dominate the eastern most metropolitan areas of the southwest, not including Northern, Central, and Eastern Texas, and Oklahoma, because they are not always considered part of the southwest. Reno and Salt Lake City also dominate the northernmost metropolitan areas of the southwest. Sony VAIO VGN-FS295XP KeyboardThus the basic spatial structure of the Southwest can be seen as focused on the largest metropolitan areas in each state such as Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and El Paso. Also, the Four Corners of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico is often considered to be the center, or heart, of the American Southwest.[7]
Main articles: History of New Mexico, History of Arizona, History of Utah, History of Nevada, History of California, History of Colorado, History of Oklahoma, and History of Texas
The European colonization of the Americans, New Spain, later to become Mexico was dominant until the 19th century. With Manifest Destiny, United States gradually gained control over the west. Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard Pro-Confederate Texas and Pro-Union Utah were important at this point, although California rapidly became the main western power. Utahns moved west into Nevada and Northern California, whereas Texans moved into New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Parts of New Mexico and Arizona were briefly a Confederate territory, then were transformed into a Union territory, then Union state. Arizona's original government and military were similar to those Texas at the time had. Arizona, in the form of the Gadsden Purchase also has connections to the Republic of Sonora. The Southwestern states take up roughly one third of the United States. Sony VAIO VGN-CS16G/W Keyboard
The Cliff Palace dwellings at Mesa Verde
There were a very large population of Native American tribes in the southwestern states, as well as all of America. Some of the larger and more popular tribes of Native Americans in the southwest were the Ute, Navajo, Apache, Comanche, Paiute, Hopi, and the Anasazi. The Ute formally ruled over most of modern day Utah and Colorado, as well as small parts of northern New Mexico. The Navajo had ruled over much of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah at one point as well. Apache tribes had once ruled over many lands in the southwest. 04W0872Such as, most of New Mexico, eastern Arizona, and parts of southwest Texas. The Jicarilla tribe of Apache also ruled well into southern and southeastern Colorado as well. The Comanche ruled many lands in the southwest as well. Their historic range consisted of present day eastern New Mexico, southern and southeastern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, and most all of west and northwest Texas. The Paiute people were another very large Nativer American civilization. Dell PVDG3 KeyboardThey controlled most all of present day Nevada, western Utah, and northern Arizona. Some of the oldest evidence of Native Americans in the southwest are from the Hopi and the Anasazi people. The Hopi controlled most all of what is modern day Arizona at one point. On the other hand, the Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo peoples) controlled much of the southwest as well. Their ancient territory consisted of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, southeastern Utah, and all of southern Colorado. Some of the more known evidence of the ancient pueblo peoples can be found at Chaco National Park in New Mexico, and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Compaq Presario CQ50-115NR Keyboard
[edit] Origins of the term and historical/cultural variations
The term "Southwest" originally referred to a "major subregion" of the American South, literally being the western frontier of the larger region. This "Old Southwest" of the 19th century included, at varying points in time, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Louisiana. After its revolution and statehood, Texas became considered part of this designation. However, as territories and eventual states to the west were added after the Mexican War, the geographical "Southwest" expanded and the relationship of these new acquisitions to the South itself became "increasingly unclear."[8] HP Pavilion dv5-1225et Keyboard
Texas has long been the focal point of this dichotomy, and is often considered as such to be the "core area" of "the South's Southwest".[8] While the Trans-Pecos area is generally acknowledged to be part of the "desert Southwest"[9] most of Texas and large parts of Oklahoma are often placed into a sub-region of the South, which some consider Southwestern in the general framework of the original application, meaning the "Western South." 04W0872 This is an area containing the basic elements of Southern history, culture, politics, religion, and linguistic and settlement patterns, yet blended with traits of the frontier West. While this particular Southwest is notably different in many ways from the classic "Old South" or Southeast, these features are strong enough to give it a separate Southwestern identity quite different in nature from that of the Interior Southwestern states to the west. Acer Aspire 5710Z Keyboard
One of these distinguishing characteristics in Texas—in addition to being a Confederate state during the Civil War—is that Native and Spanish American culture never played a central role in the development of this area in relative comparrison to the others, as the vast majority of settlers were anglo and blacks from the South.[10] Although the present day state of Oklahoma was Indian Territory until the early 20th Century, many of these Native-Americans were from the southeastern United States and became culturally assimilated early on. Dell UW739 Keyboard
The majority of members of these tribes also allied themselves with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Combined with that once the territory was open for settlement, it was southeastern pioneers which made up a disporportionate number of these newcomers, all lent to the new state having a different character than other parts of the Southwest which also contained a large Indian population.[10]
The fact that a majority of residents of Texas and Oklahoma—unlike those in the other Southwestern states—self-identify as living in the South and considering themselves Southerners, rather than the West and Westerners, also lends to treating these two states as a somewhat distinct and separate entity in terms of regional classification.[11] Sony VGN-FE880E/H Keyboard
The High Plains in Eastern New Mexico, but also located in Eastern Colorado and West Texas.
Vegetation of the Southwest generally includes various types of yucca, along with saguaro cactus, barrel cactus, prickly pear cactus, desert spoon, creosote bush, sagebrush, and greasewood. Although, cacti is thought to only grow in Arizona and New Mexico, many native cacti is grown all throughout Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and West Texas as well. Also, small cacti does grow in Utah and Colorado. These examples (except the saguaro), can be seen growing natively and in large numbers more east throughout the Texas Hill Country and South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. Toshiba NSK-T4N01 KeyboardHowever, none of the vegetation discussed grows natively the further east than the eastern outskirts of Fort Worth. Dallas and Houston, for example, share a smiliar terrain with states further east and are often considered to be more of the American South. In the far eastern parts of the southwest, prairies and grasslands are found all over. These prairies and grasslands are usually located in Eastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, and large areas in West Texas. Steppe is also located all over the high plains areas in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. The mountains of the southwestern states have large alpine trees. Toshiba Satellite L750D-ST5NX1 Keyboard
Landscape features of the core Southwestern areas usually include mountains, mesas, high broad basins, plateaus, desert lands, and some plains. The High Plains region of the Great Plains are also located in the American Southwest. Eastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, and West Texas all have high plains, and rolling land. The entire Southwestern region features semi-arid to arid terrain. The far eastern part of the Southwest in Texas, for example the Texas Hill Country, consists of dry, tall and rugged rocky hills of limestone and granite. Toshiba Tecra M10-ST9110 KeyboardSouth Texas and the Rio Grande Valley is mostly flat with many places consisting of scrub and bare topsoil, much like the deserts further west. Buttes are also located all over the southwestern states. Utah tends to have the most natural buttes, but they do form as far east as some parts of Central Texas.
Desert bighorn sheep
There is a wide variety of wildlife in the Southwestern United States. Bighorn sheep, bobcat, coyote, bear, jackrabbit, cottontail rabbit, mule deer, white-tailed deer, gray fox, mountain lion, river otter, porcupine, pronghorn, raccoon, armadillo, Mexican wolf, and gray wolf can be found in all states across the southwest. HP Pavilion G6-1122TU Keyboard American bison and prairie dogs can be found in the southwest states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Elk in the southwest are usually only found in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. White-nosed coati and collared peccary in the southwest are normally found in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Snakes are also found all over the southwestern United States. Rattlesnakes are found throughout the southwest. Coral snakes can be found in Arizona and New Mexico.
Sonoran Desert terrain near Tucson 04W0872
The Southwestern United States features a semi-arid to arid climate, depending on the location. Much of the southwest is an arid desert climate, but higher elevations in the mountains in each state, with the exception of West Texas, feature alpine climates with very large amounts of snow. The metropolitan areas of Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and El Paso hardly ever receive any snow at all, as they are strictly desert lands with mountains. However, the metro areas of Reno, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Colorado Springs can receive significant snowfalls. Compaq Presario CQ57-404TU KeyboardAlbuquerque falls at an in between, receiving less snow than other cities, but still receive significant snowfalls in the winter time. Although it snows in this region, the snow in this part of the United States melts rapidly, often before nightfall. This is due mainly to the higher altitude and abundant sunshine in these states.
Nevada and Arizona are both generally arid with desert lands and mountains, and receive large amounts of snow in the higher elevations in and near the mountains. New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado are generally arid, with desert lands and mountains as well. Toshiba Satellite L775-S7307 KeyboardColorado and New Mexico do have high plains in the far eastern portions of their state. They all receive decent amounts of snow, and large amounts of snow in the high elevations in the mountains. Although some areas in far southwestern and southern New Mexico do not receive much snow at all. West Texas is generally arid as well, but does not receive the same amount of snow that the other southwestern states receive at their high elevations. The terrain of the West Texas region in the southwest is flat rolling land of the plains, which eventually turns into a desert with some hills, and there are HP Pavilion DV7-3067nr Keyboard
The term "High Desert" is also synonymous with this region. The High Desert is generally defined as the Mojave Desert (which extends into southern Nevada), and the Great Basin Desert. The Great Basin Desert is defined as the desert lands in Nevada, Western Utah, as well as Southeastern Oregon and Southern Idaho. The High Desert also extends into other parts of the Northwest, such as the Red Desert is Southwestern Wyoming. The High Desert is much different than the general desert lands found in Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert. Sony VAIO VGN-FZ490 KeyboardThis area of the desert land generally sits at a very high elevation, much higher than the normal desert land, and can receive very cold temperatures at night in the winter (with the exception of California and southern Nevada), sometimes near zero degrees on very cold nights. The High Desert also receives a decent amount of snowfall in the winter (with the exception of California and southern Nevada), but melts very quickly.
Monument Canyon, some of the high desert lands found in Colorado Toshiba Satellite L40-17U Keyboard
Other areas of the southwest may also be referred to as the "High Desert", such as the Colorado Plateau. The desert lands found in Eastern Utah, Northern Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico are usually referred to as the high desert. Eastern Utah has a huge mass of desert land, which sits at a high elevation, and is sometimes referred to as the "High Desert" as well. Colorado has scattered desert lands found in southern, southwestern, western, and the northwestern parts of the state. Toshiba Satellite M645-S4047 Keyboard
These scattered desert lands are located in and around areas such as, the Roan Plateau, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado National Monument, Royal Gorge, Cortez, Dove Creek, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Four Corners Monument, Montrose, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Pueblo, San Luis Valley, and the Great Sand Dunes. Besides the Chihuahuan Desert lands in southwestern and southern New Mexico, they also have scattered desert lands in the northwestern and northern portions of their state which is referred to as the high desert.
The Great Sand Dunes Toshiba Satellite M645 Keyboard
The Southwestern United States have many national monuments and parks located in the region. Some of the more famous monuments and parks in the southwest are the Grand Canyon National Park, Navajo National Monument, Four Corners Monument, Colorado National Monument, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Arches National Park, Red Rock Canyon, Big Bend National Park, and the White Sands National Monument. Toshiba Satellite M645-SP4010M Keyboard
In Utah there are also many other monuments and parks such as, Nine Mile Canyon, Mexican Hat, Bryce Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Zion National Park, Arches National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument (also in Colorado), Monument Valley (also in Arizona), Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, and the Timpanogos Cave National Monument. HP Pavilion dv5-1235dx Keyboard
In Arizona there is the Agua Fria National Monument, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Chiricahua National Monument, Ironwood Forest National Monument, Montezuma Castle National Monument, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Petrified Forest National Park, Pipe Spring National Monument, Saguaro National Park, Sonoran Desert National Monument, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Tonto National Monument, Tumacacori National Historical Park, Tuzigoot National Monument, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Walnut Canyon National Monument, and the Wupatki National Monument. HP Pavilion dm1-1020er Keyboard
In Colorado there is the Arapaho National Recreation Area, Mesa Verde National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Dinosaur National Monument (small parts also in Utah), Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Rocky Mountain National Park, Royal Gorge, Grand Mesa, Garden of the Gods, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Glenwood Canyon, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Yucca House National Monument, and Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site.
In New Mexico there is also the Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Capulin Volcano National Monument, Compaq Presario CQ50-139WM Keyboard
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, El Malpais National Monument, El Morro National Monument, Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Pecos National Historical Park, Petroglyph National Monument, and the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
In the West Texas part of the southwest, there is the Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, Fort Davis National Historic Site, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, and the Amistad National Recreation Area. Toshiba Satellite L775-S7307 Keyboard
In Nevada there is the Great Basin National Park, Death Valley National Park, and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Denver, the second largest metropolitan area in the Southwest
Salt Lake City, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Southwest
The Southwest is ethnically varied, Toshiba Satellite U305-S7432 Keyboard
with significant Anglo American and Hispanic American populations in addition to more regional African American, Asian American, and Native American populations.
Hispanic Americans (mostly Mexican Americans with large populations of Spanish Americans) can be found in large numbers in every major city in the southwest, Toshiba PK130BH2A00 Keyboard
such as Phoenix (43%), Tucson (41%), Las Vegas (32%), Reno (22%), Denver (32%), Colorado Springs (16%), El Paso (80%), Albuquerque (47%), Provo (15.2%) and Salt Lake City (22%). San Antonio (61%), Austin (35%), Fort Worth (34%), Dallas (43%), and Houston (44%) have large Latino populations as well, but are not always considered part of the Southwest, and are often grouped more with the American South.
Very large Hispanic American populations can also be found in the smaller cities such as, Flagstaff (18%), Yuma (55%), Mesa (27%),Toshiba KFRSBA064A Keyboard
Las Cruces (56%), Santa Fe (48%), Farmington (22%), Roswell (51%), Alamogordo (32%), Pueblo (48%), Greeley (35%), Longmont (25%), Brighton (41%), Carson City (20%), Amarillo (27%), Lubbock (31%), Midland (37%), and Odessa (47%). Many small towns throughout the southwestern states also have significantly large Latino populations.
The largest African American populations in the southwest can be found in Denver (10%), Colorado Springs (7%), Las Vegas (10%), and Phoenix (5%). The Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston areas both have very large African American populations, although those parts of Texas are not usually considered to be part of the southwestern United States. Sony VAIO VGN NR385E/T Keyboard
The largest Asian American populations in the southwest can be found in Nevada and Utah, with some other significant Asian populations in Denver and Phoenix. The most significant Native Americans populations can be found in New Mexico and Arizona.
[edit] Cities and urban areas
The area also contains many of the nation's largest cities and metropolitan areas, despite relatively low population density in rural areas. Acer Aspire 5810TZ-4274 Keyboard
Phoenix is among the top ten most populous cities in the country, and Reno, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, and Salt Lake City[12] are some of the fastest-growing cities in America. Also, the region as a whole has witnessed some of the highest population growth in the United States; HP Pavilion DV9000 Keyboard
and according to the U.S. Census bureau, in 2008–2009, Utah was the fastest growing state in America. As of the 2010 Census, Nevada was the fastest growing state in the United States, with an increase of 35.1% in the last ten years. Additionally, Arizona (24.6%), Utah (23.8%), Texas (20.6%), and Colorado (16.9%) were all in the top ten fastest growing states as well.[13]
Zion Canyon as seen from the top of Angels Landing at sunset
Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to half a mile (800 m) deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest elevation is 3,666 ft (1,117 m) at Coalpits Wash and the highest elevation is 8,726 ft (2,660 m) at Horse Ranch Mountain. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park's unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5067 Keyboard
Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.
Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans; the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Anasazi (300 CE) stem from one of these groups. Sony VGN-FE21M Keyboard
In turn, the Virgin Anasazi culture (500 CE) developed as the Basketmakers settled in permanent communities.[3] A different group, the Parowan Fremont, lived in the area as well. Both groups moved away by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes. Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. In 1909, U.S. President William Howard Taft named the area a National Monument to protect the canyon, under the name of Mukuntuweap National Monument. SamsungN140 Keyboard
In 1918, however, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service changed the park's name to Zion. According to historian Hal Rothman, "The name change played to a prevalent bias of the time. Many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it. The new name, Zion, had greater appeal to an ethnocentric audience." [4] The United States Congress established the monument as a National Park on November 19, 1919. Sony 81-31205001-03 Keyboard
The Kolob section was proclaimed a separate Zion National Monument in 1937, but was incorporated into the park in 1956.
The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes 9 formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that time warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts, and dry near-shore environments covered the area. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateaus lifted the region 10,000 feet (3,000 m) starting 13 million years ago.[5] Acer 9Z.N3K82.01D Keyboard
Zion Canyon near the park entrance
The park is located in southwestern Utah in Washington, Iron, and Kane counties. Geomorphically, it is located on the Markagunt and Kolob plateaus, at the intersection of three North American geographic provinces: the Colorado Plateaus, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. The northern part of the park is known as the Kolob Canyons section and is accessible from Interstate 15, exit 40.[6] Dell Latitude E6410 Keyboard
The 8,726-foot (2,660 m) summit of Horse Ranch Mountain (photo) is the highest point in the park; the lowest point is the 3,666-foot (1,117 m) elevation of Coal Pits Wash, creating a relief of about 5,100 feet (1,600 m).[7]
Streams in the area take rectangular paths because they follow jointing planes in the rocks.[8] The stream gradient of the Virgin River, whose North Fork flows through Zion Canyon in the park, ranges from 50 to 80 feet (15 to 24 m) per mile (0.9–1.5%)—one of the steepest stream gradients
View from the end of the Riverside Trail HP Probook 4325s Keyboard
The road into Zion Canyon is 6 miles (9.7 km) long, ending at the Temple of Sinawava ("Sinawava" refers to the Coyote God of the Paiute Indians).[10] At the Temple the canyon narrows and a foot-trail continues to the mouth of the Zion Narrows, a gorge as narrow as 20 feet (6 m) wide and up to 2,000 feet (610 m) tall.[11] The Zion Canyon road is served by a free shuttle bus from early April to late October and by private vehicles the other months of the year. Other roads in Zion are open to private vehicles year-round. Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912A Keyboard
The east side of the park is served by the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway, which passes through the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel and ends at Mount Carmel Junction, Utah. On the east side of the park notable
The Kolob Terrace area west of Zion Canyon features The Subway, a slot canyon hike, and Lava Point, with a panoramic view of the entire area. The Kolob Canyons section, further west near Cedar City, features one of the world's longest arches, Kolob Arch.[12] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
Spring weather is unpredictable, with stormy, wet days being common, mixed with occasional warm, sunny weather. Precipitation is heaviest in March.[13] Spring wildflowers bloom from April through June, peaking in May. Fall days are usually clear and mild; nights are often cool. Summer days are hot (95 °F to 110 °F; 35 °C to 43 °C), but overnight lows are usually comfortable (65 °F to 70 °F; 18 °C to 21 °C).[13] Afternoon thunderstorms are common from mid-July through mid-September.[13] Storms may produce waterfalls as well as flash floods. Acer TravelMate 292ELMi Keyboard
Autumn tree-color displays begin in September in the high country; inside Zion Canyon, autumn colors usually peak in late October. Winter in Zion Canyon is fairly mild. Winter storms bring rain or light snow to Zion Canyon and heavier snow to the higher elevations. Clear days may become quite warm, reaching 60 °F (16 °C); nights are often 20 °F (−7 °C) to 40 °F (4 °C) .[13] Winter storms can last several days and make roads icy. Zion roads are plowed, except the Kolob Terrace Road which is closed when covered with snow.[13] Winter driving conditions last from November through March.[13] Acer Aspire 5310 Keyboard
Notable geographical features of the park include: Virgin River Narrows, Emerald Pools (photo), Hidden Canyon (photo), Angels Landing (photo), The Great White Throne, Checkerboard Mesa (photo), The Three Patriarchs (photo) and Kolob Arch.
Archaeologists have divided the long span of Zion's human history into three cultural periods: the Archaic, Protohistoric and Historic periods. Each period is characterized by distinctive technological and social adaptations. Toshiba Satellite L355 Keyboard
The first human presence in the region dates to 8,000 years ago when family groups camped where they could hunt or collect plants and seeds.[14] About 2,000 years ago, some groups began growing corn and other crops, leading to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.[15] Later groups in this period built permanent villages called pueblos. Archaeologists call this the Archaic period and it lasted until about 500 CE.[16] Baskets, cordage nets, and yucca fiber sandals have been found and dated to this period. The Archaic toolkits included flaked stone knives, HP Pavilion G6S Series Keyboard
drills, and stemmed dart points. The dart points were attached to wooden shafts and propelled by throwing devices called atlatls.[16]
By 300 CE some of the archaic groups developed into an early branch of seminomadic Anasazi, the Basketmakers.[16] Basketmaker sites have grass- or stone-lined storage cists and shallow, partially underground dwellings called pithouses. They were hunters and gatherers who supplemented their diet with limited agriculture. Locally collected pine nuts were important for
Kaun huts were used by Southern Paiute HP Mini 210-1068TU Keyboard
Both the Virgin Anasazi and the Parowan Fremont disappear from the archaeological record of southwestern Utah by about 1300.[16] Extended droughts in the 11th and 12th centuries, interspersed with catastrophic flooding, may have made horticulture impossible in this arid region.[16] Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
Tradition and archaeological evidence hold that their replacements were Numic-speaking cousins of the Virgin Anasazi, such as the Southern Paiute and Ute.[16] The newcomers migrated on a seasonal basis up and down valleys in search of wild seeds and game animals.[17] Some, particularly the Southern Paiute, also planted fields of corn, sunflowers, and squash to supplement their diet.[17] These more sedentary groups made brownware vessels that were used for storage and cooking.[16] HP Pavilion dv5-1120en Keyboard
[edit] Exploration and settlement by Euro-Americans
The Historic period begins in the late 18th century[16] with the exploration of southern Utah by Padres Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez. The padres passed near what is now the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center on October 13, 1776, becoming the first people of European descent known to visit the area.[18] In 1825, trapper and trader Jedediah Smith explored some of the downstream areas while under contract with the American Fur Company.[18] Acer TravelMate 2403 Series Keyboard
In 1847, Mormon farmers from the Salt Lake area became the first people of European descent to settle the Virgin River region.[9] In 1851, the Parowan and Cedar City, Utah areas were settled by Mormons who used the Kolob Canyons area for timber, and for grazing cattle, sheep, and horses.[19] They prospected for mineral deposits, and diverted Kolob water to irrigate crops in the valley below. Mormon settlers named the area Kolob—in Mormon scripture, the heavenly place nearest the residence of God.[20] HP Pavilion G6-1215TX Keyboard
A ranch located near the mouth of Zion Canyon.
Settlements had expanded 30 miles (48 km) south to the lower Virgin River by 1858.[9] That year, a Southern Paiute guide led young Mormon missionary and interpreter Nephi Johnson into the upper Virgin River area and Zion Canyon.[18] Johnson wrote a favorable report about the agricultural potential of the upper Virgin River basin, and returned later that year to found the town of Virgin. In 1861 or 1862, Joseph Black made the arduous journey to Zion Canyon and was very impressed by its beauty.[3] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
The floor of Zion Canyon was settled in 1863 by Isaac Behunin, who farmed corn, tobacco, and fruit trees.[3] The Behunin family lived in Zion Canyon near the site of today's Zion Lodge during the summer, and wintered in Springdale. Behunin is credited with naming Zion, a reference to a place of peace mentioned in the Bible.[3] Two more families settled Zion Canyon in the next couple of years, bringing with them cattle and other domesticated animals. The canyon floor was farmed until Zion became a Monument in 1909.[9] 63Y0047
The Powell Geographic Expedition entered the area in 1869 after their first trip through the Grand Canyon.[9] John Wesley Powell visited Zion Canyon in 1872 and named it Mukuntuweap, under the impression that that was the Paiute name.[21] Powell Survey photographers John K. Hillers and James Fennemore first visited the Zion Canyon and Kolob Plateau region in the spring of 1872.[9] Hillers returned in April 1873 to add more photographs to the "Virgin River Series" of photographs and stereographs.[22] Hillers described wading the canyon for four days and nearly
Painting of Zion Canyon by Frederick Dellenbaugh (1903) Sony VAIO VPC-F12 Keyboard
Paintings of the canyon by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh were exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904,[9] followed by a glowing article in Scribner's Magazine the next year. That, along with previously created photographs, paintings, and reports, led to U.S. President William Howard Taft's proclamation on July 31, 1909 that created Mukuntuweap National Monument.[18] In 1917, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service visited the canyon and proposed changing its name to Zion from the locally unpopular Mukuntuweap.[23] Dell 0J483C Keyboard
The United States Congress added more land and established Zion National Park on November 19, 1919.[3] A separate Zion National Monument, the Kolob Canyons area, was proclaimed on January 22, 1937, and was incorporated into the park on July 11, 1956.[24]
Travel to the area before it was a national park was rare due to its remote location, lack of accommodations, and the absence of real roads in southern Utah. Old wagon roads were upgraded to the first automobile roads starting about 1910, and the road into Zion Canyon was built in 1917, to as far as The Grotto.[16] Gateway MX7000 Keyboard
1938 poster of Zion National Park
Touring cars could reach Zion Canyon by the summer of 1917.[16] The first visitor lodging in Zion Canyon, called Wylie Camp, was established that same year as a tent camp.[16] The Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, acquired Wylie Camp in 1923, and offered ten-day rail/bus tours to Zion, nearby Bryce Canyon, Kaibab, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.[25] The Zion Lodge complex was built in 1925 at the site of the Wylie tent camp.[16] Architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed Zion Lodge (photo) in the "Rustic Style" and the Utah Parks Company funded the construction.[16] Sony VAIO VPC-F12 Keyboard
Work on the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway started in 1927 to enable reliable access between Springdale and the east side of the park.[3] The road opened in 1930 and park visitation and travel in the area greatly increased.[26] The most famous feature of the highway is the 1.1-mile (1.8 km) Zion - Mt. Carmel Tunnel, which has six large windows cut through the massive sandstone cliff.[9] Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
In 1896, local rancher John Winder improved the Native American footpath up Echo Canyon, which later became the East Rim Trail.[27] Entrepreneur David Flanigan used this trail in 1900 to build cableworks that lowered lumber into Zion Canyon from Cable Mountain. More than 200,000 board feet (470 m3) of lumber were lowered by 1906.[27] The auto road was extended to the Temple of Sinawava, and a trail built from there 1 mile (2 km) to the start of the Narrows.[28] Angel's Landing Trail was constructed in 1926 and two suspension bridges were built over the Virgin River.[21] Other trails were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s.[21] Toshiba Satellite L40-13C Keyboard
Zion Canyon from the trail to Observation Point
Zion Canyon Scenic Drive provides access to Zion Canyon. Traffic congestion in the narrow canyon was recognized as a major problem in the 1990s and a public transportation system using propane-powered shuttle buses was instituted in the year 2000.[29] As part of its shuttle fleet, Zion has two electric trams each holding up to 36 passengers.[30] From April through October, the scenic drive in Zion Canyon is closed to private vehicles and visitors ride the shuttle buses.[29]
On April 12, 1995, heavy rains tDell PVDG3 Keyboard
riggered a landslide that blocked the Virgin River in Zion Canyon.[31] Over a period of two hours, the river carved away part of the only exit road from the canyon, trapping 450 guests and employees in the Zion Lodge.[31] A one-lane temporary road was constructed within 24 hours to allow evacuation of the Lodge.[31] A more stable—albeit temporary—road was completed on May 25, 1995 to allow summer visitors to access the park.[31] This road was replaced with a permanent road during the first half of 1996.[31] Ideapad G470
The Zion–Mount Carmel Highway can be traveled year-round. Access for over-sized vehicles requires a special permit, and is limited to daytime hours, as traffic through the tunnel must be one way to accommodate large vehicles. The 5-mile (8.0 km)-long Kolob Canyons Road was built to provide access to the Kolob Canyons section of the park.[32] This road often closes in the winter. HP Pavilion dv5-1010el Keyboard
In March 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which designated and further protected 124,406 acres (503.5 km2) of park land as the Zion Wilderness.
Virgin River after a snowstorm
[edit] Geology
Main article: Geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons areaIBM 42T3638 Keyboard
The Three Patriarchs in Zion Canyon are made of Navajo Sandstone.
The nine known exposed geologic formations in Zion National Park are part of a super-sequence of rock units called the Grand Staircase. Together, these formations represent about 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in that part of North America. The formations exposed in the Zion area were deposited as sediment in very different environments: Dell Vostro V3350 Keyboard
The warm, shallow (sometimes advancing or retreating) sea of the Kaibab and Moenkopi formations;
Streams, ponds, and lakes of the Chinle, Moenave, and Kayenta formations;
The vast desert of the Navajo and Temple Cap formations; and
The dry near-shore environment of the Carmel Formation.
The Kolob Canyons are a set of finger canyons cut into the Kolob Plateau. Acer Extensa 5235 Keyboard
Uplift affected the entire region, known as the Colorado Plateaus, by slowly raising these formations more than 10,000 feet (3,000 m) higher than where they were deposited.[33] This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral Virgin and other rivers on the plateau.
The faster-moving streams took advantage of uplift-created joints in the rocks. Eventually, all Cenozoic-aged formations were removed and gorges were cut into the plateaus. Zion Canyon was cut by the North Fork of the Virgin River in this way. During the later part of this process, lava flows and cinder cones covered parts of the area.[34] Acer Aspire 7736ZG Keyboard
High water volume in wet seasons does most of the downcutting in the main canyon. These flood events are responsible for transporting most of the 3 million short tons (2.7 million metric tons) of rock and sediment that the Virgin River transports yearly.[9] The Virgin cuts away its canyon faster than its tributaries can cut away their own streambeds, so tributaries end in waterfalls from hanging valleys where they meet the Virgin.[9] The valley between the peaks of the Twin Brothers is a notable example of a hanging valley in the canyon.
Table of formations exposed in Zion National Park[35] Sony VGN-FE21M Keyboard
Shale, loose clay and conglomerate
Taylor Creek with Horse Ranch Mountain in background. Desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest habitats are all visible.
The Great Basin, Mojave Desert, and Colorado Plateau converge at Zion and the Kolob canyons.[36] This, along with the varied topography of canyon–mesa country, differing soil types, and uneven water availability, provides diverse habitat for the equally diverse mix of plants and animals that live in the area. The park is home to 289 bird, 79 mammals, 28 reptiles, 7 fish, and 6 amphibian species.[37] These organisms make their homes in one or more of four life zones found in the Park: desert, riparian, woodland, and Coniferous forest.[38] Sony VAIO VGN-FS750P Keyboard
Desert conditions persist on canyon bottoms and rocky ledges away from perennial streams. Sagebrush, Prickly pear Cactus, and Rabbitbrush, along with Sacred Datura and Indian Paintbrush, are common.[39] Utah Penstemon and Golden Aster can also be found.[40] Milkvetch and Prince's Plume are found in pockets of selenium-rich soils.[38]
Sacred Datura grows on the canyon floor and blooms at night. Compaq Presario CQ57-310 Keyboard
Common daytime animals include Mule Deer, Rock Squirrels, Pinyon Jays, and Whiptail and Collared lizards (photo). Desert Cottontails,[41] Jackrabbits, and Merriam's Kangaroo Rats come out at night. Cougars, Coyotes, Gray Foxes, and Ring-tail Cats are the top predators.[41]
Cooler conditions persist at mid-elevation slopes, from 3,900 to 5,500 feet (1,200 to 1,700 m).[38] Stunted forests of pinyon pine and Juniper coexist here with manzanita shrubs, cliffrose, serviceberry, Scrub Oak, and yucca.[38] Stands of Ponderosa Pine, Gambel Oak, manzanita and aspen populate the mesas and cliffs above 6,000 feet (1,800 m).[38] Asus A4000 Keyboard
Golden Eagles, Red-tailed Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, and White-throated Swifts can be seen in the area.[42] California Condors and Bighorn Sheep were introduced in the 1990s. Nineteen species of bat also live in the area.[43]
Boxelder, Fremont Cottonwood, maple, and willow dominate riparian plant communities.[38] Animals such as Bank Beavers, Flannel-mouth Suckers, Gnatcatchers, Dippers, Canyon Wrens, the Virgin Spinedace, and Water Striders all make their homes in the riparian zones.[44] Gateway M6805 Keyboard
Zion Canyon
Driving through the east side of Zion to U.S. Route 89 allows access to Bryce Canyon National Park in the north or to the north rim of the Grand Canyon in the south. Due to the narrowness of the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel, RVs and buses must obtain a special pass and can only drive through the tunnel during limited hours.[45]
The more primitive sections of Zion include the Kolob Terrace and the Kolob Canyons. Acer Aspire 4735 Keyboard
The Grotto in Zion Canyon, the Visitor Center, and the viewpoint at the end of Kolob Canyons Road have the only designated picnic sites.[7]
Popular hiking trails include The Narrows, The Subway, Angels Landing, and Kolob Arch.
Seven popular trails with round-trip times of half an hour (Weeping Rock) to 4 hours (Angels Landing) are found in Zion Canyon.[46] Two popular trails, Taylor Creek (4 hours round trip) and Kolob Arch (8 hours round trip), are in the Kolob Canyons section of the park, near Cedar City.[46]
Hiking up into The Narrows (Zion National Park) from the Temple of Sinawava is popular in summer. However, hiking beyond Big Springs requires a permit. Gateway MT6706 Keyboard
The entire Narrows from Chamberlain’s Ranch is a 16 mile one way trip that typically takes 12 hours of strenuous hiking.[47] A shorter alternative is to enter the Narrows via Orderville Canyon. Both Orderville and the full Narrows require a back country permit. Entrance to the Parunuweap Canyon section of the park downstream of Labyrinth Falls is prohibited. Other often-used backcountry trails include the West Rim and LaVerkin Creek.[48]
The final ascent at the Top of the Angels Landing Trail HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
Zion is a center for rock climbing,[49] with short walls like Touchstone, Moonlight Buttress, Spaceshot, and Prodigal Son being very popular.[50]
Lodging in the park is available at Zion Lodge, located halfway through Zion Canyon. Zion Lodge is open year-round and has motel units and cabins, as well as a restaurant, café, and gift shop, but rooms fill up fast. Three campgrounds are available: South and Watchman at the far southern side of the park, and a primitive site at Lava Point in the middle of the park off Kolob Terrace Road.[51] Watchman is the only campground in the park that takes reservations. Sony VAIO VGN-FS750P Keyboard
Lava Point has only primitive facilities and is usually open from June to October.[51] Overnight camping in the backcountry requires permits.[52]
Entrance to the Subway from the bottom
Guided horseback riding trips, nature walks, and evening programs are available from late March to early November.[53] The Junior Ranger Program for ages 6 to 12 is active from Memorial Day to Labor Day at the Zion Nature Center.[54] Toshiba Satellite A55-S1063 Keyboard
Rangers at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center and the smaller Kolob Canyons Visitor Center can help visitors plan their stay. A bookstore attached to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, run by the Zion Natural History Association, offers books, maps, and souvenirs for sale, with proceeds benefiting the park.[55]
Adjacent to the park on the south is the town of Springdale, Utah, which offers services such as lodging, food, and entertainment. HP 640436-001 Keyboard
Zion Canyon IMAX in Springdale offers many interesting documentaries about the natural history of Zion Canyon and the American Southwest. Lodging, food, and entertainment are also offered on the east side of the park along the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway and in Mount Carmel Junction.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service. Sony VGN-FE41E Keyboard
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Geological Survey.
1.^ "Listing of acreage as of December 31, 2011". Land Resource Division, National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-03-08.
2.^ "Five Year Annual Recreation Visits Report". Public Use Statistic Office, National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-03-08. Toshiba Satellite L755-S5242BN Keyboard
3.^ a b c d e f Tufts 1998, p. 45
4.^ Rothman, Hal (1989). Preserving Different Pasts: The American National Monuments. University of Illinois Press. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-252-01548-9.
5.^ Tufts 1998, p. 43Acer KB.I170A.083 Keyboard
6.^ NPS website, How to get here
7.^ a b NPS website, Accessibility
8.^ Harris 1997, p. 33
9.^ a b c d e f g h i j Harris 1997, p. 29
10.^ Alexander, Charles P (January 1948). "Records and Descriptions of North American Crane-Flies (Diptera). Part VII. The Tipuloidea of Utah".Acer Aspire 5739G Keyboard
American Midland Naturalist (The University of Notre Dame) 39 (1): 1–82. doi:10.2307/2421428. JSTOR 2421428.
11.^ NPS website, Zion Narrows (archive)
12.^ NPS website, Freestanding Arches
13.^ a b c d e f NPS website, Weather and Climate
14.^ NPS website, History and CultureDell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
15.^ NPS website, Archeology (archive)
16.^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m NPS website, People
17.^ a b NPS website, Human History (archive)
18.^ a b c d Kiver 1999, p. 457
19.^ Arrington, Leonard J.. "Colonization of Utah". Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City, Utah: State of Utah. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
20.^ NPS contributors (Summer 2008). "Zion Map aToshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
nd Guide" (PDF). Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
21.^ a b c Powell, Allen Kent (1996). "Zion National Park". Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press. Retrieved on January 1, 2009.
22.^ a b USGS contributors. Stoffer, Phil. ed. Virgin River Canyons: HP Pavilion DV7-4061 Keyboard
Historic 3D Photographs of Powell Survey in the Zion National Park Area. Washington, D.C.: United States Geological Survey. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008. Retrieved January 18, 2009. (public domain text)
23.^ Albright, Horace M.; Schenck, Marian Albright; Utley, Robert M. (1999). "18 - Exploring a New World of Parks, 1917" (PDF). Dell 0PVDG3 Keyboard
Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Publishing. p. 243. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
24.^ "Appendix C" (pdf). Leave No Trace Principles. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service.
25.^ (PDF) Cape Royal Road. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. after 1968. p. 4. HAER AZ-40. Retrieved January 18, 2009. Acer Aspire 5738 Keyboard
Sunset at Lava Point Harris, Ann G.; Tuttle, Esther; Tuttle, Sherwood D. (1997). "2: Zion National Park, Southwest Utah". Geology of National Parks (5th ed.). Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing. pp. 28–42. ISBN 0-7872-5353-7.
Kiver, Eugene P.; Harris, David V. (1999). Geology of U.S. Parklands (5th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-33218-6.
Leach, Nicky (2007). Zion National Park: Sanctuary in the Desert (6th ed.). Mariposa, California: Sierra Press. ISBN 1-58071-020-4. HP Pavilion dv5-1210es Keyboard
NPS contributors. "Zion National Park, official website". Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. (public domain text)
Schneider, Stuart (2001). Kolob Canyons Road Guide. Zion Natural History Association. ISBN 0-915630-28-1.
Tufts, Lorraine Salem (1998). Secrets in The Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks (3rd ed.). North Palm Beach, Florida: National Photographic Collections. ISBN 0-9620255-3-4. SamsungNP-N145-JP01 Keyboard
Woodbury, Angus M. (July–October 1944). A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks. XII. Utah State Historical Society.
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Geomatics is a branch of geography that has emerged since the quantitative revolution in geography in the mid 1950s. Geomatics involves the use of traditional spatial techniques used in cartography and topography and their application to computers. Geomatics has become a widespread field with many other disciplines, using techniques such as GIS and remote sensing. Geomatics has also led to a revitalization of some geography departments, especially in Northern America where the subject had a declining status during the 1950s. IBM 42T3737 Keyboard
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They must learn geodesy and fairly advanced mathematics to understand how the shape of the Earth affects the distortion of map symbols projected onto a flat surface for viewing. It can be said, without much controversy, that cartography is the seed from which the larger field of geography grew. Most geographers will cite a childhood fascination with maps as an early sign they would end up in the field.
Geographic information systems (GIS) deal with the storage of information about the Earth for automatic retrieval by a computer, Sony VAIO VGN-N325E Keyboard
in an accurate manner appropriate to the information's purpose. In addition to all of the other subdisciplines of geography, GIS specialists must understand computer science and database systems. GIS has revolutionized the field of cartography: nearly all mapmaking is now done with the assistance of some form of GIS software. GIS also refers to the science of using GIS software and GIS techniques to represent, analyze, and predict the spatial relationships. In this context, GIS stands for Geographic Information Science. Sony VGN-FE39VP Keyboard
Remote sensing is the science of obtaining information about Earth features from measurements made at a distance. Remotely sensed data comes in many forms, such as satellite imagery, aerial photography, and data obtained from hand-held sensors. Geographers increasingly use remotely sensed data to obtain information about the Earth's land surface, Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
ocean, and atmosphere, because it: a) supplies objective information at a variety of spatial scales (local to global), b) provides a synoptic view of the area of interest, c) allows access to distant and inaccessible sites, d) provides spectral information outside the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and e) facilitates studies of how features/areas change over time. Remotely sensed data may be analyzed either independently of, or in conjunction with other digital data layers (e.g., in a Acer Aspire 9300-5349 Keyboard
Geostatistics deal with quantitative data analysis, specifically the application of statistical methodology to the exploration of geographic phenomena. Geostatistics is used extensively in a variety of fields, including hydrology, geology, petroleum exploration, weather analysis, urban planning, logistics, and epidemiology. The mathematical basis for geostatistics derives from cluster analysis, linear discriminant analysis and non-parametric statistical tests, and a variety of other subjects. Applications of geostatistics Sony VAIO VGN-SZ260P Keyboard
rely heavily on geographic information systems, particularly for the interpolation (estimate) of unmeasured points. Geographers are making notable contributions to the method of quantitative techniques.
Qualitative methods
Main article: Ethnography
Geographic qualitative methods, or ethnographical research techniques, are used by human geographers. In cultural geography there is a tradition Sony VAIO VGN-CS13G/P Keyboard
of employing qualitative research techniques, also used in anthropology and sociology. Participant observation and in-depth interviews provide human geographers with qualitative data.
The oldest known world maps date back to ancient Babylon from the 9th century BC.[10] The best known Babylonian world map, however, is the Imago Mundi of 600 BC.[11] The map as reconstructed by Eckhard Unger shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by a circular landmass showing Assyria, Urartu[12] and several cities, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4049 Keyboard
in turn surrounded by a "bitter river" (Oceanus), with seven islands arranged around it so as to form a seven-pointed star. The accompanying text mentions seven outer regions beyond the encircling ocean. The descriptions of five of them have survived.[13] In contrast to the Imago Mundi, an earlier Babylonian world map dating back to the 9th century BC depicted Babylon as being further north from the center of the world, though it is not certain what that center was supposed to represent.[10] Sony 147963021 Keyboard
The ideas of Anaximander (c. 610 BC-c. 545 BC): considered by later Greek writers to be the true founder of geography, come to us through fragments quoted by his successors. Anaximander is credited with the invention of the gnomon, the simple, yet efficient Greek instrument that allowed the early measurement of latitude. Thales is also credited with the prediction of eclipses. The foundations of geography can be traced to the ancient cultures, Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
such as the ancient, medieval, and early modern Chinese. The Greeks, who were the first to explore geography as both art and science, achieved this through Cartography, Philosophy, and Literature, or through Mathematics. There is some debate about who was the first person to assert that the Earth is spherical in shape, with the credit going either to Parmenides or Pythagoras. Anaxagoras was able to demonstrate that the profile of the Earth was circular by explaining eclipses. However, he still believed that the Earth was a flat disk, as did many of his contemporaries. One of the first estimates of the radius of the Earth was made by Eratosthenes.[14] Gateway M-6834 Keyboard
The first rigorous system of latitude and longitude lines is credited to Hipparchus. He employed a sexagesimal system that was derived from Babylonian mathematics. The parallels and meridians were sub-divided into 360°, with each degree further subdivided 60′ (minutes). To measure the longitude at different location on Earth, he suggested using eclipses to determine the relative difference in time.[15] The extensive mapping by the Romans as they explored new lands would later provide a high level of information for Ptolemy to construct detailed atlases. He extended the work of Hipparchus, using a grid system on his maps and adopting a length of 56.5 miles for a degree.[16] HP Pavilion G6-1104AX Keyboard
From the 3rd century onwards, Chinese methods of geographical study and writing of geographical literature became much more complex than what was found in Europe at the time (until the 13th century).[17] Chinese geographers such as Liu An, Pei Xiu, Jia Dan, Shen Kuo, Fan Chengda, Zhou Daguan, and Xu Xiake wrote important treatises, yet by the 17th century advanced ideas and methods of Western-style geography were adopted in China.
The Ptolemy world map, reconstituted from Ptolemy's Geographia, written c. 150. HP Pavilion dv3-2050es Keyboard
During the Middle Ages, the fall of the Roman empire led to a shift in the evolution of geography from Europe to the Islamic world.[17] Muslim geographers such as Muhammad al-Idrisi produced detailed world maps (such as Tabula Rogeriana), while other geographers such as Yaqut al-Hamawi, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Ibn Battuta, and Ibn Khaldun provided detailed accounts of their journeys and the geography of the regions they visited. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
Turkish geographer, Mahmud al-Kashgari drew a world map on a linguistic basis, and later so did Piri Reis (Piri Reis map). Further, Islamic scholars translated and interpreted the earlier works of the Romans and the Greeks and established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad for this purpose.[18] Abū Zayd al-Balkhī, originally from Balkh, founded the "Balkhī school" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad.[19] Suhrāb, a late tenth century Muslim geographer accompanied a book of geographical coordinates, with instructions for making a rectangular world map with equirectangular projection or cylindrical equidistant projection.[19][verification needed] Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
Abu Rayhan Biruni (976-1048) first described a polar equi-azimuthal equidistant projection of the celestial sphere.[20][verification needed] He was regarded as the most skilled when it came to mapping cities and measuring the distances between them, which he did for many cities in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. He often combined astronomical readings and mathematical equations, in order to develop methods of pin-pointing locations by recording degrees of latitude and longitude. He also developed similar techniques when it came to measuring the heights of mountains, depths of the valleys, Asus A3E Keyboard
and expanse of the horizon. He also discussed human geography and the planetary habitability of the Earth. He also calculated the latitude of Kath, Khwarezm, using the maximum altitude of the Sun, and solved a complex geodesic equation in order to accurately compute the Earth's circumference, which were close to modern values of the Earth's circumference.[21] His estimate of 6,339.9 km for the Earth radius was only 16.8 km less than the modern value of 6,356.7 km. In contrast to his predecessors, who measured the Earth's circumference byHP Pavilion dv6-2127el Keyboard
sighting the Sun simultaneously from two different locations, al-Biruni developed a new method of using trigonometric calculations, based on the angle between a plain and mountain top, which yielded more accurate measurements of the Earth's circumference, and made it possible for it to be measured by a single person from a single location.[22][verification needed]
Self portrait of Alexander von Humboldt, one of the early pioneers of geography
The European Age of Discovery during the 16th and the 17th centuries, where many new lands were discovered and accounts by European explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Asus F3Sv Keyboard
Marco Polo, and James Cook revived a desire for both accurate geographic detail, and more solid theoretical foundations in Europe. The problem facing both explorers and geographers was finding the latitude and longitude of a geographic location. The problem of latitude was solved long ago but that of longitude remained; agreeing on what zero meridian should be was only part of the problem. It was left to John Harrison to solve it by inventing the chronometer H-4 in 1760, and later in 1884 for the International Meridian Conference to adopt by convention the Greenwich meridian as zero meridian.[23] Acer PK1301K0200 Keyboard
The 18th and the 19th centuries were the times when geography became recognized as a discrete academic discipline, and became part of a typical university curriculum in Europe (especially Paris and Berlin). The development of many geographic societies also occurred during the 19th century, with the foundations of the Société de Géographie in 1821,[24] the Royal Geographical Society in 1830,[25] Russian Geographical Society in 1845,[26] Acer TravelMate 3010 Keyboard
American Geographical Society in 1851,[27] and the National Geographic Society in 1888.[28] The influence of Immanuel Kant, Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, and Paul Vidal de la Blache can be seen as a major turning point in geography from a philosophy to an academic subject.
Over the past two centuries, the advancements in technology with computers have led to the development of geomatics. and new practices such as participant observation and geostatistics being incorporated into geography's portfolio of tools. In the West during the 20th century, Dell 9J.N9182.001 Keyboard
the discipline of geography went through four major phases: environmental determinism, regional geography, the quantitative revolution, and critical geography. The strong interdisciplinary links between geography and the sciences of geology and botany, as well as economics, sociology and demographics have also grown greatly, especially as a result of Earth System Science that seeks to understand the world in a holistic view. Toshiba Satellite 2805-s201 Keyboard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Regional definitions vary from source to source. New Mexico and Arizona (in dark red) are almost always considered the core, modern-day Southwest. The striped states may or may not be considered to be part of the same region. With the exception of Texas and Oklahoma (offset in blue) -- which are counted as part of the South -- the Southwestern states are also classified as West by the U.S. Census Bureau. California is often excluded from all definitions of the The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The areas in the United States that were originally part of Mexico (white, dark brown). HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
The Southwestern United States (also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest[1]) is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Narrowly defined, the "core" Southwest is centered around the Four Corner states, with parts of the other states making up the beginnings and endings of the Southwest. The five main southwestern states; Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada are also all considered part of the Mountain West, as well as the southwest. The total population of these states is roughly 19 million people. HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard
Most of it was a part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, in the Spanish Empire, during the Modern Era. California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Kansas were originally all part of Mexico before the Mexican-American War. Portions of some of the areas in the "divided" states, and including western parts of Texas, were those in dispute after the Texas Revolution. Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard
Panoramic view of the southwestern United States.
Geographer Uriah D. W. Meinig defines the core of the Southwest as the portion of New Mexico west of the Llano Estacado and the portion of Arizona east of the Mohave-Sonoran Desert and south of the "canyonlands", and also including the El Paso district of western Texas and the southernmost part of Colorado.[2] He identifies four distinct subregions with this core. He calls the first subregion "Northern New Mexico", and describes it as focused on Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It extends from the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado to south of Socorro and including the Manzano Mountains, with an east-west breadth[3] in the north stretching from the upper Canadian River to the upper San Juan River. The area around Albuquerque is sometimes called Central New Mexico. Sony VAIO VGN-NW71FB/W Keyboard
"Central Arizona" is a vast metropolitan area spread across one contiguous sprawling oasis, essentially equivalent to the Phoenix metropolitan area. The city of Phoenix is the largest urban center, and located in the approximate center of the area which includesTempe, Mesa, and many others.[4]
Meinig calls the third subregion "El Paso, Tucson, and the Southern Borderlands".HP Pavilion DV7-3173nr Keyboard While El Paso and Tucson are distinctly different cities they share a similar and somewhat overlapping hinterland between them. Tucson occupies a large oasis at the western end of the El Paso-Tucson corridor. The region between the two cities is a major transportation trunk with settlements servicing both highway and railway needs. There are also large mining operations, ranches, and agricultural oases. Both El Paso and Tucson have large military installations nearby; Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range north of El Paso, and, near Tucson, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Sony VAIO VGN-NW130J Keyboard About 70 miles (110 km) to the southeast are the research facilities at Fort Huachuca. These military installations form a kind of hinterland around the El Paso-Tucson region, and are served by scientific and residential communities such as Sierra Vista, Las Cruces, and Alamogordo. El Paso's influence extends north into the Mesilla Valley, and southeast along the Rio Grande into
elicate Arch at Arches National Park
The fourth subregion Meinig calls the "Northern Corridor and Navaholands". A major highway and railway trunk connects Albuquerque and Flagstaff. Just north of the transportation trunk are large blocks of Native American land.[6] Sony VAIO VGN-FS810 Keyboard
Four Corners Monument, often considered the heart of the American Southwest
Phoenix, Tucson, and Las Vegas dominate the western most metropolitan areas in the southwest region, while, Albuquerque, Denver, Colorado Springs, and El Paso dominate the eastern most metropolitan areas of the southwest, not including Northern, Central, and Eastern Texas, and Oklahoma, because they are not always considered part of the southwest. Reno and Salt Lake City also dominate the northernmost metropolitan areas of the southwest. Sony VAIO VGN-FS295XP KeyboardThus the basic spatial structure of the Southwest can be seen as focused on the largest metropolitan areas in each state such as Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and El Paso. Also, the Four Corners of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico is often considered to be the center, or heart, of the American Southwest.[7]
Main articles: History of New Mexico, History of Arizona, History of Utah, History of Nevada, History of California, History of Colorado, History of Oklahoma, and History of Texas
The European colonization of the Americans, New Spain, later to become Mexico was dominant until the 19th century. With Manifest Destiny, United States gradually gained control over the west. Toshiba V-0522BIAS1-US Keyboard Pro-Confederate Texas and Pro-Union Utah were important at this point, although California rapidly became the main western power. Utahns moved west into Nevada and Northern California, whereas Texans moved into New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Parts of New Mexico and Arizona were briefly a Confederate territory, then were transformed into a Union territory, then Union state. Arizona's original government and military were similar to those Texas at the time had. Arizona, in the form of the Gadsden Purchase also has connections to the Republic of Sonora. The Southwestern states take up roughly one third of the United States. Sony VAIO VGN-CS16G/W Keyboard
The Cliff Palace dwellings at Mesa Verde
There were a very large population of Native American tribes in the southwestern states, as well as all of America. Some of the larger and more popular tribes of Native Americans in the southwest were the Ute, Navajo, Apache, Comanche, Paiute, Hopi, and the Anasazi. The Ute formally ruled over most of modern day Utah and Colorado, as well as small parts of northern New Mexico. The Navajo had ruled over much of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah at one point as well. Apache tribes had once ruled over many lands in the southwest. 04W0872Such as, most of New Mexico, eastern Arizona, and parts of southwest Texas. The Jicarilla tribe of Apache also ruled well into southern and southeastern Colorado as well. The Comanche ruled many lands in the southwest as well. Their historic range consisted of present day eastern New Mexico, southern and southeastern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, and most all of west and northwest Texas. The Paiute people were another very large Nativer American civilization. Dell PVDG3 KeyboardThey controlled most all of present day Nevada, western Utah, and northern Arizona. Some of the oldest evidence of Native Americans in the southwest are from the Hopi and the Anasazi people. The Hopi controlled most all of what is modern day Arizona at one point. On the other hand, the Anasazi (Ancient Pueblo peoples) controlled much of the southwest as well. Their ancient territory consisted of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, southeastern Utah, and all of southern Colorado. Some of the more known evidence of the ancient pueblo peoples can be found at Chaco National Park in New Mexico, and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Compaq Presario CQ50-115NR Keyboard
[edit] Origins of the term and historical/cultural variations
The term "Southwest" originally referred to a "major subregion" of the American South, literally being the western frontier of the larger region. This "Old Southwest" of the 19th century included, at varying points in time, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Louisiana. After its revolution and statehood, Texas became considered part of this designation. However, as territories and eventual states to the west were added after the Mexican War, the geographical "Southwest" expanded and the relationship of these new acquisitions to the South itself became "increasingly unclear."[8] HP Pavilion dv5-1225et Keyboard
Texas has long been the focal point of this dichotomy, and is often considered as such to be the "core area" of "the South's Southwest".[8] While the Trans-Pecos area is generally acknowledged to be part of the "desert Southwest"[9] most of Texas and large parts of Oklahoma are often placed into a sub-region of the South, which some consider Southwestern in the general framework of the original application, meaning the "Western South." 04W0872 This is an area containing the basic elements of Southern history, culture, politics, religion, and linguistic and settlement patterns, yet blended with traits of the frontier West. While this particular Southwest is notably different in many ways from the classic "Old South" or Southeast, these features are strong enough to give it a separate Southwestern identity quite different in nature from that of the Interior Southwestern states to the west. Acer Aspire 5710Z Keyboard
One of these distinguishing characteristics in Texas—in addition to being a Confederate state during the Civil War—is that Native and Spanish American culture never played a central role in the development of this area in relative comparrison to the others, as the vast majority of settlers were anglo and blacks from the South.[10] Although the present day state of Oklahoma was Indian Territory until the early 20th Century, many of these Native-Americans were from the southeastern United States and became culturally assimilated early on. Dell UW739 Keyboard
The majority of members of these tribes also allied themselves with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Combined with that once the territory was open for settlement, it was southeastern pioneers which made up a disporportionate number of these newcomers, all lent to the new state having a different character than other parts of the Southwest which also contained a large Indian population.[10]
The fact that a majority of residents of Texas and Oklahoma—unlike those in the other Southwestern states—self-identify as living in the South and considering themselves Southerners, rather than the West and Westerners, also lends to treating these two states as a somewhat distinct and separate entity in terms of regional classification.[11] Sony VGN-FE880E/H Keyboard
The High Plains in Eastern New Mexico, but also located in Eastern Colorado and West Texas.
Vegetation of the Southwest generally includes various types of yucca, along with saguaro cactus, barrel cactus, prickly pear cactus, desert spoon, creosote bush, sagebrush, and greasewood. Although, cacti is thought to only grow in Arizona and New Mexico, many native cacti is grown all throughout Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and West Texas as well. Also, small cacti does grow in Utah and Colorado. These examples (except the saguaro), can be seen growing natively and in large numbers more east throughout the Texas Hill Country and South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. Toshiba NSK-T4N01 KeyboardHowever, none of the vegetation discussed grows natively the further east than the eastern outskirts of Fort Worth. Dallas and Houston, for example, share a smiliar terrain with states further east and are often considered to be more of the American South. In the far eastern parts of the southwest, prairies and grasslands are found all over. These prairies and grasslands are usually located in Eastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, and large areas in West Texas. Steppe is also located all over the high plains areas in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. The mountains of the southwestern states have large alpine trees. Toshiba Satellite L750D-ST5NX1 Keyboard
Landscape features of the core Southwestern areas usually include mountains, mesas, high broad basins, plateaus, desert lands, and some plains. The High Plains region of the Great Plains are also located in the American Southwest. Eastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, and West Texas all have high plains, and rolling land. The entire Southwestern region features semi-arid to arid terrain. The far eastern part of the Southwest in Texas, for example the Texas Hill Country, consists of dry, tall and rugged rocky hills of limestone and granite. Toshiba Tecra M10-ST9110 KeyboardSouth Texas and the Rio Grande Valley is mostly flat with many places consisting of scrub and bare topsoil, much like the deserts further west. Buttes are also located all over the southwestern states. Utah tends to have the most natural buttes, but they do form as far east as some parts of Central Texas.
Desert bighorn sheep
There is a wide variety of wildlife in the Southwestern United States. Bighorn sheep, bobcat, coyote, bear, jackrabbit, cottontail rabbit, mule deer, white-tailed deer, gray fox, mountain lion, river otter, porcupine, pronghorn, raccoon, armadillo, Mexican wolf, and gray wolf can be found in all states across the southwest. HP Pavilion G6-1122TU Keyboard American bison and prairie dogs can be found in the southwest states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Elk in the southwest are usually only found in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. White-nosed coati and collared peccary in the southwest are normally found in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Snakes are also found all over the southwestern United States. Rattlesnakes are found throughout the southwest. Coral snakes can be found in Arizona and New Mexico.
Sonoran Desert terrain near Tucson 04W0872
The Southwestern United States features a semi-arid to arid climate, depending on the location. Much of the southwest is an arid desert climate, but higher elevations in the mountains in each state, with the exception of West Texas, feature alpine climates with very large amounts of snow. The metropolitan areas of Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and El Paso hardly ever receive any snow at all, as they are strictly desert lands with mountains. However, the metro areas of Reno, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Colorado Springs can receive significant snowfalls. Compaq Presario CQ57-404TU KeyboardAlbuquerque falls at an in between, receiving less snow than other cities, but still receive significant snowfalls in the winter time. Although it snows in this region, the snow in this part of the United States melts rapidly, often before nightfall. This is due mainly to the higher altitude and abundant sunshine in these states.
Nevada and Arizona are both generally arid with desert lands and mountains, and receive large amounts of snow in the higher elevations in and near the mountains. New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado are generally arid, with desert lands and mountains as well. Toshiba Satellite L775-S7307 KeyboardColorado and New Mexico do have high plains in the far eastern portions of their state. They all receive decent amounts of snow, and large amounts of snow in the high elevations in the mountains. Although some areas in far southwestern and southern New Mexico do not receive much snow at all. West Texas is generally arid as well, but does not receive the same amount of snow that the other southwestern states receive at their high elevations. The terrain of the West Texas region in the southwest is flat rolling land of the plains, which eventually turns into a desert with some hills, and there are HP Pavilion DV7-3067nr Keyboard
The term "High Desert" is also synonymous with this region. The High Desert is generally defined as the Mojave Desert (which extends into southern Nevada), and the Great Basin Desert. The Great Basin Desert is defined as the desert lands in Nevada, Western Utah, as well as Southeastern Oregon and Southern Idaho. The High Desert also extends into other parts of the Northwest, such as the Red Desert is Southwestern Wyoming. The High Desert is much different than the general desert lands found in Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert. Sony VAIO VGN-FZ490 KeyboardThis area of the desert land generally sits at a very high elevation, much higher than the normal desert land, and can receive very cold temperatures at night in the winter (with the exception of California and southern Nevada), sometimes near zero degrees on very cold nights. The High Desert also receives a decent amount of snowfall in the winter (with the exception of California and southern Nevada), but melts very quickly.
Monument Canyon, some of the high desert lands found in Colorado Toshiba Satellite L40-17U Keyboard
Other areas of the southwest may also be referred to as the "High Desert", such as the Colorado Plateau. The desert lands found in Eastern Utah, Northern Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico are usually referred to as the high desert. Eastern Utah has a huge mass of desert land, which sits at a high elevation, and is sometimes referred to as the "High Desert" as well. Colorado has scattered desert lands found in southern, southwestern, western, and the northwestern parts of the state. Toshiba Satellite M645-S4047 Keyboard
These scattered desert lands are located in and around areas such as, the Roan Plateau, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado National Monument, Royal Gorge, Cortez, Dove Creek, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Four Corners Monument, Montrose, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Pueblo, San Luis Valley, and the Great Sand Dunes. Besides the Chihuahuan Desert lands in southwestern and southern New Mexico, they also have scattered desert lands in the northwestern and northern portions of their state which is referred to as the high desert.
The Great Sand Dunes Toshiba Satellite M645 Keyboard
The Southwestern United States have many national monuments and parks located in the region. Some of the more famous monuments and parks in the southwest are the Grand Canyon National Park, Navajo National Monument, Four Corners Monument, Colorado National Monument, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Arches National Park, Red Rock Canyon, Big Bend National Park, and the White Sands National Monument. Toshiba Satellite M645-SP4010M Keyboard
In Utah there are also many other monuments and parks such as, Nine Mile Canyon, Mexican Hat, Bryce Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Zion National Park, Arches National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument (also in Colorado), Monument Valley (also in Arizona), Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, and the Timpanogos Cave National Monument. HP Pavilion dv5-1235dx Keyboard
In Arizona there is the Agua Fria National Monument, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Chiricahua National Monument, Ironwood Forest National Monument, Montezuma Castle National Monument, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Petrified Forest National Park, Pipe Spring National Monument, Saguaro National Park, Sonoran Desert National Monument, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Tonto National Monument, Tumacacori National Historical Park, Tuzigoot National Monument, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Walnut Canyon National Monument, and the Wupatki National Monument. HP Pavilion dm1-1020er Keyboard
In Colorado there is the Arapaho National Recreation Area, Mesa Verde National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Dinosaur National Monument (small parts also in Utah), Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Rocky Mountain National Park, Royal Gorge, Grand Mesa, Garden of the Gods, Blue Mesa Reservoir, Glenwood Canyon, Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, Yucca House National Monument, and Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site.
In New Mexico there is also the Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Capulin Volcano National Monument, Compaq Presario CQ50-139WM Keyboard
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, El Malpais National Monument, El Morro National Monument, Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Pecos National Historical Park, Petroglyph National Monument, and the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
In the West Texas part of the southwest, there is the Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, Fort Davis National Historic Site, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, and the Amistad National Recreation Area. Toshiba Satellite L775-S7307 Keyboard
In Nevada there is the Great Basin National Park, Death Valley National Park, and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Denver, the second largest metropolitan area in the Southwest
Salt Lake City, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Southwest
The Southwest is ethnically varied, Toshiba Satellite U305-S7432 Keyboard
with significant Anglo American and Hispanic American populations in addition to more regional African American, Asian American, and Native American populations.
Hispanic Americans (mostly Mexican Americans with large populations of Spanish Americans) can be found in large numbers in every major city in the southwest, Toshiba PK130BH2A00 Keyboard
such as Phoenix (43%), Tucson (41%), Las Vegas (32%), Reno (22%), Denver (32%), Colorado Springs (16%), El Paso (80%), Albuquerque (47%), Provo (15.2%) and Salt Lake City (22%). San Antonio (61%), Austin (35%), Fort Worth (34%), Dallas (43%), and Houston (44%) have large Latino populations as well, but are not always considered part of the Southwest, and are often grouped more with the American South.
Very large Hispanic American populations can also be found in the smaller cities such as, Flagstaff (18%), Yuma (55%), Mesa (27%),Toshiba KFRSBA064A Keyboard
Las Cruces (56%), Santa Fe (48%), Farmington (22%), Roswell (51%), Alamogordo (32%), Pueblo (48%), Greeley (35%), Longmont (25%), Brighton (41%), Carson City (20%), Amarillo (27%), Lubbock (31%), Midland (37%), and Odessa (47%). Many small towns throughout the southwestern states also have significantly large Latino populations.
The largest African American populations in the southwest can be found in Denver (10%), Colorado Springs (7%), Las Vegas (10%), and Phoenix (5%). The Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston areas both have very large African American populations, although those parts of Texas are not usually considered to be part of the southwestern United States. Sony VAIO VGN NR385E/T Keyboard
The largest Asian American populations in the southwest can be found in Nevada and Utah, with some other significant Asian populations in Denver and Phoenix. The most significant Native Americans populations can be found in New Mexico and Arizona.
[edit] Cities and urban areas
The area also contains many of the nation's largest cities and metropolitan areas, despite relatively low population density in rural areas. Acer Aspire 5810TZ-4274 Keyboard
Phoenix is among the top ten most populous cities in the country, and Reno, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, and Salt Lake City[12] are some of the fastest-growing cities in America. Also, the region as a whole has witnessed some of the highest population growth in the United States; HP Pavilion DV9000 Keyboard
and according to the U.S. Census bureau, in 2008–2009, Utah was the fastest growing state in America. As of the 2010 Census, Nevada was the fastest growing state in the United States, with an increase of 35.1% in the last ten years. Additionally, Arizona (24.6%), Utah (23.8%), Texas (20.6%), and Colorado (16.9%) were all in the top ten fastest growing states as well.[13]
Zion Canyon as seen from the top of Angels Landing at sunset
Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to half a mile (800 m) deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest elevation is 3,666 ft (1,117 m) at Coalpits Wash and the highest elevation is 8,726 ft (2,660 m) at Horse Ranch Mountain. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park's unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5067 Keyboard
Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Zion National Park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.
Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans; the semi-nomadic Basketmaker Anasazi (300 CE) stem from one of these groups. Sony VGN-FE21M Keyboard
In turn, the Virgin Anasazi culture (500 CE) developed as the Basketmakers settled in permanent communities.[3] A different group, the Parowan Fremont, lived in the area as well. Both groups moved away by 1300 and were replaced by the Parrusits and several other Southern Paiute subtribes. Mormons came into the area in 1858 and settled there in the early 1860s. In 1909, U.S. President William Howard Taft named the area a National Monument to protect the canyon, under the name of Mukuntuweap National Monument. SamsungN140 Keyboard
In 1918, however, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service changed the park's name to Zion. According to historian Hal Rothman, "The name change played to a prevalent bias of the time. Many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it. The new name, Zion, had greater appeal to an ethnocentric audience." [4] The United States Congress established the monument as a National Park on November 19, 1919. Sony 81-31205001-03 Keyboard
The Kolob section was proclaimed a separate Zion National Monument in 1937, but was incorporated into the park in 1956.
The geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area includes 9 formations that together represent 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation. At various periods in that time warm, shallow seas, streams, ponds and lakes, vast deserts, and dry near-shore environments covered the area. Uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado Plateaus lifted the region 10,000 feet (3,000 m) starting 13 million years ago.[5] Acer 9Z.N3K82.01D Keyboard
Zion Canyon near the park entrance
The park is located in southwestern Utah in Washington, Iron, and Kane counties. Geomorphically, it is located on the Markagunt and Kolob plateaus, at the intersection of three North American geographic provinces: the Colorado Plateaus, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. The northern part of the park is known as the Kolob Canyons section and is accessible from Interstate 15, exit 40.[6] Dell Latitude E6410 Keyboard
The 8,726-foot (2,660 m) summit of Horse Ranch Mountain (photo) is the highest point in the park; the lowest point is the 3,666-foot (1,117 m) elevation of Coal Pits Wash, creating a relief of about 5,100 feet (1,600 m).[7]
Streams in the area take rectangular paths because they follow jointing planes in the rocks.[8] The stream gradient of the Virgin River, whose North Fork flows through Zion Canyon in the park, ranges from 50 to 80 feet (15 to 24 m) per mile (0.9–1.5%)—one of the steepest stream gradients
View from the end of the Riverside Trail HP Probook 4325s Keyboard
The road into Zion Canyon is 6 miles (9.7 km) long, ending at the Temple of Sinawava ("Sinawava" refers to the Coyote God of the Paiute Indians).[10] At the Temple the canyon narrows and a foot-trail continues to the mouth of the Zion Narrows, a gorge as narrow as 20 feet (6 m) wide and up to 2,000 feet (610 m) tall.[11] The Zion Canyon road is served by a free shuttle bus from early April to late October and by private vehicles the other months of the year. Other roads in Zion are open to private vehicles year-round. Toshiba Mini NB 200-SP2912A Keyboard
The east side of the park is served by the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway, which passes through the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel and ends at Mount Carmel Junction, Utah. On the east side of the park notable
The Kolob Terrace area west of Zion Canyon features The Subway, a slot canyon hike, and Lava Point, with a panoramic view of the entire area. The Kolob Canyons section, further west near Cedar City, features one of the world's longest arches, Kolob Arch.[12] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
Spring weather is unpredictable, with stormy, wet days being common, mixed with occasional warm, sunny weather. Precipitation is heaviest in March.[13] Spring wildflowers bloom from April through June, peaking in May. Fall days are usually clear and mild; nights are often cool. Summer days are hot (95 °F to 110 °F; 35 °C to 43 °C), but overnight lows are usually comfortable (65 °F to 70 °F; 18 °C to 21 °C).[13] Afternoon thunderstorms are common from mid-July through mid-September.[13] Storms may produce waterfalls as well as flash floods. Acer TravelMate 292ELMi Keyboard
Autumn tree-color displays begin in September in the high country; inside Zion Canyon, autumn colors usually peak in late October. Winter in Zion Canyon is fairly mild. Winter storms bring rain or light snow to Zion Canyon and heavier snow to the higher elevations. Clear days may become quite warm, reaching 60 °F (16 °C); nights are often 20 °F (−7 °C) to 40 °F (4 °C) .[13] Winter storms can last several days and make roads icy. Zion roads are plowed, except the Kolob Terrace Road which is closed when covered with snow.[13] Winter driving conditions last from November through March.[13] Acer Aspire 5310 Keyboard
Notable geographical features of the park include: Virgin River Narrows, Emerald Pools (photo), Hidden Canyon (photo), Angels Landing (photo), The Great White Throne, Checkerboard Mesa (photo), The Three Patriarchs (photo) and Kolob Arch.
Archaeologists have divided the long span of Zion's human history into three cultural periods: the Archaic, Protohistoric and Historic periods. Each period is characterized by distinctive technological and social adaptations. Toshiba Satellite L355 Keyboard
The first human presence in the region dates to 8,000 years ago when family groups camped where they could hunt or collect plants and seeds.[14] About 2,000 years ago, some groups began growing corn and other crops, leading to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.[15] Later groups in this period built permanent villages called pueblos. Archaeologists call this the Archaic period and it lasted until about 500 CE.[16] Baskets, cordage nets, and yucca fiber sandals have been found and dated to this period. The Archaic toolkits included flaked stone knives, HP Pavilion G6S Series Keyboard
drills, and stemmed dart points. The dart points were attached to wooden shafts and propelled by throwing devices called atlatls.[16]
By 300 CE some of the archaic groups developed into an early branch of seminomadic Anasazi, the Basketmakers.[16] Basketmaker sites have grass- or stone-lined storage cists and shallow, partially underground dwellings called pithouses. They were hunters and gatherers who supplemented their diet with limited agriculture. Locally collected pine nuts were important for
Kaun huts were used by Southern Paiute HP Mini 210-1068TU Keyboard
Both the Virgin Anasazi and the Parowan Fremont disappear from the archaeological record of southwestern Utah by about 1300.[16] Extended droughts in the 11th and 12th centuries, interspersed with catastrophic flooding, may have made horticulture impossible in this arid region.[16] Acer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
Tradition and archaeological evidence hold that their replacements were Numic-speaking cousins of the Virgin Anasazi, such as the Southern Paiute and Ute.[16] The newcomers migrated on a seasonal basis up and down valleys in search of wild seeds and game animals.[17] Some, particularly the Southern Paiute, also planted fields of corn, sunflowers, and squash to supplement their diet.[17] These more sedentary groups made brownware vessels that were used for storage and cooking.[16] HP Pavilion dv5-1120en Keyboard
[edit] Exploration and settlement by Euro-Americans
The Historic period begins in the late 18th century[16] with the exploration of southern Utah by Padres Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez. The padres passed near what is now the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center on October 13, 1776, becoming the first people of European descent known to visit the area.[18] In 1825, trapper and trader Jedediah Smith explored some of the downstream areas while under contract with the American Fur Company.[18] Acer TravelMate 2403 Series Keyboard
In 1847, Mormon farmers from the Salt Lake area became the first people of European descent to settle the Virgin River region.[9] In 1851, the Parowan and Cedar City, Utah areas were settled by Mormons who used the Kolob Canyons area for timber, and for grazing cattle, sheep, and horses.[19] They prospected for mineral deposits, and diverted Kolob water to irrigate crops in the valley below. Mormon settlers named the area Kolob—in Mormon scripture, the heavenly place nearest the residence of God.[20] HP Pavilion G6-1215TX Keyboard
A ranch located near the mouth of Zion Canyon.
Settlements had expanded 30 miles (48 km) south to the lower Virgin River by 1858.[9] That year, a Southern Paiute guide led young Mormon missionary and interpreter Nephi Johnson into the upper Virgin River area and Zion Canyon.[18] Johnson wrote a favorable report about the agricultural potential of the upper Virgin River basin, and returned later that year to found the town of Virgin. In 1861 or 1862, Joseph Black made the arduous journey to Zion Canyon and was very impressed by its beauty.[3] Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
The floor of Zion Canyon was settled in 1863 by Isaac Behunin, who farmed corn, tobacco, and fruit trees.[3] The Behunin family lived in Zion Canyon near the site of today's Zion Lodge during the summer, and wintered in Springdale. Behunin is credited with naming Zion, a reference to a place of peace mentioned in the Bible.[3] Two more families settled Zion Canyon in the next couple of years, bringing with them cattle and other domesticated animals. The canyon floor was farmed until Zion became a Monument in 1909.[9] 63Y0047
The Powell Geographic Expedition entered the area in 1869 after their first trip through the Grand Canyon.[9] John Wesley Powell visited Zion Canyon in 1872 and named it Mukuntuweap, under the impression that that was the Paiute name.[21] Powell Survey photographers John K. Hillers and James Fennemore first visited the Zion Canyon and Kolob Plateau region in the spring of 1872.[9] Hillers returned in April 1873 to add more photographs to the "Virgin River Series" of photographs and stereographs.[22] Hillers described wading the canyon for four days and nearly
Painting of Zion Canyon by Frederick Dellenbaugh (1903) Sony VAIO VPC-F12 Keyboard
Paintings of the canyon by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh were exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904,[9] followed by a glowing article in Scribner's Magazine the next year. That, along with previously created photographs, paintings, and reports, led to U.S. President William Howard Taft's proclamation on July 31, 1909 that created Mukuntuweap National Monument.[18] In 1917, the acting director of the newly created National Park Service visited the canyon and proposed changing its name to Zion from the locally unpopular Mukuntuweap.[23] Dell 0J483C Keyboard
The United States Congress added more land and established Zion National Park on November 19, 1919.[3] A separate Zion National Monument, the Kolob Canyons area, was proclaimed on January 22, 1937, and was incorporated into the park on July 11, 1956.[24]
Travel to the area before it was a national park was rare due to its remote location, lack of accommodations, and the absence of real roads in southern Utah. Old wagon roads were upgraded to the first automobile roads starting about 1910, and the road into Zion Canyon was built in 1917, to as far as The Grotto.[16] Gateway MX7000 Keyboard
1938 poster of Zion National Park
Touring cars could reach Zion Canyon by the summer of 1917.[16] The first visitor lodging in Zion Canyon, called Wylie Camp, was established that same year as a tent camp.[16] The Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, acquired Wylie Camp in 1923, and offered ten-day rail/bus tours to Zion, nearby Bryce Canyon, Kaibab, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.[25] The Zion Lodge complex was built in 1925 at the site of the Wylie tent camp.[16] Architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed Zion Lodge (photo) in the "Rustic Style" and the Utah Parks Company funded the construction.[16] Sony VAIO VPC-F12 Keyboard
Work on the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway started in 1927 to enable reliable access between Springdale and the east side of the park.[3] The road opened in 1930 and park visitation and travel in the area greatly increased.[26] The most famous feature of the highway is the 1.1-mile (1.8 km) Zion - Mt. Carmel Tunnel, which has six large windows cut through the massive sandstone cliff.[9] Acer Aspire One D250-1Br Keyboard
In 1896, local rancher John Winder improved the Native American footpath up Echo Canyon, which later became the East Rim Trail.[27] Entrepreneur David Flanigan used this trail in 1900 to build cableworks that lowered lumber into Zion Canyon from Cable Mountain. More than 200,000 board feet (470 m3) of lumber were lowered by 1906.[27] The auto road was extended to the Temple of Sinawava, and a trail built from there 1 mile (2 km) to the start of the Narrows.[28] Angel's Landing Trail was constructed in 1926 and two suspension bridges were built over the Virgin River.[21] Other trails were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s.[21] Toshiba Satellite L40-13C Keyboard
Zion Canyon from the trail to Observation Point
Zion Canyon Scenic Drive provides access to Zion Canyon. Traffic congestion in the narrow canyon was recognized as a major problem in the 1990s and a public transportation system using propane-powered shuttle buses was instituted in the year 2000.[29] As part of its shuttle fleet, Zion has two electric trams each holding up to 36 passengers.[30] From April through October, the scenic drive in Zion Canyon is closed to private vehicles and visitors ride the shuttle buses.[29]
On April 12, 1995, heavy rains tDell PVDG3 Keyboard
riggered a landslide that blocked the Virgin River in Zion Canyon.[31] Over a period of two hours, the river carved away part of the only exit road from the canyon, trapping 450 guests and employees in the Zion Lodge.[31] A one-lane temporary road was constructed within 24 hours to allow evacuation of the Lodge.[31] A more stable—albeit temporary—road was completed on May 25, 1995 to allow summer visitors to access the park.[31] This road was replaced with a permanent road during the first half of 1996.[31] Ideapad G470
The Zion–Mount Carmel Highway can be traveled year-round. Access for over-sized vehicles requires a special permit, and is limited to daytime hours, as traffic through the tunnel must be one way to accommodate large vehicles. The 5-mile (8.0 km)-long Kolob Canyons Road was built to provide access to the Kolob Canyons section of the park.[32] This road often closes in the winter. HP Pavilion dv5-1010el Keyboard
In March 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which designated and further protected 124,406 acres (503.5 km2) of park land as the Zion Wilderness.
Virgin River after a snowstorm
[edit] Geology
Main article: Geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons areaIBM 42T3638 Keyboard
The Three Patriarchs in Zion Canyon are made of Navajo Sandstone.
The nine known exposed geologic formations in Zion National Park are part of a super-sequence of rock units called the Grand Staircase. Together, these formations represent about 150 million years of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in that part of North America. The formations exposed in the Zion area were deposited as sediment in very different environments: Dell Vostro V3350 Keyboard
The warm, shallow (sometimes advancing or retreating) sea of the Kaibab and Moenkopi formations;
Streams, ponds, and lakes of the Chinle, Moenave, and Kayenta formations;
The vast desert of the Navajo and Temple Cap formations; and
The dry near-shore environment of the Carmel Formation.
The Kolob Canyons are a set of finger canyons cut into the Kolob Plateau. Acer Extensa 5235 Keyboard
Uplift affected the entire region, known as the Colorado Plateaus, by slowly raising these formations more than 10,000 feet (3,000 m) higher than where they were deposited.[33] This steepened the stream gradient of the ancestral Virgin and other rivers on the plateau.
The faster-moving streams took advantage of uplift-created joints in the rocks. Eventually, all Cenozoic-aged formations were removed and gorges were cut into the plateaus. Zion Canyon was cut by the North Fork of the Virgin River in this way. During the later part of this process, lava flows and cinder cones covered parts of the area.[34] Acer Aspire 7736ZG Keyboard
High water volume in wet seasons does most of the downcutting in the main canyon. These flood events are responsible for transporting most of the 3 million short tons (2.7 million metric tons) of rock and sediment that the Virgin River transports yearly.[9] The Virgin cuts away its canyon faster than its tributaries can cut away their own streambeds, so tributaries end in waterfalls from hanging valleys where they meet the Virgin.[9] The valley between the peaks of the Twin Brothers is a notable example of a hanging valley in the canyon.
Table of formations exposed in Zion National Park[35] Sony VGN-FE21M Keyboard
Shale, loose clay and conglomerate
Taylor Creek with Horse Ranch Mountain in background. Desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest habitats are all visible.
The Great Basin, Mojave Desert, and Colorado Plateau converge at Zion and the Kolob canyons.[36] This, along with the varied topography of canyon–mesa country, differing soil types, and uneven water availability, provides diverse habitat for the equally diverse mix of plants and animals that live in the area. The park is home to 289 bird, 79 mammals, 28 reptiles, 7 fish, and 6 amphibian species.[37] These organisms make their homes in one or more of four life zones found in the Park: desert, riparian, woodland, and Coniferous forest.[38] Sony VAIO VGN-FS750P Keyboard
Desert conditions persist on canyon bottoms and rocky ledges away from perennial streams. Sagebrush, Prickly pear Cactus, and Rabbitbrush, along with Sacred Datura and Indian Paintbrush, are common.[39] Utah Penstemon and Golden Aster can also be found.[40] Milkvetch and Prince's Plume are found in pockets of selenium-rich soils.[38]
Sacred Datura grows on the canyon floor and blooms at night. Compaq Presario CQ57-310 Keyboard
Common daytime animals include Mule Deer, Rock Squirrels, Pinyon Jays, and Whiptail and Collared lizards (photo). Desert Cottontails,[41] Jackrabbits, and Merriam's Kangaroo Rats come out at night. Cougars, Coyotes, Gray Foxes, and Ring-tail Cats are the top predators.[41]
Cooler conditions persist at mid-elevation slopes, from 3,900 to 5,500 feet (1,200 to 1,700 m).[38] Stunted forests of pinyon pine and Juniper coexist here with manzanita shrubs, cliffrose, serviceberry, Scrub Oak, and yucca.[38] Stands of Ponderosa Pine, Gambel Oak, manzanita and aspen populate the mesas and cliffs above 6,000 feet (1,800 m).[38] Asus A4000 Keyboard
Golden Eagles, Red-tailed Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, and White-throated Swifts can be seen in the area.[42] California Condors and Bighorn Sheep were introduced in the 1990s. Nineteen species of bat also live in the area.[43]
Boxelder, Fremont Cottonwood, maple, and willow dominate riparian plant communities.[38] Animals such as Bank Beavers, Flannel-mouth Suckers, Gnatcatchers, Dippers, Canyon Wrens, the Virgin Spinedace, and Water Striders all make their homes in the riparian zones.[44] Gateway M6805 Keyboard
Zion Canyon
Driving through the east side of Zion to U.S. Route 89 allows access to Bryce Canyon National Park in the north or to the north rim of the Grand Canyon in the south. Due to the narrowness of the Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel, RVs and buses must obtain a special pass and can only drive through the tunnel during limited hours.[45]
The more primitive sections of Zion include the Kolob Terrace and the Kolob Canyons. Acer Aspire 4735 Keyboard
The Grotto in Zion Canyon, the Visitor Center, and the viewpoint at the end of Kolob Canyons Road have the only designated picnic sites.[7]
Popular hiking trails include The Narrows, The Subway, Angels Landing, and Kolob Arch.
Seven popular trails with round-trip times of half an hour (Weeping Rock) to 4 hours (Angels Landing) are found in Zion Canyon.[46] Two popular trails, Taylor Creek (4 hours round trip) and Kolob Arch (8 hours round trip), are in the Kolob Canyons section of the park, near Cedar City.[46]
Hiking up into The Narrows (Zion National Park) from the Temple of Sinawava is popular in summer. However, hiking beyond Big Springs requires a permit. Gateway MT6706 Keyboard
The entire Narrows from Chamberlain’s Ranch is a 16 mile one way trip that typically takes 12 hours of strenuous hiking.[47] A shorter alternative is to enter the Narrows via Orderville Canyon. Both Orderville and the full Narrows require a back country permit. Entrance to the Parunuweap Canyon section of the park downstream of Labyrinth Falls is prohibited. Other often-used backcountry trails include the West Rim and LaVerkin Creek.[48]
The final ascent at the Top of the Angels Landing Trail HP Pavilion dv6-3217cl Keyboard
Zion is a center for rock climbing,[49] with short walls like Touchstone, Moonlight Buttress, Spaceshot, and Prodigal Son being very popular.[50]
Lodging in the park is available at Zion Lodge, located halfway through Zion Canyon. Zion Lodge is open year-round and has motel units and cabins, as well as a restaurant, café, and gift shop, but rooms fill up fast. Three campgrounds are available: South and Watchman at the far southern side of the park, and a primitive site at Lava Point in the middle of the park off Kolob Terrace Road.[51] Watchman is the only campground in the park that takes reservations. Sony VAIO VGN-FS750P Keyboard
Lava Point has only primitive facilities and is usually open from June to October.[51] Overnight camping in the backcountry requires permits.[52]
Entrance to the Subway from the bottom
Guided horseback riding trips, nature walks, and evening programs are available from late March to early November.[53] The Junior Ranger Program for ages 6 to 12 is active from Memorial Day to Labor Day at the Zion Nature Center.[54] Toshiba Satellite A55-S1063 Keyboard
Rangers at the Zion Canyon Visitor Center and the smaller Kolob Canyons Visitor Center can help visitors plan their stay. A bookstore attached to the Zion Canyon Visitor Center, run by the Zion Natural History Association, offers books, maps, and souvenirs for sale, with proceeds benefiting the park.[55]
Adjacent to the park on the south is the town of Springdale, Utah, which offers services such as lodging, food, and entertainment. HP 640436-001 Keyboard
Zion Canyon IMAX in Springdale offers many interesting documentaries about the natural history of Zion Canyon and the American Southwest. Lodging, food, and entertainment are also offered on the east side of the park along the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway and in Mount Carmel Junction.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service. Sony VGN-FE41E Keyboard
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Geological Survey.
1.^ "Listing of acreage as of December 31, 2011". Land Resource Division, National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-03-08.
2.^ "Five Year Annual Recreation Visits Report". Public Use Statistic Office, National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-03-08. Toshiba Satellite L755-S5242BN Keyboard
3.^ a b c d e f Tufts 1998, p. 45
4.^ Rothman, Hal (1989). Preserving Different Pasts: The American National Monuments. University of Illinois Press. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-252-01548-9.
5.^ Tufts 1998, p. 43Acer KB.I170A.083 Keyboard
6.^ NPS website, How to get here
7.^ a b NPS website, Accessibility
8.^ Harris 1997, p. 33
9.^ a b c d e f g h i j Harris 1997, p. 29
10.^ Alexander, Charles P (January 1948). "Records and Descriptions of North American Crane-Flies (Diptera). Part VII. The Tipuloidea of Utah".Acer Aspire 5739G Keyboard
American Midland Naturalist (The University of Notre Dame) 39 (1): 1–82. doi:10.2307/2421428. JSTOR 2421428.
11.^ NPS website, Zion Narrows (archive)
12.^ NPS website, Freestanding Arches
13.^ a b c d e f NPS website, Weather and Climate
14.^ NPS website, History and CultureDell Vostro 3550 Keyboard
15.^ NPS website, Archeology (archive)
16.^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m NPS website, People
17.^ a b NPS website, Human History (archive)
18.^ a b c d Kiver 1999, p. 457
19.^ Arrington, Leonard J.. "Colonization of Utah". Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City, Utah: State of Utah. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
20.^ NPS contributors (Summer 2008). "Zion Map aToshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
nd Guide" (PDF). Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
21.^ a b c Powell, Allen Kent (1996). "Zion National Park". Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press. Retrieved on January 1, 2009.
22.^ a b USGS contributors. Stoffer, Phil. ed. Virgin River Canyons: HP Pavilion DV7-4061 Keyboard
Historic 3D Photographs of Powell Survey in the Zion National Park Area. Washington, D.C.: United States Geological Survey. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008. Retrieved January 18, 2009. (public domain text)
23.^ Albright, Horace M.; Schenck, Marian Albright; Utley, Robert M. (1999). "18 - Exploring a New World of Parks, 1917" (PDF). Dell 0PVDG3 Keyboard
Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Publishing. p. 243. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
24.^ "Appendix C" (pdf). Leave No Trace Principles. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service.
25.^ (PDF) Cape Royal Road. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. after 1968. p. 4. HAER AZ-40. Retrieved January 18, 2009. Acer Aspire 5738 Keyboard
Sunset at Lava Point Harris, Ann G.; Tuttle, Esther; Tuttle, Sherwood D. (1997). "2: Zion National Park, Southwest Utah". Geology of National Parks (5th ed.). Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing. pp. 28–42. ISBN 0-7872-5353-7.
Kiver, Eugene P.; Harris, David V. (1999). Geology of U.S. Parklands (5th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-33218-6.
Leach, Nicky (2007). Zion National Park: Sanctuary in the Desert (6th ed.). Mariposa, California: Sierra Press. ISBN 1-58071-020-4. HP Pavilion dv5-1210es Keyboard
NPS contributors. "Zion National Park, official website". Washington, D.C.: National Park Service. (public domain text)
Schneider, Stuart (2001). Kolob Canyons Road Guide. Zion Natural History Association. ISBN 0-915630-28-1.
Tufts, Lorraine Salem (1998). Secrets in The Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks (3rd ed.). North Palm Beach, Florida: National Photographic Collections. ISBN 0-9620255-3-4. SamsungNP-N145-JP01 Keyboard
Woodbury, Angus M. (July–October 1944). A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks. XII. Utah State Historical Society.
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Analytical — Asks why we find features and populations in a specific geographic area. Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
Cartography studies the representation of the Earth's surface with abstract symbols (map making). Although other subdisciplines of geography rely on maps for presenting their analyses, the actual making of maps is abstract enough to be regarded separately. Cartography has grown from a collection of drafting techniques into an actual science.
Cartographers must learn cognitive psychology and ergonomics to understand which symbols convey information about the Earth most effectively, and behavioral psychology to induce the readers of their maps to act on the information. Toshiba Satellite M645-S4047 Keyboard
They must learn geodesy and fairly advanced mathematics to understand how the shape of the Earth affects the distortion of map symbols projected onto a flat surface for viewing. It can be said, without much controversy, that cartography is the seed from which the larger field of geography grew. Most geographers will cite a childhood fascination with maps as an early sign they would end up in the field.
Geographic information systems (GIS) deal with the storage of information about the Earth for automatic retrieval by a computer, Sony VAIO VGN-N325E Keyboard
in an accurate manner appropriate to the information's purpose. In addition to all of the other subdisciplines of geography, GIS specialists must understand computer science and database systems. GIS has revolutionized the field of cartography: nearly all mapmaking is now done with the assistance of some form of GIS software. GIS also refers to the science of using GIS software and GIS techniques to represent, analyze, and predict the spatial relationships. In this context, GIS stands for Geographic Information Science. Sony VGN-FE39VP Keyboard
Remote sensing is the science of obtaining information about Earth features from measurements made at a distance. Remotely sensed data comes in many forms, such as satellite imagery, aerial photography, and data obtained from hand-held sensors. Geographers increasingly use remotely sensed data to obtain information about the Earth's land surface, Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
ocean, and atmosphere, because it: a) supplies objective information at a variety of spatial scales (local to global), b) provides a synoptic view of the area of interest, c) allows access to distant and inaccessible sites, d) provides spectral information outside the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and e) facilitates studies of how features/areas change over time. Remotely sensed data may be analyzed either independently of, or in conjunction with other digital data layers (e.g., in a Acer Aspire 9300-5349 Keyboard
Geostatistics deal with quantitative data analysis, specifically the application of statistical methodology to the exploration of geographic phenomena. Geostatistics is used extensively in a variety of fields, including hydrology, geology, petroleum exploration, weather analysis, urban planning, logistics, and epidemiology. The mathematical basis for geostatistics derives from cluster analysis, linear discriminant analysis and non-parametric statistical tests, and a variety of other subjects. Applications of geostatistics Sony VAIO VGN-SZ260P Keyboard
rely heavily on geographic information systems, particularly for the interpolation (estimate) of unmeasured points. Geographers are making notable contributions to the method of quantitative techniques.
Qualitative methods
Main article: Ethnography
Geographic qualitative methods, or ethnographical research techniques, are used by human geographers. In cultural geography there is a tradition Sony VAIO VGN-CS13G/P Keyboard
of employing qualitative research techniques, also used in anthropology and sociology. Participant observation and in-depth interviews provide human geographers with qualitative data.
The oldest known world maps date back to ancient Babylon from the 9th century BC.[10] The best known Babylonian world map, however, is the Imago Mundi of 600 BC.[11] The map as reconstructed by Eckhard Unger shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by a circular landmass showing Assyria, Urartu[12] and several cities, Toshiba Satellite M645-S4049 Keyboard
in turn surrounded by a "bitter river" (Oceanus), with seven islands arranged around it so as to form a seven-pointed star. The accompanying text mentions seven outer regions beyond the encircling ocean. The descriptions of five of them have survived.[13] In contrast to the Imago Mundi, an earlier Babylonian world map dating back to the 9th century BC depicted Babylon as being further north from the center of the world, though it is not certain what that center was supposed to represent.[10] Sony 147963021 Keyboard
The ideas of Anaximander (c. 610 BC-c. 545 BC): considered by later Greek writers to be the true founder of geography, come to us through fragments quoted by his successors. Anaximander is credited with the invention of the gnomon, the simple, yet efficient Greek instrument that allowed the early measurement of latitude. Thales is also credited with the prediction of eclipses. The foundations of geography can be traced to the ancient cultures, Toshiba Mini NB 505 Series Keyboard
such as the ancient, medieval, and early modern Chinese. The Greeks, who were the first to explore geography as both art and science, achieved this through Cartography, Philosophy, and Literature, or through Mathematics. There is some debate about who was the first person to assert that the Earth is spherical in shape, with the credit going either to Parmenides or Pythagoras. Anaxagoras was able to demonstrate that the profile of the Earth was circular by explaining eclipses. However, he still believed that the Earth was a flat disk, as did many of his contemporaries. One of the first estimates of the radius of the Earth was made by Eratosthenes.[14] Gateway M-6834 Keyboard
The first rigorous system of latitude and longitude lines is credited to Hipparchus. He employed a sexagesimal system that was derived from Babylonian mathematics. The parallels and meridians were sub-divided into 360°, with each degree further subdivided 60′ (minutes). To measure the longitude at different location on Earth, he suggested using eclipses to determine the relative difference in time.[15] The extensive mapping by the Romans as they explored new lands would later provide a high level of information for Ptolemy to construct detailed atlases. He extended the work of Hipparchus, using a grid system on his maps and adopting a length of 56.5 miles for a degree.[16] HP Pavilion G6-1104AX Keyboard
From the 3rd century onwards, Chinese methods of geographical study and writing of geographical literature became much more complex than what was found in Europe at the time (until the 13th century).[17] Chinese geographers such as Liu An, Pei Xiu, Jia Dan, Shen Kuo, Fan Chengda, Zhou Daguan, and Xu Xiake wrote important treatises, yet by the 17th century advanced ideas and methods of Western-style geography were adopted in China.
The Ptolemy world map, reconstituted from Ptolemy's Geographia, written c. 150. HP Pavilion dv3-2050es Keyboard
During the Middle Ages, the fall of the Roman empire led to a shift in the evolution of geography from Europe to the Islamic world.[17] Muslim geographers such as Muhammad al-Idrisi produced detailed world maps (such as Tabula Rogeriana), while other geographers such as Yaqut al-Hamawi, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Ibn Battuta, and Ibn Khaldun provided detailed accounts of their journeys and the geography of the regions they visited. IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X201i Keyboard
Turkish geographer, Mahmud al-Kashgari drew a world map on a linguistic basis, and later so did Piri Reis (Piri Reis map). Further, Islamic scholars translated and interpreted the earlier works of the Romans and the Greeks and established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad for this purpose.[18] Abū Zayd al-Balkhī, originally from Balkh, founded the "Balkhī school" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad.[19] Suhrāb, a late tenth century Muslim geographer accompanied a book of geographical coordinates, with instructions for making a rectangular world map with equirectangular projection or cylindrical equidistant projection.[19][verification needed] Dell Vostro PP37L Keyboard
Abu Rayhan Biruni (976-1048) first described a polar equi-azimuthal equidistant projection of the celestial sphere.[20][verification needed] He was regarded as the most skilled when it came to mapping cities and measuring the distances between them, which he did for many cities in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. He often combined astronomical readings and mathematical equations, in order to develop methods of pin-pointing locations by recording degrees of latitude and longitude. He also developed similar techniques when it came to measuring the heights of mountains, depths of the valleys, Asus A3E Keyboard
and expanse of the horizon. He also discussed human geography and the planetary habitability of the Earth. He also calculated the latitude of Kath, Khwarezm, using the maximum altitude of the Sun, and solved a complex geodesic equation in order to accurately compute the Earth's circumference, which were close to modern values of the Earth's circumference.[21] His estimate of 6,339.9 km for the Earth radius was only 16.8 km less than the modern value of 6,356.7 km. In contrast to his predecessors, who measured the Earth's circumference byHP Pavilion dv6-2127el Keyboard
sighting the Sun simultaneously from two different locations, al-Biruni developed a new method of using trigonometric calculations, based on the angle between a plain and mountain top, which yielded more accurate measurements of the Earth's circumference, and made it possible for it to be measured by a single person from a single location.[22][verification needed]
Self portrait of Alexander von Humboldt, one of the early pioneers of geography
The European Age of Discovery during the 16th and the 17th centuries, where many new lands were discovered and accounts by European explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Asus F3Sv Keyboard
Marco Polo, and James Cook revived a desire for both accurate geographic detail, and more solid theoretical foundations in Europe. The problem facing both explorers and geographers was finding the latitude and longitude of a geographic location. The problem of latitude was solved long ago but that of longitude remained; agreeing on what zero meridian should be was only part of the problem. It was left to John Harrison to solve it by inventing the chronometer H-4 in 1760, and later in 1884 for the International Meridian Conference to adopt by convention the Greenwich meridian as zero meridian.[23] Acer PK1301K0200 Keyboard
The 18th and the 19th centuries were the times when geography became recognized as a discrete academic discipline, and became part of a typical university curriculum in Europe (especially Paris and Berlin). The development of many geographic societies also occurred during the 19th century, with the foundations of the Société de Géographie in 1821,[24] the Royal Geographical Society in 1830,[25] Russian Geographical Society in 1845,[26] Acer TravelMate 3010 Keyboard
American Geographical Society in 1851,[27] and the National Geographic Society in 1888.[28] The influence of Immanuel Kant, Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, and Paul Vidal de la Blache can be seen as a major turning point in geography from a philosophy to an academic subject.
Over the past two centuries, the advancements in technology with computers have led to the development of geomatics. and new practices such as participant observation and geostatistics being incorporated into geography's portfolio of tools. In the West during the 20th century, Dell 9J.N9182.001 Keyboard
the discipline of geography went through four major phases: environmental determinism, regional geography, the quantitative revolution, and critical geography. The strong interdisciplinary links between geography and the sciences of geology and botany, as well as economics, sociology and demographics have also grown greatly, especially as a result of Earth System Science that seeks to understand the world in a holistic view. Toshiba Satellite 2805-s201 Keyboard
Computer security
电脑安全硬件故障而受到影响的是适用于硬件的计算机安全的一个分支。计算机安全的目标,包括盗窃,贪污,或自然灾害的信息和财产的保护,同时允许其目标用户仍然可以访问和生产的信息和财产。[1],可以通过不同的方式获取这些秘密信息。索尼VGN-NW320F / T键盘
本文的重点,这对检索数据的感谢滥用硬件或硬件故障。硬件可能被滥用或利用获得的秘密数据。本文收集攻击的主要类型,可以在一个数据窃贼的铅。
可以由计算机安全设备,如键盘,显示器或打印机(由于电磁泄漏或声如)或计算机的组成部分,索尼VAIO VGN-NR21E / S的键盘
作为内存,网络卡或处理器(例如时间或温度分析)等。
目录[隐藏]
1器件
1.1监视器
1.1.1电磁放射
1.1.2妥协的思考
1.2键盘
1.2.1电磁放射
1.2.1.1下降沿过渡技术
1.2.1.2广义的过渡技术
1.2.1.3的调制技术
1.2.1.4矩阵扫描技术
1.2.1.5摘要宏基Aspire 7736G键盘
1.2.2声化身
1.2.3键盘上的视频窃听
1.3打印机
1.3.1声化身
2电脑元件
2.1网络接口卡
2.1.1定时攻击
2.2存储器
2.2.1物理化学
2.2.2温度
2.2.3读/写战功感谢火线索尼VAIO VGN-N11S / W的键盘
2.3处理器
2.3.1缓存攻击
2.3.2定时攻击
2.3.3特权升级
3参考
4参考书目
4.1声
4.2高速缓存攻击
4.3化学
4.4电磁
4.5火线
4.6处理器错误和后门宏基Aspire 7745G键盘
4.7温度
4.8定时攻击
4.9其他
[编辑]设备
[编辑]监视器
显示器,计算机的主要设备,可用于检索数据。即使显示器似乎是无害的,它们的辐射,或反映其环境上的数据,这让攻击者知道了有用的数据,在监视器上显示的内容。
[编辑]电磁放射的Ideapad U550
由于此前曾表示,视频显示单位的辐射:
数字时钟信号的窄带谐波;
“随机”的各种视频信号,如数字信号的宽带谐波。[2]
电磁数据广播称为损害的放射或的TEMPEST辐射,为美国政府计划,旨 在攻击问题的码字,已是一个敏感的计算机应用的重要关注东芝9Z.N4WSV.001键盘。
窃听者可以重建从无线电频率放射视频画面的内容。[3](辐射)的视频信号的每个谐波广播电视信号,显示了显着的相似之处。因此,可以重建正常的电视接收机视频显示单元上显示辐射的图片。[2],如果不采取预防措施,窃听是有可能在几百米的距离上一个视频显示单元,SamsungNP-N150-JP05键盘
使用只有一个正常的黑色和白色的电视接收器,定向天线和天线放大器。它甚至可以拿起从某些类型的视频显示单位的信息超过1公里的距离,如果更复杂的接收和解码设备,最大距离可以更大。[4]
[编辑]妥协反射惠普Pavilion DV6-2111sl键盘
由显示器显示的是对环境的反映。CRT显示器发出的光随时间变化的漫反射,可以利用来恢复原始的监控图像。[5]这是一个任意的电脑屏幕上显示的数据在距离间谍 的窃听技术,包括目前流行的液晶显示器,索尼VGN-N51HB键盘
该技术利用在屏幕上的各种对象,人们普遍认为在接近到屏幕上,并使用这些反射恢复原来的屏幕内容放射光的反射。这些对象包括眼镜,SamsungNP-N150-JP05键盘
茶盆,勺,塑料瓶,甚至用户的眼睛。这种攻击可以成功地安装间谍使用廉价的现成设备(低于1500美元),从一个高达10米的距离,甚至小字体。依靠更昂贵的设备允许进行这种攻击从30米开外,这表明类似的攻击是从街道的另一边,或从一个紧密的建设可行。[6]
可能在平时的工作中发现的许多对象,可以利用电脑的显示屏上的信息检索局外人。SamsungR19键盘
[7]特别是良好的效果,获得用户的眼镜或位于屏幕旁边的桌子上的茶壶反射。从用户的眼睛干的思考,也提供了良好的效果。然而,眼睛更难侦察距离,因为它们是快速移动的物体,并要求高的曝光时间。用较低的曝光时间更昂贵的设备,有助于解决这个问题。[8] 6720康柏键盘
确实聚集密切,由对象的曲面反射到屏幕上显示的数据的保密性构成实质性的威胁。这种威胁完全无效的,没有隐藏屏幕上的合法用户在同一时间似乎很难,不使用强大的光学屏蔽窗或类似形式的窗帘。然而,大多数用户不会意识到这种风险,未必愿意关闭窗帘上一个愉快的一天。东芝Satellite U205-s5034键盘的
[9]对象的反映,电脑显示器,在弯曲的镜子,创建一个虚拟的形象,位于反射面后面。这个虚拟的形象,对于平面镜具有相同的大小,位于背后镜在原始对象相同的距离。然而,对于弯曲的镜子,情况更为复杂[10]
[编辑]键盘
[编辑]电磁放射
电脑键盘经常被用来传输机密数据,如密码,宏基KB.INT00.036键盘。
因为它们包含的电子元件,键盘发出的电磁波。这些放射能揭示如击键敏感信息。[11]电磁放射变成了电脑设备构成安全威胁。[9]下面的图显示了如何检索一个按键,什么材料是必要的。
图提交所有必要的材料检测击键
该方法是直接获取 的原始信号从天线和处理捕获整个电磁频谱。这个方法,各种不同的电磁放射损害已检测,有线和无线键盘。这些排放导致全面或部分恢复的击键。惠普Pavilion DV6-2015sl键盘
最实用的攻击完全恢复95%的PS / 2键盘的击键,在长达20米的距离甚至穿过墙壁。[11]因为每个键盘都有一个特定的指纹,根据时钟频率不一致,它可以决定戴尔Vostro 3350键盘源一个妥协的化身,即使在同一时间使用相同模型的多个键盘键盘。
[12]
四个不同的电磁放射损害种方式如下所述。
[编辑]下降沿过渡技术
当一个键被按下,释放或按住,键盘发送一个信息包被称为计算机扫描代码[13]用来传输这些扫描码的协议是一个双向的串行通信,基于四线:VCC。 (5伏),地面,数据和时钟。[13]时钟和数据信号是相同的生成。因此,损害泄漏检测是两个信号的组合。然而,数据和时钟线的边缘,不叠加。因此,他们可以很容易地分离获得独立的信号。[14]
[编辑]广义的过渡技术的戴尔Inspiron N4050键盘
下降沿攻击是有限的击键部分恢复。这是一个重大的限制。[15]滋养细胞是一个下降沿过渡攻击改善,恢复几乎所有的击键。事实上,两痕迹,有一个数据的上升沿。如果攻击者能够探测到这种转变,他们可以完全恢复的击键。[15]
[编辑]的调制技术
宏基Aspire 3810键盘
来自时钟,非线形元素,串扰,地面污染等确定所发出的辐射,如无意放射电磁辐射的谐波影响,理论上这些影响辐射的原因,是一个非常复杂的任务。[16]这些谐波对应一个东芝Satellite U305-S7446键盘载体约4兆赫,这是非常可能的键盘内的微控制器的内部时钟。
这些谐波与时钟和数据信号,它描述了调制信号的幅度和频率,时钟和数据信号的全状态。这意味着,扫描代码可以从这些谐波完全恢复。[16]
[编辑]矩阵扫描技术
安排在一个矩阵键盘制造商戴尔Inspiron N4010键盘的键。
键盘控制器,往往是一个8位处理器,解析一个由一列和8键的状态恢复一次。此矩阵扫描过程可以被描述为24列和8行排列的192键(有些键可能无法使用,例如现代的键盘使用104/105键)。[17]这些列连续脉冲由一个至少3μs的。因此,东芝Satellite L775D-S7305的键盘
这些线索可以作为天线产生的电磁放射。如果一个攻击者能够捕获这些化身,他可以轻松地恢复按键列。即使这个信号并不完全描述按键,但它仍然提供了部分信息发送的扫描码,即列数。[17]
请注意,矩阵扫描程序不断循环。宏碁Aspire 7741G键盘
没有键被按下时,我们仍然有信号的多个等距离峰组成。这些放射可能被用于远程检测供电电脑的存在。关于无线键盘,无线数据突发传输,可以用作电磁触发检测完全按下一个键时,矩阵扫描的化身,而被用来确定它属于列。[17]
[编辑]摘要宏基Aspire 3500键盘
一些技术只能针对一些键盘。此表总结了该技术可以用来寻找不同类型的键盘按键。
技术名称有线键盘笔记本键盘无线键盘
下降沿技术是
广义过渡技术是
调制技术是是 HP 608558-001键盘
矩阵扫描技术是是是
在他们的论文,称为“损害的有线和无线键盘的电磁放射”,马丁Vuagnoux和西尔万·帕西尼测试12种不同的键盘机型,PS / 2,USB接口和无线通信在不同的设置:半电波暗室,一间小办公室,相邻的办公室,并在一个大厦单位。下表列出了他们的结果。
键盘键盘测试费特糖耐量吨MST数类型
的PS / 2 7 7/7 6/7 4/7 5/7
USB 2 0/2 0/2 0/2 2/2
笔记本电脑2 1/2 1/2 0/2 2/2
无线1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1
[编辑]声化身华硕F80L键盘
对人类打字造成的化身攻击在近年来吸引了兴趣。尤其是工程表明,键盘声放射泄漏的信息,可以被利用来重建类型的文本。[18]
电脑键盘,笔记本键盘是脆弱的基础上区分不同的键所发出的声音的攻击。[19]这种攻击作为输入的音频信号包含一个键盘上的单人输入一个字的记录,和字典话。据承担该类型的词在词典中。这次袭击的目的是要重建原词,从信号。[20]这种攻击,戴尔Vostro 1015键盘
作为输入的用户英文文本使用键盘打字10分钟的录音,然后恢复到96%键入的字符。[21]这种攻击是便宜的,因为所需的其他硬件是一个抛物线的麦克风和非侵入性因为它并不需要进入系统的物理入侵。攻击采用索尼VAIO VGN-NW15G / W的键盘
被压的神经网络识别的关键[18 [19],它结合了信号处理和高效的数据结构和算法,成功地重建7-13字符从记录的点击单个词,他们在键盘上打字的时候。 ]点击声音略有不同,从到关键的关键,因为键被放置在不同位置上的键盘板,虽然不同的键点击到人耳听起来很相似。东芝Satellite U300键盘
[19]
平均而言,只有0.5不正确的认知,每20人次,接触到的键盘使用这种攻击窃听。[22]的攻击是非常有效的,在标准PC上以20秒每字下。找到正确的单词为10个或更多字符的话,一个90%或更高的成功率,和所有的测试的话,73%的成功率。[18]在实践中,一个人的攻击者通常可以判断文本是随机的。华硕A9Rp键盘
当用户键入用户名和密码。[23]短的一个字,包含7个或多个字符的音频信号长期被认为是攻击者还可以识别的场合。这意味着信号是只有几秒钟长。这么短的词语往往选择[18]影响攻击成功的主导因素是字长,更重要的是,字内重复字符数。[18] 东芝Satellite 1870键盘作为密码。
这是一个过程,能够有效地发现一个字[24]最近的点击键盘的声音录音,提取信息其他类型的化身被证明:从机械设备,如点阵声化身打印机[18]。
[编辑]键盘上的视频窃听的ThinkPad Edge E125
看有人在键盘上打字,而提取的私人信息可能似乎是一件容易的事,它会变得非常具有挑战性的,如果它有自动化。然而,一个自动化的工具,需要在长期监视程序或长期用户活动的情况下,作为一个人是能够重建每分钟只有几个字符。论文“ClearShot:从视频输入键盘上的窃听”,提出了一种新的方法来自动恢复在键盘上输入文字,完全根据用户打字的视频[25]。康柏Presario CQ57-229wm键盘
自动识别被用户按下的键是一个困难的问题,需要复杂的运动分析。实验结果表明,对于一个人,重建了几句,需要漫长小时的视频慢动作分析。索尼VAIO VGN-CS21S /视频键盘
[26攻击者可能会安装在受害人的房间监察器材,可能采取利用相机的控制软件中的漏洞,现有相机的控制权,或可能只是指出在笔记本电脑的键盘手机,集成摄像头时,受害者是工作在一个公共空间。[26]
balzarotti的分析分为两个主要阶段(如下图)。第一阶段分析摄像机录制的视频,利用计算机视觉技术。对于每一帧的视频,计算机视觉分析计算可能被按下的键,索尼Vaio VGN-FW139E键盘
肯定不会按键,空格字符的位置。由于这一阶段的分析结果是喧闹的,所谓的文本分析,第二个阶段,是必要的。这一阶段的目标是,以去除误差,使用这两种语言和上下文敏感的技术。这一阶段的结果是重建的文字,每个字代表一个可能的候选人名单,通过的可能性排名。[26]
提出要经过检测与视频输入的击键时,东芝Satellite M645-S4070键盘的步骤图
[编辑]打印机
[编辑]声化身
随着声学化身,点阵打印机处理英文文本是印刷恢复攻击是可能的。它是基于记录的声音,使得打印机,如果麦克风是足够接近。这个攻击恢复到72%的印刷字,高达95%,如果有关文字的知识,在从打印机10厘米的距离。[5] 东芝Satellite L655D-S5109的键盘麦克风
经过前期培训阶段(“A”,在下面的图片),攻击(“B”)在下面的图片是完全自动化的,使用相结合的学习机,音频处理,语音识别技术,包括频谱特征,隐藏马尔可夫模型和线性分类[9]印的文字作品重建的根本原因是,发出的声音也变大,如果针罢工的文件,在给定的时间。[9]有一个数之间的相关性。针和声学泄漏强度[9] 索尼VAIO VGN-NW110D键盘
训练阶段进行,从字典中的字印,这些话特有的声音特征被提取出来,并存储在数据库中。训练有素的特点是用于识别英文印刷文本。[9]但是,这个任务是不平凡的。主要挑战包括:
识别和提取声音的功能,适当捕捉点阵打印机的声流溢;
补偿模糊和重叠的功能,大幅衰减时间的emanations诱导; 惠普Pavilion G6-1206AX键盘
查明和消除误识别的文字,以提高正确识别的单词的整体百分比(识别率)。[9]
图呈现阶段从打印机检索数据时,
[编辑]电脑零组件索尼VAIO VGN-FS395VP键盘
[编辑]网络接口卡
[编辑]时序攻击
定时攻击,使攻击者通过观测系统,以应对各种查询所花费的时间保持在一个安全系统的秘密提取。[27]
SSH被设计提供了两个主机之间的安全通道。尽管它使用的加密和认证机制,SSH有弱点。在交互模式下,每个人的按键,用户类型是在一个单独的IP数据包发送到远程计算机的关键后,立即被按下时,泄漏用户的打字击键间的时序信息。下面,图片代表su命令通过SSH连接处理。的ThinkPad Edge E520
之间的的为的命令'su'的的主机和的在客户端发送的的网络的消息 - 号码是的网络数据包的以字节为中的的大小
一个非常简单的统计技术,足以揭示敏感信息,如用户密码的长度,甚至根密码。通过使用先进的统计技术,定时信息收集网络,HP 519265-001键盘
窃听者可以了解有关用户SSH会话类型的重大信息。[28]由于操作系统发送出去后,按键包所花费的时间一般可以忽略不计比较interkeystroke时机,这也使得窃听者学习用户的打字interkeystroke计时精确的数据包到达时间。[29]
[编辑]内存
[编辑]物理化学宏基eMachines的G640键盘
数据残留问题不仅影响明显的地区,如内存和非挥发性记忆体细胞,但也可以通过热载流子的影响(改变在半导体设备的特点)和各种其他影响,这是发生在其他领域的设备沿着更加明显的细胞内存剩磁问题的研究。[30]它是可能的分析,并从这些细胞,并从半导体器件,一般恢复数据后不久,它应该(在理论上)已经消失。[31] 东芝PK130CL1A00键盘
电,这意味着身体的原子移动到新位置(物理改变设备本身)是另一种类型的攻击。[30]它涉及到由于高电流密度的金属原子一个原子进行沿的现象搬迁“电子风”在传统的电流方向相反,生产的负极和正极的山丘和胡须的空隙。宏基Aspire 5920键盘
形成空洞,导致在当地增加电流密度及焦耳热(电子和金属离子的相互作用产生的热能),产生进一步的电效应。当外部压力被删除,干扰系统趋于放松回到原来的平衡状态,从而导致在回流愈合的电损伤。虽然从长远来看,这可能会导致设备故障,但在不那么极端的情况下,它的作用仅仅是在引人注目的方式改变设备的运行特性。HP 491274-031键盘
例如,空洞的发掘导致增加了配线电阻和晶须生长,导致接触的形成和漏电流[30]具有晶须增长由于电导体的一个例子如下图所示:
晶须生长,由于电
这个数字显示具有空洞形成(在这种情况下,严重到足以导致彻底失败)的一个例子是:
无效的形成由于电
[编辑]温度惠普Mini 110-1183TU键盘
流行的假设相反,在最现代化的电脑使用的DRAM保留其内容,几秒钟后失去权力,即使在室温下,即使从主板中删除。[32]
许多产品做加密和其他安全相关的使用密钥或其他变量的计算设备的操作人员必须是惠普Pavilion DV2-1010ea键盘
能够读出或修改。通常的解决办法是为保密数据被篡改检测机箱内的挥发性记忆体。安全处理器通常在静态RAM存储密钥材料,从切断电源后,如果设备被篡改。在温度低于-20℃,SRAM的内容可以被“冻结”。有趣的是,要知道索尼VAIO VGN-C2S的系列键盘
一段时间的静态RAM设备后,将保留的权力已被删除的数据。低温可以提高SRAM的数据保留时间,许多秒甚至几分钟。[33]
[编辑]读/写战功感谢火线
惠普Pavilion DV6-2138ca键盘的 maximillian Dornseif提出的技术,在这些幻灯片
这让他采取控制到iPod的苹果电脑感谢。攻击所需的iPod软件进行了修改,以便它作为主行为的FireWire总线上的第一个通用阶段。然后在iPod已经完全的读/写访问的苹果电脑上,当iPod被堵塞[34]火线是用于音频设备,打印机,扫描仪,数码相机,GPS等,一般情况下,通过FireWire连接的设备具有完全访问。 (读/写)。事实上,OHCI标准(FireWire标准)如下:惠普Pavilion DV6-3004tu键盘的
“体育的要求,包括物理读,物理写锁请求一些CSR寄存器(5.5节),由主控制器处理系统软件的情况下直接援助。“
- OHCI标准
因此,通过FireWire连接的任何设备可以读取和写入计算机内存中的数据。例如,一个设备可以:惠普ProBook 4720S键盘
抓取屏幕内容;
只搜索,如登录,密码字符串的内存;
扫描可能的关键材料;
搜索存储在RAM中的加密密钥;
解析整个物理内存来理解逻辑内存布局。
东芝Tecra M10-SP2901R键盘
或
陷入困境的记忆;
更改屏幕上的内容;
更改的UID / GID,一定的过程;
注入过程中的代码;
额外注资进程。
[编辑]处理器
[编辑]缓存攻击东芝Satellite L755-S5244键盘
为了提高计算能力,处理器一般都配有一个高速缓存,从而降低内存访问延迟。下面的数字显示处理器和内存之间的层次结构。首先处理器看起来缓存L1数据,然后二级,然后在内存中。
处理器缓存层次结构的宏碁Aspire 5720Z键盘
当数据是不是正在寻找处理器,它被称为高速缓存未命中。下面,图片显示处理器是如何获取数据时,有两个级别的缓存。
数据是在L1缓存
数据是在二级缓存
数据是在内存东芝Satellite L755-S5244键盘
不幸的是高速缓存只包含应用程序数据的一小部分,可以引入额外的延迟,在小姐的情况下,内存交易。这涉及到还额外的功耗,这是由于在内存层次结构中,存储设备的激活。小姐罚款已经用于攻击像DES对称加密算法,[35]。本文提出的基本思路是强制高速缓存未命中,而处理器上执行一个已知的纯文本的AES加密算法。惠普Pavilion DV6-3050tx键盘
36]攻击允许攻击在同一处理器上并行运行的其他进程的一个非特权进程,尽管如内存保护,沙箱和虚拟分区方法[37]。
[编辑]时序攻击
通过仔细测量执行私钥操作所需的时间量,攻击者可能能够找到固定的Diffie-Hellman指数,因素RSA密钥,索尼VAIO VGN - NR21E / S的键盘
并打破其他密码系统。对有漏洞的系统,攻击是计算成本低,往往需要唯一已知的密文。[38]攻击可以作为信号检测问题的处理。该信号由时序变化,由于目标指数位,测量误差和时序的变化,由于未知的指数位的噪声结果。信号和噪声的性质决定宏基TravelMate 2355XM键盘
定时测量所需的攻击。定时攻击可能被用来对付其他密码系统,包括对称函数[39]。
[编辑]特权升级
可以使用一个简单的通用处理器后门,攻击者作为特权升级的手段,得到相当于任何给定的运行操作系统的特权。宏基Aspire 5742键盘
[40]此外,一个非特权邀请虚拟机监视器上运行域的非特权进程可以得到相当于虚拟机监视器的特权。[40]
者Loic Duflot英特尔处理器;研究纸“的CPU错误,CPU的后门和安全性的后果”,他解释说,处理器定义了四个不同的特权环编号从0(最高特权)到3(最低特权)。惠普Pavilion DV6-2012ef键盘
内核代码通常运行在ring 0,而用户空间代码通常运行在环3。一些安全关键的汇编语言指令的使用受到限制响0的代码。为了升级通过后门的特权,攻击者必须:[41]
惠普Mini 1109TU键盘 激活放置在理想状态的CPU的后门
;
注入代码并运行在ring 0;
取回环3为了系统恢复到稳定状态。事实上,运行在ring 0代码时,系统调用不工作:0环留在系统和运行一个随机的系统调用(退出()通常)是有可能导致系统崩溃。索尼VGN-FS660键盘
后门者Loic Duflot礼物很简单,因为它们只修改三个汇编语言指令的行为,并有非常简单的和具体的激活条件,使他们不太可能被意外激活。HP 633736-001键盘
本文的重点,这对检索数据的感谢滥用硬件或硬件故障。硬件可能被滥用或利用获得的秘密数据。本文收集攻击的主要类型,可以在一个数据窃贼的铅。
可以由计算机安全设备,如键盘,显示器或打印机(由于电磁泄漏或声如)或计算机的组成部分,索尼VAIO VGN-NR21E / S的键盘
作为内存,网络卡或处理器(例如时间或温度分析)等。
目录[隐藏]
1器件
1.1监视器
1.1.1电磁放射
1.1.2妥协的思考
1.2键盘
1.2.1电磁放射
1.2.1.1下降沿过渡技术
1.2.1.2广义的过渡技术
1.2.1.3的调制技术
1.2.1.4矩阵扫描技术
1.2.1.5摘要宏基Aspire 7736G键盘
1.2.2声化身
1.2.3键盘上的视频窃听
1.3打印机
1.3.1声化身
2电脑元件
2.1网络接口卡
2.1.1定时攻击
2.2存储器
2.2.1物理化学
2.2.2温度
2.2.3读/写战功感谢火线索尼VAIO VGN-N11S / W的键盘
2.3处理器
2.3.1缓存攻击
2.3.2定时攻击
2.3.3特权升级
3参考
4参考书目
4.1声
4.2高速缓存攻击
4.3化学
4.4电磁
4.5火线
4.6处理器错误和后门宏基Aspire 7745G键盘
4.7温度
4.8定时攻击
4.9其他
[编辑]设备
[编辑]监视器
显示器,计算机的主要设备,可用于检索数据。即使显示器似乎是无害的,它们的辐射,或反映其环境上的数据,这让攻击者知道了有用的数据,在监视器上显示的内容。
[编辑]电磁放射的Ideapad U550
由于此前曾表示,视频显示单位的辐射:
数字时钟信号的窄带谐波;
“随机”的各种视频信号,如数字信号的宽带谐波。[2]
电磁数据广播称为损害的放射或的TEMPEST辐射,为美国政府计划,旨 在攻击问题的码字,已是一个敏感的计算机应用的重要关注东芝9Z.N4WSV.001键盘。
窃听者可以重建从无线电频率放射视频画面的内容。[3](辐射)的视频信号的每个谐波广播电视信号,显示了显着的相似之处。因此,可以重建正常的电视接收机视频显示单元上显示辐射的图片。[2],如果不采取预防措施,窃听是有可能在几百米的距离上一个视频显示单元,SamsungNP-N150-JP05键盘
使用只有一个正常的黑色和白色的电视接收器,定向天线和天线放大器。它甚至可以拿起从某些类型的视频显示单位的信息超过1公里的距离,如果更复杂的接收和解码设备,最大距离可以更大。[4]
[编辑]妥协反射惠普Pavilion DV6-2111sl键盘
由显示器显示的是对环境的反映。CRT显示器发出的光随时间变化的漫反射,可以利用来恢复原始的监控图像。[5]这是一个任意的电脑屏幕上显示的数据在距离间谍 的窃听技术,包括目前流行的液晶显示器,索尼VGN-N51HB键盘
该技术利用在屏幕上的各种对象,人们普遍认为在接近到屏幕上,并使用这些反射恢复原来的屏幕内容放射光的反射。这些对象包括眼镜,SamsungNP-N150-JP05键盘
茶盆,勺,塑料瓶,甚至用户的眼睛。这种攻击可以成功地安装间谍使用廉价的现成设备(低于1500美元),从一个高达10米的距离,甚至小字体。依靠更昂贵的设备允许进行这种攻击从30米开外,这表明类似的攻击是从街道的另一边,或从一个紧密的建设可行。[6]
可能在平时的工作中发现的许多对象,可以利用电脑的显示屏上的信息检索局外人。SamsungR19键盘
[7]特别是良好的效果,获得用户的眼镜或位于屏幕旁边的桌子上的茶壶反射。从用户的眼睛干的思考,也提供了良好的效果。然而,眼睛更难侦察距离,因为它们是快速移动的物体,并要求高的曝光时间。用较低的曝光时间更昂贵的设备,有助于解决这个问题。[8] 6720康柏键盘
确实聚集密切,由对象的曲面反射到屏幕上显示的数据的保密性构成实质性的威胁。这种威胁完全无效的,没有隐藏屏幕上的合法用户在同一时间似乎很难,不使用强大的光学屏蔽窗或类似形式的窗帘。然而,大多数用户不会意识到这种风险,未必愿意关闭窗帘上一个愉快的一天。东芝Satellite U205-s5034键盘的
[9]对象的反映,电脑显示器,在弯曲的镜子,创建一个虚拟的形象,位于反射面后面。这个虚拟的形象,对于平面镜具有相同的大小,位于背后镜在原始对象相同的距离。然而,对于弯曲的镜子,情况更为复杂[10]
[编辑]键盘
[编辑]电磁放射
电脑键盘经常被用来传输机密数据,如密码,宏基KB.INT00.036键盘。
因为它们包含的电子元件,键盘发出的电磁波。这些放射能揭示如击键敏感信息。[11]电磁放射变成了电脑设备构成安全威胁。[9]下面的图显示了如何检索一个按键,什么材料是必要的。
图提交所有必要的材料检测击键
该方法是直接获取 的原始信号从天线和处理捕获整个电磁频谱。这个方法,各种不同的电磁放射损害已检测,有线和无线键盘。这些排放导致全面或部分恢复的击键。惠普Pavilion DV6-2015sl键盘
最实用的攻击完全恢复95%的PS / 2键盘的击键,在长达20米的距离甚至穿过墙壁。[11]因为每个键盘都有一个特定的指纹,根据时钟频率不一致,它可以决定戴尔Vostro 3350键盘源一个妥协的化身,即使在同一时间使用相同模型的多个键盘键盘。
[12]
四个不同的电磁放射损害种方式如下所述。
[编辑]下降沿过渡技术
当一个键被按下,释放或按住,键盘发送一个信息包被称为计算机扫描代码[13]用来传输这些扫描码的协议是一个双向的串行通信,基于四线:VCC。 (5伏),地面,数据和时钟。[13]时钟和数据信号是相同的生成。因此,损害泄漏检测是两个信号的组合。然而,数据和时钟线的边缘,不叠加。因此,他们可以很容易地分离获得独立的信号。[14]
[编辑]广义的过渡技术的戴尔Inspiron N4050键盘
下降沿攻击是有限的击键部分恢复。这是一个重大的限制。[15]滋养细胞是一个下降沿过渡攻击改善,恢复几乎所有的击键。事实上,两痕迹,有一个数据的上升沿。如果攻击者能够探测到这种转变,他们可以完全恢复的击键。[15]
[编辑]的调制技术
宏基Aspire 3810键盘
来自时钟,非线形元素,串扰,地面污染等确定所发出的辐射,如无意放射电磁辐射的谐波影响,理论上这些影响辐射的原因,是一个非常复杂的任务。[16]这些谐波对应一个东芝Satellite U305-S7446键盘载体约4兆赫,这是非常可能的键盘内的微控制器的内部时钟。
这些谐波与时钟和数据信号,它描述了调制信号的幅度和频率,时钟和数据信号的全状态。这意味着,扫描代码可以从这些谐波完全恢复。[16]
[编辑]矩阵扫描技术
安排在一个矩阵键盘制造商戴尔Inspiron N4010键盘的键。
键盘控制器,往往是一个8位处理器,解析一个由一列和8键的状态恢复一次。此矩阵扫描过程可以被描述为24列和8行排列的192键(有些键可能无法使用,例如现代的键盘使用104/105键)。[17]这些列连续脉冲由一个至少3μs的。因此,东芝Satellite L775D-S7305的键盘
这些线索可以作为天线产生的电磁放射。如果一个攻击者能够捕获这些化身,他可以轻松地恢复按键列。即使这个信号并不完全描述按键,但它仍然提供了部分信息发送的扫描码,即列数。[17]
请注意,矩阵扫描程序不断循环。宏碁Aspire 7741G键盘
没有键被按下时,我们仍然有信号的多个等距离峰组成。这些放射可能被用于远程检测供电电脑的存在。关于无线键盘,无线数据突发传输,可以用作电磁触发检测完全按下一个键时,矩阵扫描的化身,而被用来确定它属于列。[17]
[编辑]摘要宏基Aspire 3500键盘
一些技术只能针对一些键盘。此表总结了该技术可以用来寻找不同类型的键盘按键。
技术名称有线键盘笔记本键盘无线键盘
下降沿技术是
广义过渡技术是
调制技术是是 HP 608558-001键盘
矩阵扫描技术是是是
在他们的论文,称为“损害的有线和无线键盘的电磁放射”,马丁Vuagnoux和西尔万·帕西尼测试12种不同的键盘机型,PS / 2,USB接口和无线通信在不同的设置:半电波暗室,一间小办公室,相邻的办公室,并在一个大厦单位。下表列出了他们的结果。
键盘键盘测试费特糖耐量吨MST数类型
的PS / 2 7 7/7 6/7 4/7 5/7
USB 2 0/2 0/2 0/2 2/2
笔记本电脑2 1/2 1/2 0/2 2/2
无线1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1
[编辑]声化身华硕F80L键盘
对人类打字造成的化身攻击在近年来吸引了兴趣。尤其是工程表明,键盘声放射泄漏的信息,可以被利用来重建类型的文本。[18]
电脑键盘,笔记本键盘是脆弱的基础上区分不同的键所发出的声音的攻击。[19]这种攻击作为输入的音频信号包含一个键盘上的单人输入一个字的记录,和字典话。据承担该类型的词在词典中。这次袭击的目的是要重建原词,从信号。[20]这种攻击,戴尔Vostro 1015键盘
作为输入的用户英文文本使用键盘打字10分钟的录音,然后恢复到96%键入的字符。[21]这种攻击是便宜的,因为所需的其他硬件是一个抛物线的麦克风和非侵入性因为它并不需要进入系统的物理入侵。攻击采用索尼VAIO VGN-NW15G / W的键盘
被压的神经网络识别的关键[18 [19],它结合了信号处理和高效的数据结构和算法,成功地重建7-13字符从记录的点击单个词,他们在键盘上打字的时候。 ]点击声音略有不同,从到关键的关键,因为键被放置在不同位置上的键盘板,虽然不同的键点击到人耳听起来很相似。东芝Satellite U300键盘
[19]
平均而言,只有0.5不正确的认知,每20人次,接触到的键盘使用这种攻击窃听。[22]的攻击是非常有效的,在标准PC上以20秒每字下。找到正确的单词为10个或更多字符的话,一个90%或更高的成功率,和所有的测试的话,73%的成功率。[18]在实践中,一个人的攻击者通常可以判断文本是随机的。华硕A9Rp键盘
当用户键入用户名和密码。[23]短的一个字,包含7个或多个字符的音频信号长期被认为是攻击者还可以识别的场合。这意味着信号是只有几秒钟长。这么短的词语往往选择[18]影响攻击成功的主导因素是字长,更重要的是,字内重复字符数。[18] 东芝Satellite 1870键盘作为密码。
这是一个过程,能够有效地发现一个字[24]最近的点击键盘的声音录音,提取信息其他类型的化身被证明:从机械设备,如点阵声化身打印机[18]。
[编辑]键盘上的视频窃听的ThinkPad Edge E125
看有人在键盘上打字,而提取的私人信息可能似乎是一件容易的事,它会变得非常具有挑战性的,如果它有自动化。然而,一个自动化的工具,需要在长期监视程序或长期用户活动的情况下,作为一个人是能够重建每分钟只有几个字符。论文“ClearShot:从视频输入键盘上的窃听”,提出了一种新的方法来自动恢复在键盘上输入文字,完全根据用户打字的视频[25]。康柏Presario CQ57-229wm键盘
自动识别被用户按下的键是一个困难的问题,需要复杂的运动分析。实验结果表明,对于一个人,重建了几句,需要漫长小时的视频慢动作分析。索尼VAIO VGN-CS21S /视频键盘
[26攻击者可能会安装在受害人的房间监察器材,可能采取利用相机的控制软件中的漏洞,现有相机的控制权,或可能只是指出在笔记本电脑的键盘手机,集成摄像头时,受害者是工作在一个公共空间。[26]
balzarotti的分析分为两个主要阶段(如下图)。第一阶段分析摄像机录制的视频,利用计算机视觉技术。对于每一帧的视频,计算机视觉分析计算可能被按下的键,索尼Vaio VGN-FW139E键盘
肯定不会按键,空格字符的位置。由于这一阶段的分析结果是喧闹的,所谓的文本分析,第二个阶段,是必要的。这一阶段的目标是,以去除误差,使用这两种语言和上下文敏感的技术。这一阶段的结果是重建的文字,每个字代表一个可能的候选人名单,通过的可能性排名。[26]
提出要经过检测与视频输入的击键时,东芝Satellite M645-S4070键盘的步骤图
[编辑]打印机
[编辑]声化身
随着声学化身,点阵打印机处理英文文本是印刷恢复攻击是可能的。它是基于记录的声音,使得打印机,如果麦克风是足够接近。这个攻击恢复到72%的印刷字,高达95%,如果有关文字的知识,在从打印机10厘米的距离。[5] 东芝Satellite L655D-S5109的键盘麦克风
经过前期培训阶段(“A”,在下面的图片),攻击(“B”)在下面的图片是完全自动化的,使用相结合的学习机,音频处理,语音识别技术,包括频谱特征,隐藏马尔可夫模型和线性分类[9]印的文字作品重建的根本原因是,发出的声音也变大,如果针罢工的文件,在给定的时间。[9]有一个数之间的相关性。针和声学泄漏强度[9] 索尼VAIO VGN-NW110D键盘
训练阶段进行,从字典中的字印,这些话特有的声音特征被提取出来,并存储在数据库中。训练有素的特点是用于识别英文印刷文本。[9]但是,这个任务是不平凡的。主要挑战包括:
识别和提取声音的功能,适当捕捉点阵打印机的声流溢;
补偿模糊和重叠的功能,大幅衰减时间的emanations诱导; 惠普Pavilion G6-1206AX键盘
查明和消除误识别的文字,以提高正确识别的单词的整体百分比(识别率)。[9]
图呈现阶段从打印机检索数据时,
[编辑]电脑零组件索尼VAIO VGN-FS395VP键盘
[编辑]网络接口卡
[编辑]时序攻击
定时攻击,使攻击者通过观测系统,以应对各种查询所花费的时间保持在一个安全系统的秘密提取。[27]
SSH被设计提供了两个主机之间的安全通道。尽管它使用的加密和认证机制,SSH有弱点。在交互模式下,每个人的按键,用户类型是在一个单独的IP数据包发送到远程计算机的关键后,立即被按下时,泄漏用户的打字击键间的时序信息。下面,图片代表su命令通过SSH连接处理。的ThinkPad Edge E520
之间的的为的命令'su'的的主机和的在客户端发送的的网络的消息 - 号码是的网络数据包的以字节为中的的大小
一个非常简单的统计技术,足以揭示敏感信息,如用户密码的长度,甚至根密码。通过使用先进的统计技术,定时信息收集网络,HP 519265-001键盘
窃听者可以了解有关用户SSH会话类型的重大信息。[28]由于操作系统发送出去后,按键包所花费的时间一般可以忽略不计比较interkeystroke时机,这也使得窃听者学习用户的打字interkeystroke计时精确的数据包到达时间。[29]
[编辑]内存
[编辑]物理化学宏基eMachines的G640键盘
数据残留问题不仅影响明显的地区,如内存和非挥发性记忆体细胞,但也可以通过热载流子的影响(改变在半导体设备的特点)和各种其他影响,这是发生在其他领域的设备沿着更加明显的细胞内存剩磁问题的研究。[30]它是可能的分析,并从这些细胞,并从半导体器件,一般恢复数据后不久,它应该(在理论上)已经消失。[31] 东芝PK130CL1A00键盘
电,这意味着身体的原子移动到新位置(物理改变设备本身)是另一种类型的攻击。[30]它涉及到由于高电流密度的金属原子一个原子进行沿的现象搬迁“电子风”在传统的电流方向相反,生产的负极和正极的山丘和胡须的空隙。宏基Aspire 5920键盘
形成空洞,导致在当地增加电流密度及焦耳热(电子和金属离子的相互作用产生的热能),产生进一步的电效应。当外部压力被删除,干扰系统趋于放松回到原来的平衡状态,从而导致在回流愈合的电损伤。虽然从长远来看,这可能会导致设备故障,但在不那么极端的情况下,它的作用仅仅是在引人注目的方式改变设备的运行特性。HP 491274-031键盘
例如,空洞的发掘导致增加了配线电阻和晶须生长,导致接触的形成和漏电流[30]具有晶须增长由于电导体的一个例子如下图所示:
晶须生长,由于电
这个数字显示具有空洞形成(在这种情况下,严重到足以导致彻底失败)的一个例子是:
无效的形成由于电
[编辑]温度惠普Mini 110-1183TU键盘
流行的假设相反,在最现代化的电脑使用的DRAM保留其内容,几秒钟后失去权力,即使在室温下,即使从主板中删除。[32]
许多产品做加密和其他安全相关的使用密钥或其他变量的计算设备的操作人员必须是惠普Pavilion DV2-1010ea键盘
能够读出或修改。通常的解决办法是为保密数据被篡改检测机箱内的挥发性记忆体。安全处理器通常在静态RAM存储密钥材料,从切断电源后,如果设备被篡改。在温度低于-20℃,SRAM的内容可以被“冻结”。有趣的是,要知道索尼VAIO VGN-C2S的系列键盘
一段时间的静态RAM设备后,将保留的权力已被删除的数据。低温可以提高SRAM的数据保留时间,许多秒甚至几分钟。[33]
[编辑]读/写战功感谢火线
惠普Pavilion DV6-2138ca键盘的 maximillian Dornseif提出的技术,在这些幻灯片
这让他采取控制到iPod的苹果电脑感谢。攻击所需的iPod软件进行了修改,以便它作为主行为的FireWire总线上的第一个通用阶段。然后在iPod已经完全的读/写访问的苹果电脑上,当iPod被堵塞[34]火线是用于音频设备,打印机,扫描仪,数码相机,GPS等,一般情况下,通过FireWire连接的设备具有完全访问。 (读/写)。事实上,OHCI标准(FireWire标准)如下:惠普Pavilion DV6-3004tu键盘的
“体育的要求,包括物理读,物理写锁请求一些CSR寄存器(5.5节),由主控制器处理系统软件的情况下直接援助。“
- OHCI标准
因此,通过FireWire连接的任何设备可以读取和写入计算机内存中的数据。例如,一个设备可以:惠普ProBook 4720S键盘
抓取屏幕内容;
只搜索,如登录,密码字符串的内存;
扫描可能的关键材料;
搜索存储在RAM中的加密密钥;
解析整个物理内存来理解逻辑内存布局。
东芝Tecra M10-SP2901R键盘
或
陷入困境的记忆;
更改屏幕上的内容;
更改的UID / GID,一定的过程;
注入过程中的代码;
额外注资进程。
[编辑]处理器
[编辑]缓存攻击东芝Satellite L755-S5244键盘
为了提高计算能力,处理器一般都配有一个高速缓存,从而降低内存访问延迟。下面的数字显示处理器和内存之间的层次结构。首先处理器看起来缓存L1数据,然后二级,然后在内存中。
处理器缓存层次结构的宏碁Aspire 5720Z键盘
当数据是不是正在寻找处理器,它被称为高速缓存未命中。下面,图片显示处理器是如何获取数据时,有两个级别的缓存。
数据是在L1缓存
数据是在二级缓存
数据是在内存东芝Satellite L755-S5244键盘
不幸的是高速缓存只包含应用程序数据的一小部分,可以引入额外的延迟,在小姐的情况下,内存交易。这涉及到还额外的功耗,这是由于在内存层次结构中,存储设备的激活。小姐罚款已经用于攻击像DES对称加密算法,[35]。本文提出的基本思路是强制高速缓存未命中,而处理器上执行一个已知的纯文本的AES加密算法。惠普Pavilion DV6-3050tx键盘
36]攻击允许攻击在同一处理器上并行运行的其他进程的一个非特权进程,尽管如内存保护,沙箱和虚拟分区方法[37]。
[编辑]时序攻击
通过仔细测量执行私钥操作所需的时间量,攻击者可能能够找到固定的Diffie-Hellman指数,因素RSA密钥,索尼VAIO VGN - NR21E / S的键盘
并打破其他密码系统。对有漏洞的系统,攻击是计算成本低,往往需要唯一已知的密文。[38]攻击可以作为信号检测问题的处理。该信号由时序变化,由于目标指数位,测量误差和时序的变化,由于未知的指数位的噪声结果。信号和噪声的性质决定宏基TravelMate 2355XM键盘
定时测量所需的攻击。定时攻击可能被用来对付其他密码系统,包括对称函数[39]。
[编辑]特权升级
可以使用一个简单的通用处理器后门,攻击者作为特权升级的手段,得到相当于任何给定的运行操作系统的特权。宏基Aspire 5742键盘
[40]此外,一个非特权邀请虚拟机监视器上运行域的非特权进程可以得到相当于虚拟机监视器的特权。[40]
者Loic Duflot英特尔处理器;研究纸“的CPU错误,CPU的后门和安全性的后果”,他解释说,处理器定义了四个不同的特权环编号从0(最高特权)到3(最低特权)。惠普Pavilion DV6-2012ef键盘
内核代码通常运行在ring 0,而用户空间代码通常运行在环3。一些安全关键的汇编语言指令的使用受到限制响0的代码。为了升级通过后门的特权,攻击者必须:[41]
惠普Mini 1109TU键盘 激活放置在理想状态的CPU的后门
;
注入代码并运行在ring 0;
取回环3为了系统恢复到稳定状态。事实上,运行在ring 0代码时,系统调用不工作:0环留在系统和运行一个随机的系统调用(退出()通常)是有可能导致系统崩溃。索尼VGN-FS660键盘
后门者Loic Duflot礼物很简单,因为它们只修改三个汇编语言指令的行为,并有非常简单的和具体的激活条件,使他们不太可能被意外激活。HP 633736-001键盘
单击此处进行编辑.
Computer security
Computer security compromised by hardware failure is a branch of computer security applied to hardware. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to remain accessible and productive to its intended users.[1] Such secret information could be retrieved by different ways. Sony VAIO VGN-NW320F/T Keyboard
This article focus on the retrieval of data thanks to misused hardware or hardware failure. Hardware could be misused or exploited to get secret data. This article collects main types of attack that can be lead in a data thief.
Computer security can be comprised by devices, such as keyboards, monitors or printers (thanks to electromagnetic or acoustic emanation for example) or by components of the computer, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
such as the memory, the network card or the processor (thanks to time or temperature analysis for example).
Contents [hide]
1 Devices
1.1 Monitor
1.1.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.1.2 Compromising reflections
1.2 Keyboard
1.2.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.2.1.1 The Falling Edge Transition Technique
1.2.1.2 The Generalized Transition Technique
1.2.1.3 The Modulation Technique
1.2.1.4 The Matrix Scan Technique
1.2.1.5 SummaryAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
1.2.2 Acoustic emanations
1.2.3 Video Eavesdropping on Keyboard
1.3 Printer
1.3.1 Acoustic emanations
2 Computer components
2.1 Network Interface Card
2.1.1 Timing attack
2.2 Memory
2.2.1 Physical chemistry
2.2.2 Temperature
2.2.3 Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWireSony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
2.3 Processor
2.3.1 Cache attack
2.3.2 Timing attack
2.3.3 Privilege escalation
3 References
4 Bibliography
4.1 Acoustic
4.2 Cache attack
4.3 Chemical
4.4 Electromagnetic
4.5 FireWire
4.6 Processor bug and backdoorsAcer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
4.7 Temperature
4.8 Timing attacks
4.9 Other
[edit]Devices
[edit]Monitor
The monitor, main device of the computer, can be used to retrieve data. Even if monitors seem harmless, they radiate or reflect data on their environment; this lets attackers know useful data about the content displayed on the monitor.
[edit]Electromagnetic emanationsIdeapad U550
As previously said, video display units radiate :
narrowband harmonics of the digital clock signals ;
broadband harmonics of the various 'random' digital signals such as the video signal.[2]
Known as compromising emanations or TEMPEST radiation, a code word for a U.S. government programme aimed at attacking the problem, the electromagnetic broadcast of data has been a significant concern in sensitive computer applications. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
Eavesdroppers can reconstruct video screen content from radio frequency emanations.[3] Each (radiated) harmonic of the video signal shows a remarkable resemblance to a broadcast TV signal. It is therefore possible to reconstruct the picture displayed on the video display unit from the radiated emission by means of a normal television receiver.[2] If no preventive measures are taken, eavesdropping on a video display unit is possible at several hundreds of metres distance, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
using only a normal black-and-white TV receiver, a directional antenna and an antenna amplifier. It is even possible to pick up information from some types of video display units at a distance of over 1 kilometre If more sophisticated receiving and decoding equipment is used, the maximum distance can be much greater.[4]
[edit]Compromising reflectionsHP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
What is displayed by the monitor is reflected on the environment. The time-varying diffuse reflections of the light emitted by a CRT monitor can be exploited to recover the original monitor image.[5] This is a eavesdropping technique for spying at a distance on data that is displayed on an arbitrary computer screen, including the currently prevalent LCD monitors. Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
The technique exploits reflections of the screen’s optical emanations in various objects that one commonly finds in close proximity to the screen and uses those reflections to recover the original screen content. Such objects include eyeglasses, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
tea pots, spoons, plastic bottles, and even the eye of the user. This attack can be successfully mounted to spy on even small fonts using inexpensive, off-the-shelf equipment (less than 1500 dollars) from a distance of up to 10 meters. Relying on more expensive equipment allowed to conduct this attack from over 30 meters away, demonstrating that similar attacks are feasible from the other side of the street or from a close-by building.[6]
Many objects that may be found at a usual workplace can be exploited to retrieve information on a computer’s display by an outsider. SamsungR19 Keyboard
[7] Particularly good results were obtained from reflections in a user’s eyeglasses or a tea pot located on the desk next to the screen. Reflections that stem from the eye of the user also provide good results. However, eyes are harder to spy on at a distance because they are fast-moving objects and require high exposure times. Using more expensive equipment with lower exposure times helps to remedy this problem.[8] Compaq 6720 Keyboard
The reflections gathered from curved surfaces on close-by objects indeed pose a substantial threat to the confidentiality of data displayed on the screen. Fully invalidating this threat without at the same time hiding the screen from the legitimate user seems difficult, without using curtains on the windows or similar forms of strong optical shielding. Most users, however, will not be aware of this risk and may not be willing to close the curtains on a nice day. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
[9] The reflection of an object, a computer display, in a curved mirror creates a virtual image that is located behind the reflecting surface. For a flat mirror this virtual image has the same size and is located behind the mirror at the same distance as the original object. For curved mirrors, however, the situation is more complex.[10]
[edit]Keyboard
[edit]Electromagnetic emanations
Computer keyboards are often used to transmit confidential data such as passwords. Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
Since they contain electronic components, keyboards emit electromagnetic waves. These emanations could reveal sensitive information such as keystrokes.[11] Electromagnetic emanations have turned out to constitute a security threat to computer equipment.[9] The figure below presents how a keystroke is retrieved and what material is necessary.
Diagram presenting all material necessary to detect keystrokes
The approach is to acquire the raw signal directly from the antenna and to process the entire captured electromagnetic spectrum. Thanks to this method, four different kinds of compromising electromagnetic emanations have been detected, generated by wired and wireless keyboards. These emissions lead to a full or a partial recovery of the keystrokes. HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
The best practical attack fully recovered 95% of the keystrokes of a PS/2 keyboard at a distance up to 20 meters, even through walls.[11] Because each keyboard has a specific fingerprint based on the clock frequency inconsistencies, it can determine the source keyboard of a compromising emanation, even if multiple keyboards from the same model are used at the same time. Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
[12]
The four different kinds way of compromising electromagnetic emanations are described below.
[edit]The Falling Edge Transition Technique
When a key is pressed, released or held down, the keyboard sends a packet of information known as a scan code to the computer.[13] The protocol used to transmit these scan codes is a bidirectional serial communication, based on four wires: Vcc (5 volts), ground, data and clock.[13] Clock and data signals are identically generated. Hence, the compromising emanation detected is the combination of both signals. However, the edges of the data and the clock lines are not superposed. Thus, they can be easily separated to obtain independent signals.[14]
[edit]The Generalized Transition TechniqueDell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
The Falling Edge Transition attack is limited to a partial recovery of the keystrokes. This is a significant limitation.[15] The GTT is a falling edge transition attack improved, which recover almost all keystrokes. Indeed, between two traces, there is exactly one data rising edge. If attackers are able to detect this transition, they can fully recover the keystrokes.[15]
[edit]The Modulation Technique
Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
Harmonics compromising electromagnetic emissions come from unintentional emanations such as radiations emitted by the clock, non-linear elements, crosstalk, ground pollution, etc. Determining theoretically the reasons of these compromising radiations is a very complex task.[16] These harmonics correspond to a carrier of approximately 4 MHz which is very likely the internal clock of the micro-controller inside the keyboard. Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
These harmonics are correlated with both clock and data signals, which describe modulated signals (in amplitude and frequency) and the full state of both clock and data signals. This means that the scan code can be completely recovered from these harmonics.[16]
[edit]The Matrix Scan Technique
Keyboard manufacturers arrange the keys in a matrix. Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
The keyboard controller, often a 8-bit processor, parses columns one-by-one and recovers the state of 8 keys at once. This matrix scan process can be described as 192 keys (some keys may not be used, for instance modern keyboards use 104/105 keys) arranged in 24 columns and 8 rows.[17] These columns are continuously pulsed one-by-one for at least 3μs. Thus, Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
these leads may act as an antenna and generate electromagnetic emanations. If an attacker is able to capture these emanations, he can easily recover the column of the pressed key. Even if this signal does not fully describe the pressed key, it still gives partial information on the transmitted scan code, i.e. the column number.[17]
Note that the matrix scan routine loops continuously. Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
When no key is pressed, we still have a signal composed of multiple equidistant peaks. These emanations may be used to remotely detect the presence of powered computers. Concerning wireless keyboards, the wireless data burst transmission can be used as an electromagnetic trigger to detect exactly when a key is pressed, while the matrix scan emanations are used to determine the column it belongs to.[17]
[edit]SummaryAcer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Some techniques can only target some keyboards. This table sums up which technique could be used to find keystroke for different kind of keyboard.
Technique name Wired Keyboard Laptop Keyboard Wireless Keyboard
Falling Edge Transition Technique Yes Yes
Generalized Transition Technique Yes Yes
Modulation Technique Yes Yes HP 608558-001 Keyboard
Matrix Scan Technique Yes Yes Yes
In their paper called "Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired and Wireless Keyboards", Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini tested 12 different keyboard models, with PS/2, USB connectors and wireless communication in different setups: a semi-anechoic chamber, a small office, an adjacent office and a flat in a building. The table below presents their results.
Type of keyboard Number of tested keyboard FETT GTT MT MST
PS/2 7 7/7 6/7 4/7 5/7
USB 2 0/2 0/2 0/2 2/2
Laptop 2 1/2 1/2 0/2 2/2
Wireless 1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1
[edit]Acoustic emanationsAsus F80L Keyboard
Attacks against emanations caused by human typing have attracted interest in recent years. In particular, works showed that keyboard acoustic emanations do leak information that can be exploited to reconstruct the typed text.[18]
PC keyboards, notebook keyboards are vulnerable to attacks based on differentiating the sound emanated by different keys.[19] This attack takes as input an audio signal containing a recording of a single word typed by a single person on a keyboard, and a dictionary of words. It is assume that the typed word is present in the dictionary. The aim of the attack is to reconstruct the original word from the signal.[20] This attack, Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
taking as input a 10-minute sound recording of a user typing English text using a keyboard, and then recovering up to 96% of typed characters.[21] This attack is inexpensive because the other hardware required is a parabolic microphone and non-invasive because it does not require physical intrusion into the system. The attack employsSony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
a neural network to recognize the key being pressed.[19] It combines signal processing and efficient data structures and algorithms, to successfully reconstruct single words of 7-13 characters from a recording of the clicks made when typing them on a keyboard.[18] The sound of clicks can differ slightly from key to key, because the keys are positioned at different positions on the keyboard plate, although the clicks of different keys sound similar to the human ear. Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
[19]
On average, there were only 0.5 incorrect recognitions per 20 clicks, which shows the exposure of keyboard to the eavesdropping using this attack.[22] The attack is very efficient, taking under 20 seconds per word on a standard PC. A 90% or better success rate of finding the correct word for words of 10 or more characters, and a success rate of 73% over all the words tested.[18] In practice, a human attacker can typically determine if text is random. Asus A9Rp Keyboard
An attacker can also identify occasions when the user types user names and passwords.[23] Short audio signals containing a single word, with seven or more characters long was considered. This means that the signal is only a few seconds long. Such short words are often chosen as a password.[18] The dominant factors affecting the attack's success are the word length, and more importantly, the number of repeated characters within the word.[18] Toshiba Satellite 1870 Keyboard
This is a procedure that makes it possible to efficiently uncover a word out of audio recordings of keyboard click sounds.[24] More recently, extracting information out of an other type of emanations was demonstrated: acoustic emanations from mechanical devices such as dot-matrix printers.[18]
[edit]Video Eavesdropping on KeyboardThinkPad Edge E125
While extracting private information by watching somebody typing on a keyboard might seem to be an easy task, it becomes extremely challenging if it has to be automated. However, an automated tool is needed in the case of long-lasting surveillance procedures or long user activity, as a human being is able to reconstruct only a few characters per minute. The paper "ClearShot: Eavesdropping on Keyboard Input from Video" presents a novel approach to automatically recovering the text being typed on a keyboard, based solely on a video of the user typing.[25] Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
Automatically recognizing the keys being pressed by a user is a hard problem that requires sophisticated motion analysis. Experiments show that, for a human, reconstructing a few sentences requires lengthy hours of slow-motion analysis of the video. Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
[26] The attacker might install a surveillance device in the room of the victim, might take control of an existing camera by exploiting a vulnerability in the camera’s control software, or might simply point a mobile phone with an integrated camera at the laptop’s keyboard when the victim is working in a public space.[26]
Balzarotti's analysis is divided into two main phases (figure below). The first phase analyzes the video recorded by the camera using computer vision techniques. For each frame of the video, the computer vision analysis computes the set of keys that were likely pressed, Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
the set of keys that were certainly not pressed, and the position of space characters. Because the results of this phase of the analysis are noisy, a second phase, called the text analysis, is required. The goal of this phase is to remove errors using both language and context-sensitive techniques. The result of this phase is the reconstructed text, where each word is represented by a list of possible candidates, ranked by likelihood.[26]
Diagram presenting steps to go through when detecting keystroke with video inputToshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
[edit]Printer
[edit]Acoustic emanations
With acoustic emanations, an attack that recovers what a dot-matrix printer processing English text is printing is possible. It is based on a record of the sound the printer makes, if the microphone is close enough to it. This attack recovers up to 72 % of printed words, and up to 95 % if knowledge about the text are done, with a microphone at a distance of 10 cm from the printer.[5] Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
After an upfront training phase ("a" in the picture below), the attack ("b" in the picture below) is fully automated and uses a combination of machine learning, audio processing, and speech recognition techniques, including spectrum features, Hidden Markov Models and linear classification.[9] The fundamental reason why the reconstruction of the printed text works is that, the emitted sound becomes louder if more needles strike the paper at a given time.[9] There is a correlation between the number of needles and the intensity of the acoustic emanation.[9] Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
A training phase was conducted where words from a dictionary are printed and characteristic sound features of these words are extracted and stored in a database. The trained characteristic features was used to recognize the printed English text.[9] But, this task is not trivial. Major challenges include :
Identifying and extracting sound features that suitably capture the acoustic emanation of dot-matrix printers;
Compensating for the blurred and overlapping features that are induced by the substantial decay time of the emanations; HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
Identifying and eliminating wrongly recognized words to increase the overall percentage of correctly identified words (recognition rate).[9]
Diagram presenting phases when retrieving data from a printer
[edit]Computer componentsSony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
[edit]Network Interface Card
[edit]Timing attack
Timing attacks enable an attacker to extract secrets maintained in a security system by observing the time it takes the system to respond to various queries.[27]
SSH is designed to provide a secure channel between two hosts. Despite the encryption and authentication mechanisms it uses, SSH has weaknesses. In interactive mode, every individual keystroke that a user types is sent to the remote machine in a separate IP packet immediately after the key is pressed, which leaks the inter-keystroke timing information of users’ typing. Below, the picture represents the command su processed through a SSH connection. ThinkPad Edge E520
Network messages sent between the host and the client for the command 'su' - numbers are size of network packet in byte
A very simple statistical techniques suffice to reveal sensitive information such as the length of users’ passwords or even root passwords. By using advanced statistical techniques on timing information collected from the network, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
the eavesdropper can learn significant information about what users type in SSH sessions.[28] Because the time it takes the operating system to send out the packet after the keypress is in general negligible comparing to the interkeystroke timing, this also enables an eavesdropper to learn the precise interkeystroke timings of users’ typing from the arrival times of packets.[29]
[edit]Memory
[edit]Physical chemistryAcer eMachines G640 Keyboard
Data remanence problems not only affect obvious areas such as RAM and non-volatile memory cells but can also occur in other areas of the device through hot-carrier effects (which change the characteristics of the semiconductors in the device) and various other effects which are examined alongside the more obvious memory-cell remanence problems.[30] It is possible to analyse and recover data from these cells and from semiconductor devices in general long after it should (in theory) have vanished.[31] Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
Electromigration, which means to physically move the atom to new locations (to physically alter the device itself) is another type of attack.[30] It involves the relocation of metal atoms due to high current densities, a phenomenon in which atoms are carried along by an “electron wind” in the opposite direction to the conventional current, producing voids at the negative electrode and hillocks and whiskers at the positive electrode. Acer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
Void formation leads to a local increase in current density and Joule heating (the interaction of electrons and metal ions to produce thermal energy), producing further electromigration effects. When the external stress is removed, the disturbed system tends to relax back to its original equilibrium state, resulting in a backflow which heals some of the electromigration damage. In the long term though, this can cause device failure, but in less extreme cases it simply serves to alter a device’s operating characteristics in noticeable ways. HP 491274-031 Keyboard
For example, the excavations of voids leads to increased wiring resistance and the growth of whiskers leads to contact formation and current leakage.[30] An example of a conductor which exhibits whisker growth due to electromigration is shown in the figure below:
Whisker growth due to electromigration
One example which exhibits void formation (in this case severe enough to have led to complete failure) is shown in this figure:
Void formation due to electromigration
[edit]TemperatureHP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for several seconds after power is lost, even at room temperature and even if removed from a motherboard.[32]
Many products do cryptographic and other security-related computations using secret keys or other variables that the equipment’s operator must not be HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
able to read out or alter. The usual solution is for the secret data to be kept in volatile memory inside a tamper-sensing enclosure. Security processors typically store secret key material in static RAM, from which power is removed if the device is tampered with. At temperatures below −20°C, the contents of SRAM can be ‘frozen’. It is interesting to know the Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
period of time for which a static RAM device will retain data once the power has been removed. Low temperatures can increase the data retention time of SRAM to many seconds or even minutes.[33]
[edit]Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWire
Maximillian Dornseif presented a technique in these slides, HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
which let him take the control of a Apple computer thanks to an iPod. The attacks needed a first generic phase where the iPod software was modified so that it behave as master on the FireWire bus. Then the iPod had full read/write access on the Apple Computer when the iPod was plugged.[34] FireWire is used by : audio devices, printers, scanners, cameras, gps, etc. Generally, a device connected by FireWire has full access (read/write). Indeed, OHCI Standard (FireWire standard) reads : HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
“ Physical requests, including physical read, physical write and lock requests to some CSR registers (section 5.5), are handled directly by the Host Controller without assistance by system software. ”
—OHCI Standard
So, any device connected by FireWire can read and write data on the computer memory. For example, a device can : HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
Grab the screen contents ;
Just search the memory for strings such as login, passwords ;
Scan for possible key material ;
Search cryptographic keys stored in RAM ;
Parse the whole physical memory to understand logical memory layout.
Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
or
Mess up the memory ;
Change screen content ;
Change UID/GID of a certain process ;
Inject code into a process ;
Inject an additional process.
[edit]Processor
[edit]Cache attackToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
To increase the computational power, processors are generally equipped with a cache memory which decreases the memory access latency. Below, the figure shows the hierarchy between the processor and the memory. First the processor looks for data in the cache L1, then L2, then in the memory.
Processor cache hierarchyAcer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
When the data is not where the processor is looking for, it is called a cache-miss. Below, pictures show how the processor fetch data when there are two cache levels.
Data A is in the L1-Cache
Data A is in the L2-Cache
Data A is in the memoryToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
Unfortunately caches contain only a small portion of the application data and can introduce additional latency to the memory transaction in the case of a miss. This involves also additional power consumption which is due to the activation of memory devices down in the memory hierarchy. The miss penalty has been already used to attack symmetric encryption algorithms, like DES.[35] The basic idea proposed in this paper is to force a cache miss while the processor is executing the AES encryption algorithm on a known plain text.[ HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
36] The attacks allow an unprivileged process to attack other process running in parallel on the same processor, despite partitioning methods such as memory protection, sandboxing and virtualization.[37]
[edit]Timing attack
By carefully measuring the amount of time required to perform private key operations, attackers may be able to find fixed Diffie-Hellman exponents, factor RSA keys, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
and break other cryptosystems. Against a vulnerable system, the attack is computationally inexpensive and often requires only known ciphertext.[38] The attack can be treated as a signal detection problem. The signal consists of the timing variation due to the target exponent bit, and noise results from measurement inaccuracies and timing variations due to unknown exponent bits. The properties of the signal and noise determineAcer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
the number of timing measurements required to for the attack. Timing attacks can potentially be used against other cryptosystems, including symmetric functions.[39]
[edit]Privilege escalation
A simple and generic processor backdoor can be used by attackers as a means to privilege escalation to get to privileges equivalent to those of any given running operating system. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
[40] Also, a non-privileged process of one of the non-privileged invited domain running on top of a virtual machine monitor can get to privileges equivalent to those of the virtual machine monitor.[40]
Loïc Duflot studied Intel processors in the paper "CPU bugs, CPU backdoors and consequences on security" ; he explains that the processor defines four different privilege rings numbered from 0 (most privileged) to 3 (least privileged). HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
Kernel code is usually running in ring 0, whereas user-space code is generally running in ring 3. The use of some security-critical assembly language instructions is restricted to ring 0 code. In order to escalate privilege through the backdoor, the attacker must :[41]
activate the backdoor by placing the CPU in the desired state HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
;
inject code and run it in ring 0 ;
get back to ring 3 in order to return the system to a stable state. Indeed, when code is running in ring 0, system calls do not work : Leaving the system in ring 0 and running a random system call (exit() typically) is likely to crash the system. Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
The backdoors Loïc Duflot presents are simple as they only modify the behavior of three assembly language instructions and have very simple and specific activation conditions, so that they are very unlikely to be accidentally activated. HP 633736-001 Keyboard
This article focus on the retrieval of data thanks to misused hardware or hardware failure. Hardware could be misused or exploited to get secret data. This article collects main types of attack that can be lead in a data thief.
Computer security can be comprised by devices, such as keyboards, monitors or printers (thanks to electromagnetic or acoustic emanation for example) or by components of the computer, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
such as the memory, the network card or the processor (thanks to time or temperature analysis for example).
Contents [hide]
1 Devices
1.1 Monitor
1.1.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.1.2 Compromising reflections
1.2 Keyboard
1.2.1 Electromagnetic emanations
1.2.1.1 The Falling Edge Transition Technique
1.2.1.2 The Generalized Transition Technique
1.2.1.3 The Modulation Technique
1.2.1.4 The Matrix Scan Technique
1.2.1.5 SummaryAcer Aspire 7736G Keyboard
1.2.2 Acoustic emanations
1.2.3 Video Eavesdropping on Keyboard
1.3 Printer
1.3.1 Acoustic emanations
2 Computer components
2.1 Network Interface Card
2.1.1 Timing attack
2.2 Memory
2.2.1 Physical chemistry
2.2.2 Temperature
2.2.3 Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWireSony VAIO VGN-N11S/W Keyboard
2.3 Processor
2.3.1 Cache attack
2.3.2 Timing attack
2.3.3 Privilege escalation
3 References
4 Bibliography
4.1 Acoustic
4.2 Cache attack
4.3 Chemical
4.4 Electromagnetic
4.5 FireWire
4.6 Processor bug and backdoorsAcer Aspire 7745G Keyboard
4.7 Temperature
4.8 Timing attacks
4.9 Other
[edit]Devices
[edit]Monitor
The monitor, main device of the computer, can be used to retrieve data. Even if monitors seem harmless, they radiate or reflect data on their environment; this lets attackers know useful data about the content displayed on the monitor.
[edit]Electromagnetic emanationsIdeapad U550
As previously said, video display units radiate :
narrowband harmonics of the digital clock signals ;
broadband harmonics of the various 'random' digital signals such as the video signal.[2]
Known as compromising emanations or TEMPEST radiation, a code word for a U.S. government programme aimed at attacking the problem, the electromagnetic broadcast of data has been a significant concern in sensitive computer applications. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
Eavesdroppers can reconstruct video screen content from radio frequency emanations.[3] Each (radiated) harmonic of the video signal shows a remarkable resemblance to a broadcast TV signal. It is therefore possible to reconstruct the picture displayed on the video display unit from the radiated emission by means of a normal television receiver.[2] If no preventive measures are taken, eavesdropping on a video display unit is possible at several hundreds of metres distance, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
using only a normal black-and-white TV receiver, a directional antenna and an antenna amplifier. It is even possible to pick up information from some types of video display units at a distance of over 1 kilometre If more sophisticated receiving and decoding equipment is used, the maximum distance can be much greater.[4]
[edit]Compromising reflectionsHP Pavilion dv6-2111sl Keyboard
What is displayed by the monitor is reflected on the environment. The time-varying diffuse reflections of the light emitted by a CRT monitor can be exploited to recover the original monitor image.[5] This is a eavesdropping technique for spying at a distance on data that is displayed on an arbitrary computer screen, including the currently prevalent LCD monitors. Sony VAIO VGN-N51HB Keyboard
The technique exploits reflections of the screen’s optical emanations in various objects that one commonly finds in close proximity to the screen and uses those reflections to recover the original screen content. Such objects include eyeglasses, SamsungNP-N150-JP05 Keyboard
tea pots, spoons, plastic bottles, and even the eye of the user. This attack can be successfully mounted to spy on even small fonts using inexpensive, off-the-shelf equipment (less than 1500 dollars) from a distance of up to 10 meters. Relying on more expensive equipment allowed to conduct this attack from over 30 meters away, demonstrating that similar attacks are feasible from the other side of the street or from a close-by building.[6]
Many objects that may be found at a usual workplace can be exploited to retrieve information on a computer’s display by an outsider. SamsungR19 Keyboard
[7] Particularly good results were obtained from reflections in a user’s eyeglasses or a tea pot located on the desk next to the screen. Reflections that stem from the eye of the user also provide good results. However, eyes are harder to spy on at a distance because they are fast-moving objects and require high exposure times. Using more expensive equipment with lower exposure times helps to remedy this problem.[8] Compaq 6720 Keyboard
The reflections gathered from curved surfaces on close-by objects indeed pose a substantial threat to the confidentiality of data displayed on the screen. Fully invalidating this threat without at the same time hiding the screen from the legitimate user seems difficult, without using curtains on the windows or similar forms of strong optical shielding. Most users, however, will not be aware of this risk and may not be willing to close the curtains on a nice day. Toshiba Satellite U205-s5034 Keyboard
[9] The reflection of an object, a computer display, in a curved mirror creates a virtual image that is located behind the reflecting surface. For a flat mirror this virtual image has the same size and is located behind the mirror at the same distance as the original object. For curved mirrors, however, the situation is more complex.[10]
[edit]Keyboard
[edit]Electromagnetic emanations
Computer keyboards are often used to transmit confidential data such as passwords. Acer KB.INT00.036 Keyboard
Since they contain electronic components, keyboards emit electromagnetic waves. These emanations could reveal sensitive information such as keystrokes.[11] Electromagnetic emanations have turned out to constitute a security threat to computer equipment.[9] The figure below presents how a keystroke is retrieved and what material is necessary.
Diagram presenting all material necessary to detect keystrokes
The approach is to acquire the raw signal directly from the antenna and to process the entire captured electromagnetic spectrum. Thanks to this method, four different kinds of compromising electromagnetic emanations have been detected, generated by wired and wireless keyboards. These emissions lead to a full or a partial recovery of the keystrokes. HP Pavilion dv6-2015sl Keyboard
The best practical attack fully recovered 95% of the keystrokes of a PS/2 keyboard at a distance up to 20 meters, even through walls.[11] Because each keyboard has a specific fingerprint based on the clock frequency inconsistencies, it can determine the source keyboard of a compromising emanation, even if multiple keyboards from the same model are used at the same time. Dell Vostro 3350 Keyboard
[12]
The four different kinds way of compromising electromagnetic emanations are described below.
[edit]The Falling Edge Transition Technique
When a key is pressed, released or held down, the keyboard sends a packet of information known as a scan code to the computer.[13] The protocol used to transmit these scan codes is a bidirectional serial communication, based on four wires: Vcc (5 volts), ground, data and clock.[13] Clock and data signals are identically generated. Hence, the compromising emanation detected is the combination of both signals. However, the edges of the data and the clock lines are not superposed. Thus, they can be easily separated to obtain independent signals.[14]
[edit]The Generalized Transition TechniqueDell Inspiron N4050 Keyboard
The Falling Edge Transition attack is limited to a partial recovery of the keystrokes. This is a significant limitation.[15] The GTT is a falling edge transition attack improved, which recover almost all keystrokes. Indeed, between two traces, there is exactly one data rising edge. If attackers are able to detect this transition, they can fully recover the keystrokes.[15]
[edit]The Modulation Technique
Acer Aspire 3810 Keyboard
Harmonics compromising electromagnetic emissions come from unintentional emanations such as radiations emitted by the clock, non-linear elements, crosstalk, ground pollution, etc. Determining theoretically the reasons of these compromising radiations is a very complex task.[16] These harmonics correspond to a carrier of approximately 4 MHz which is very likely the internal clock of the micro-controller inside the keyboard. Toshiba Satellite U305-S7446 Keyboard
These harmonics are correlated with both clock and data signals, which describe modulated signals (in amplitude and frequency) and the full state of both clock and data signals. This means that the scan code can be completely recovered from these harmonics.[16]
[edit]The Matrix Scan Technique
Keyboard manufacturers arrange the keys in a matrix. Dell Inspiron N4010 Keyboard
The keyboard controller, often a 8-bit processor, parses columns one-by-one and recovers the state of 8 keys at once. This matrix scan process can be described as 192 keys (some keys may not be used, for instance modern keyboards use 104/105 keys) arranged in 24 columns and 8 rows.[17] These columns are continuously pulsed one-by-one for at least 3μs. Thus, Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7305 Keyboard
these leads may act as an antenna and generate electromagnetic emanations. If an attacker is able to capture these emanations, he can easily recover the column of the pressed key. Even if this signal does not fully describe the pressed key, it still gives partial information on the transmitted scan code, i.e. the column number.[17]
Note that the matrix scan routine loops continuously. Acer Aspire 7741G Keyboard
When no key is pressed, we still have a signal composed of multiple equidistant peaks. These emanations may be used to remotely detect the presence of powered computers. Concerning wireless keyboards, the wireless data burst transmission can be used as an electromagnetic trigger to detect exactly when a key is pressed, while the matrix scan emanations are used to determine the column it belongs to.[17]
[edit]SummaryAcer Aspire 3500 Keyboard
Some techniques can only target some keyboards. This table sums up which technique could be used to find keystroke for different kind of keyboard.
Technique name Wired Keyboard Laptop Keyboard Wireless Keyboard
Falling Edge Transition Technique Yes Yes
Generalized Transition Technique Yes Yes
Modulation Technique Yes Yes HP 608558-001 Keyboard
Matrix Scan Technique Yes Yes Yes
In their paper called "Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired and Wireless Keyboards", Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini tested 12 different keyboard models, with PS/2, USB connectors and wireless communication in different setups: a semi-anechoic chamber, a small office, an adjacent office and a flat in a building. The table below presents their results.
Type of keyboard Number of tested keyboard FETT GTT MT MST
PS/2 7 7/7 6/7 4/7 5/7
USB 2 0/2 0/2 0/2 2/2
Laptop 2 1/2 1/2 0/2 2/2
Wireless 1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1
[edit]Acoustic emanationsAsus F80L Keyboard
Attacks against emanations caused by human typing have attracted interest in recent years. In particular, works showed that keyboard acoustic emanations do leak information that can be exploited to reconstruct the typed text.[18]
PC keyboards, notebook keyboards are vulnerable to attacks based on differentiating the sound emanated by different keys.[19] This attack takes as input an audio signal containing a recording of a single word typed by a single person on a keyboard, and a dictionary of words. It is assume that the typed word is present in the dictionary. The aim of the attack is to reconstruct the original word from the signal.[20] This attack, Dell Vostro 1015 Keyboard
taking as input a 10-minute sound recording of a user typing English text using a keyboard, and then recovering up to 96% of typed characters.[21] This attack is inexpensive because the other hardware required is a parabolic microphone and non-invasive because it does not require physical intrusion into the system. The attack employsSony VAIO VGN-NW15G/W Keyboard
a neural network to recognize the key being pressed.[19] It combines signal processing and efficient data structures and algorithms, to successfully reconstruct single words of 7-13 characters from a recording of the clicks made when typing them on a keyboard.[18] The sound of clicks can differ slightly from key to key, because the keys are positioned at different positions on the keyboard plate, although the clicks of different keys sound similar to the human ear. Toshiba Satellite U300 Keyboard
[19]
On average, there were only 0.5 incorrect recognitions per 20 clicks, which shows the exposure of keyboard to the eavesdropping using this attack.[22] The attack is very efficient, taking under 20 seconds per word on a standard PC. A 90% or better success rate of finding the correct word for words of 10 or more characters, and a success rate of 73% over all the words tested.[18] In practice, a human attacker can typically determine if text is random. Asus A9Rp Keyboard
An attacker can also identify occasions when the user types user names and passwords.[23] Short audio signals containing a single word, with seven or more characters long was considered. This means that the signal is only a few seconds long. Such short words are often chosen as a password.[18] The dominant factors affecting the attack's success are the word length, and more importantly, the number of repeated characters within the word.[18] Toshiba Satellite 1870 Keyboard
This is a procedure that makes it possible to efficiently uncover a word out of audio recordings of keyboard click sounds.[24] More recently, extracting information out of an other type of emanations was demonstrated: acoustic emanations from mechanical devices such as dot-matrix printers.[18]
[edit]Video Eavesdropping on KeyboardThinkPad Edge E125
While extracting private information by watching somebody typing on a keyboard might seem to be an easy task, it becomes extremely challenging if it has to be automated. However, an automated tool is needed in the case of long-lasting surveillance procedures or long user activity, as a human being is able to reconstruct only a few characters per minute. The paper "ClearShot: Eavesdropping on Keyboard Input from Video" presents a novel approach to automatically recovering the text being typed on a keyboard, based solely on a video of the user typing.[25] Compaq Presario CQ57-229wm Keyboard
Automatically recognizing the keys being pressed by a user is a hard problem that requires sophisticated motion analysis. Experiments show that, for a human, reconstructing a few sentences requires lengthy hours of slow-motion analysis of the video. Sony VAIO VGN-CS21S/V Keyboard
[26] The attacker might install a surveillance device in the room of the victim, might take control of an existing camera by exploiting a vulnerability in the camera’s control software, or might simply point a mobile phone with an integrated camera at the laptop’s keyboard when the victim is working in a public space.[26]
Balzarotti's analysis is divided into two main phases (figure below). The first phase analyzes the video recorded by the camera using computer vision techniques. For each frame of the video, the computer vision analysis computes the set of keys that were likely pressed, Sony Vaio VGN-FW139E Keyboard
the set of keys that were certainly not pressed, and the position of space characters. Because the results of this phase of the analysis are noisy, a second phase, called the text analysis, is required. The goal of this phase is to remove errors using both language and context-sensitive techniques. The result of this phase is the reconstructed text, where each word is represented by a list of possible candidates, ranked by likelihood.[26]
Diagram presenting steps to go through when detecting keystroke with video inputToshiba Satellite M645-S4070 Keyboard
[edit]Printer
[edit]Acoustic emanations
With acoustic emanations, an attack that recovers what a dot-matrix printer processing English text is printing is possible. It is based on a record of the sound the printer makes, if the microphone is close enough to it. This attack recovers up to 72 % of printed words, and up to 95 % if knowledge about the text are done, with a microphone at a distance of 10 cm from the printer.[5] Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5109 Keyboard
After an upfront training phase ("a" in the picture below), the attack ("b" in the picture below) is fully automated and uses a combination of machine learning, audio processing, and speech recognition techniques, including spectrum features, Hidden Markov Models and linear classification.[9] The fundamental reason why the reconstruction of the printed text works is that, the emitted sound becomes louder if more needles strike the paper at a given time.[9] There is a correlation between the number of needles and the intensity of the acoustic emanation.[9] Sony VAIO VGN-NW110D Keyboard
A training phase was conducted where words from a dictionary are printed and characteristic sound features of these words are extracted and stored in a database. The trained characteristic features was used to recognize the printed English text.[9] But, this task is not trivial. Major challenges include :
Identifying and extracting sound features that suitably capture the acoustic emanation of dot-matrix printers;
Compensating for the blurred and overlapping features that are induced by the substantial decay time of the emanations; HP Pavilion G6-1206AX Keyboard
Identifying and eliminating wrongly recognized words to increase the overall percentage of correctly identified words (recognition rate).[9]
Diagram presenting phases when retrieving data from a printer
[edit]Computer componentsSony VAIO VGN-FS395VP Keyboard
[edit]Network Interface Card
[edit]Timing attack
Timing attacks enable an attacker to extract secrets maintained in a security system by observing the time it takes the system to respond to various queries.[27]
SSH is designed to provide a secure channel between two hosts. Despite the encryption and authentication mechanisms it uses, SSH has weaknesses. In interactive mode, every individual keystroke that a user types is sent to the remote machine in a separate IP packet immediately after the key is pressed, which leaks the inter-keystroke timing information of users’ typing. Below, the picture represents the command su processed through a SSH connection. ThinkPad Edge E520
Network messages sent between the host and the client for the command 'su' - numbers are size of network packet in byte
A very simple statistical techniques suffice to reveal sensitive information such as the length of users’ passwords or even root passwords. By using advanced statistical techniques on timing information collected from the network, HP 519265-001 Keyboard
the eavesdropper can learn significant information about what users type in SSH sessions.[28] Because the time it takes the operating system to send out the packet after the keypress is in general negligible comparing to the interkeystroke timing, this also enables an eavesdropper to learn the precise interkeystroke timings of users’ typing from the arrival times of packets.[29]
[edit]Memory
[edit]Physical chemistryAcer eMachines G640 Keyboard
Data remanence problems not only affect obvious areas such as RAM and non-volatile memory cells but can also occur in other areas of the device through hot-carrier effects (which change the characteristics of the semiconductors in the device) and various other effects which are examined alongside the more obvious memory-cell remanence problems.[30] It is possible to analyse and recover data from these cells and from semiconductor devices in general long after it should (in theory) have vanished.[31] Toshiba PK130CL1A00 Keyboard
Electromigration, which means to physically move the atom to new locations (to physically alter the device itself) is another type of attack.[30] It involves the relocation of metal atoms due to high current densities, a phenomenon in which atoms are carried along by an “electron wind” in the opposite direction to the conventional current, producing voids at the negative electrode and hillocks and whiskers at the positive electrode. Acer Aspire 5920 Keyboard
Void formation leads to a local increase in current density and Joule heating (the interaction of electrons and metal ions to produce thermal energy), producing further electromigration effects. When the external stress is removed, the disturbed system tends to relax back to its original equilibrium state, resulting in a backflow which heals some of the electromigration damage. In the long term though, this can cause device failure, but in less extreme cases it simply serves to alter a device’s operating characteristics in noticeable ways. HP 491274-031 Keyboard
For example, the excavations of voids leads to increased wiring resistance and the growth of whiskers leads to contact formation and current leakage.[30] An example of a conductor which exhibits whisker growth due to electromigration is shown in the figure below:
Whisker growth due to electromigration
One example which exhibits void formation (in this case severe enough to have led to complete failure) is shown in this figure:
Void formation due to electromigration
[edit]TemperatureHP Mini 110-1183TU Keyboard
Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for several seconds after power is lost, even at room temperature and even if removed from a motherboard.[32]
Many products do cryptographic and other security-related computations using secret keys or other variables that the equipment’s operator must not be HP Pavilion dv2-1010ea Keyboard
able to read out or alter. The usual solution is for the secret data to be kept in volatile memory inside a tamper-sensing enclosure. Security processors typically store secret key material in static RAM, from which power is removed if the device is tampered with. At temperatures below −20°C, the contents of SRAM can be ‘frozen’. It is interesting to know the Sony VAIO VGN-C2S Series Keyboard
period of time for which a static RAM device will retain data once the power has been removed. Low temperatures can increase the data retention time of SRAM to many seconds or even minutes.[33]
[edit]Read/Write exploits thanks to FireWire
Maximillian Dornseif presented a technique in these slides, HP Pavilion dv6-2138ca Keyboard
which let him take the control of a Apple computer thanks to an iPod. The attacks needed a first generic phase where the iPod software was modified so that it behave as master on the FireWire bus. Then the iPod had full read/write access on the Apple Computer when the iPod was plugged.[34] FireWire is used by : audio devices, printers, scanners, cameras, gps, etc. Generally, a device connected by FireWire has full access (read/write). Indeed, OHCI Standard (FireWire standard) reads : HP Pavilion dv6-3004tu Keyboard
“ Physical requests, including physical read, physical write and lock requests to some CSR registers (section 5.5), are handled directly by the Host Controller without assistance by system software. ”
—OHCI Standard
So, any device connected by FireWire can read and write data on the computer memory. For example, a device can : HP Probook 4720S Keyboard
Grab the screen contents ;
Just search the memory for strings such as login, passwords ;
Scan for possible key material ;
Search cryptographic keys stored in RAM ;
Parse the whole physical memory to understand logical memory layout.
Toshiba Tecra M10-SP2901R Keyboard
or
Mess up the memory ;
Change screen content ;
Change UID/GID of a certain process ;
Inject code into a process ;
Inject an additional process.
[edit]Processor
[edit]Cache attackToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
To increase the computational power, processors are generally equipped with a cache memory which decreases the memory access latency. Below, the figure shows the hierarchy between the processor and the memory. First the processor looks for data in the cache L1, then L2, then in the memory.
Processor cache hierarchyAcer Aspire 5720Z Keyboard
When the data is not where the processor is looking for, it is called a cache-miss. Below, pictures show how the processor fetch data when there are two cache levels.
Data A is in the L1-Cache
Data A is in the L2-Cache
Data A is in the memoryToshiba Satellite L755-S5244 Keyboard
Unfortunately caches contain only a small portion of the application data and can introduce additional latency to the memory transaction in the case of a miss. This involves also additional power consumption which is due to the activation of memory devices down in the memory hierarchy. The miss penalty has been already used to attack symmetric encryption algorithms, like DES.[35] The basic idea proposed in this paper is to force a cache miss while the processor is executing the AES encryption algorithm on a known plain text.[ HP Pavilion dv6-3050tx Keyboard
36] The attacks allow an unprivileged process to attack other process running in parallel on the same processor, despite partitioning methods such as memory protection, sandboxing and virtualization.[37]
[edit]Timing attack
By carefully measuring the amount of time required to perform private key operations, attackers may be able to find fixed Diffie-Hellman exponents, factor RSA keys, Sony VAIO VGN-NR21E/S Keyboard
and break other cryptosystems. Against a vulnerable system, the attack is computationally inexpensive and often requires only known ciphertext.[38] The attack can be treated as a signal detection problem. The signal consists of the timing variation due to the target exponent bit, and noise results from measurement inaccuracies and timing variations due to unknown exponent bits. The properties of the signal and noise determineAcer TravelMate 2355XM Keyboard
the number of timing measurements required to for the attack. Timing attacks can potentially be used against other cryptosystems, including symmetric functions.[39]
[edit]Privilege escalation
A simple and generic processor backdoor can be used by attackers as a means to privilege escalation to get to privileges equivalent to those of any given running operating system. Acer Aspire 5742 Keyboard
[40] Also, a non-privileged process of one of the non-privileged invited domain running on top of a virtual machine monitor can get to privileges equivalent to those of the virtual machine monitor.[40]
Loïc Duflot studied Intel processors in the paper "CPU bugs, CPU backdoors and consequences on security" ; he explains that the processor defines four different privilege rings numbered from 0 (most privileged) to 3 (least privileged). HP Pavilion dv6-2012ef Keyboard
Kernel code is usually running in ring 0, whereas user-space code is generally running in ring 3. The use of some security-critical assembly language instructions is restricted to ring 0 code. In order to escalate privilege through the backdoor, the attacker must :[41]
activate the backdoor by placing the CPU in the desired state HP Mini 1109TU Keyboard
;
inject code and run it in ring 0 ;
get back to ring 3 in order to return the system to a stable state. Indeed, when code is running in ring 0, system calls do not work : Leaving the system in ring 0 and running a random system call (exit() typically) is likely to crash the system. Sony VAIO VGN-FS660 Keyboard
The backdoors Loïc Duflot presents are simple as they only modify the behavior of three assembly language instructions and have very simple and specific activation conditions, so that they are very unlikely to be accidentally activated. HP 633736-001 Keyboard
A laptop computer
A laptop computer is a personal computer for mobile use.[1] A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device such as a touchpad (also known as a trackpad) and/or a pointing stick, and speakers into a single unit. A laptop is powered by mains electricity via an AC adapter, and can be used away from an outlet using a rechargeable battery. Laptops are also sometimes called notebook computers, notebooks or netbooks.
Portable computers, Toshiba 48.N5601.001A Keyboard originally monochrome CRT-based and developed into the modern laptops, were originally considered to be a small niche market, mostly for specialized field applications such as the military, accountants and sales representatives. As portable computers became smaller, lighter, cheaper, more powerful and as screens became larger and of better quality, laptops became very widely used for all sorts of purposes, by all sorts of people.
Contents [hide] Toshiba 4h.n7401.001-b Keyboard
1 History
2 Classification
2.1 Desktop replacement
2.2 Subnotebook
2.3 Netbook
2.4 Rugged laptop
2.5 Tablet laptop
3 Components
3.1 Docking stations
3.2 Charging stations
3.3 Standards
4 Advantages
5 Disadvantages
5.1 Performance
5.2 Upgradeability
5.3 Ergonomics and health effects
5.3.1 Wrists
5.3.2 Neck, spinalToshiba 4h.n7401.041-a Keyboard
5.3.3 Possible effect on fertility
5.3.4 Thighs
5.4 Durability
5.4.1 Equipment wear
5.4.2 Parts replacement
5.4.3 Heat and cooling
5.4.4 Battery life
5.5 Security and privacy
6 Major brands and manufacturers
7 Sales
8 Super users
9 Extreme environments
10 AccessoriesToshiba 6037B0017206 Keyboard
11 Used to have features
12 See also
13 References
14 External links
History
Main article: History of laptops
Alan Kay with "Dynabook" prototype
The Epson HX-20Toshiba 6037b0026805 Keyboard
s the personal computer became feasible in the early 1970s, the idea of a portable personal computer followed. A "personal, portable information manipulator" was imagined by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in 1968,[2] and described in his 1972 paper as the "Dynabook".[3]
The IBM SCAMP project (Special Computer APL Machine Portable), was demonstrated in 1973. This prototype was based on the IBM PALM processor (Put All Logic In Microcode or 128 bit).
The IBM 5100, the first commercially available portable computer, appeared in September 1975, and was based on the SCAMP prototype.[4] Toshiba 6037B0028502 Keyboard
As 8-bit CPU machines became widely accepted, the number of portables increased rapidly. The Osborne 1, released in 1981, used the Zilog Z80 and weighed 23.6 pounds (10.7 kg). It had no battery, a 5 in (13 cm) CRT screen, and dual 5.25 in (13.3 cm) single-density floppy drives. In the same year the first laptop-sized portable computer, the Epson HX-20, was announced.[5] The Epson had a LCD screen, a rechargeable battery, Toshiba 6037B0035302 Keyboard and a calculator-size printer in a 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) chassis. Both Tandy/RadioShack and HP also produced portable computers of varying designs during this period.[6][7]
The first laptops using the flip form factor appeared in the early 1980s. The Dulmont Magnum was released in Australia in 1981–82, but was not marketed internationally until 1984–85. The $8,150 ($19,630 today) GRiD Compass 1100, released in 1982, Toshiba 6037B0047802 Keyboardwas used at NASA and by the military among others. The Gavilan SC, released in 1983, was the first computer described as a "laptop" by its manufacturer.[8] From 1983 onward, several new input techniques were developed and included in laptops, including the touchpad (Gavilan SC, 1983), the pointing stick (IBM ThinkPad 700, 1992) and handwriting recognition (Linus Write-Top,[9] 1987). Some CPUs, such as the 1990 Intel i386SL, Toshiba 85 T0017801A Keyboardwere designed to use minimum power to increase battery life of portable computers, and were supported by dynamic power management features such as Intel SpeedStep and AMD PowerNow! in some designs.
Displays reached VGA resolution by 1988 (Compaq SLT/286), and colour screens started becoming a common upgrade in 1991 with increases in resolution and screen size occurring frequently until the introduction of 17"-screen laptops in 2003. Hard drives started to be used in portables, Toshiba 92.N4XBC.A01 Keyboard encouraged by the introduction of 3.5" drives in the late 1980s, and became common in laptops starting with the introduction of 2.5" and smaller drives around 1990; capacities have typically lagged behind physically larger desktop drives. Optical storage, read-only CD-ROM followed by writeable CD and later read-only or writeable DVD and Blu-Ray, became common in laptops soon in the 2000s.
ClassificationToshiba 99.N5682.701 Keyboard
The MacBook Air
The term "laptop" can refer to a number of classes of small portable computers:[10][11]
Full-size Laptop: A laptop large enough to accommodate a "full-size" keyboard (a keyboard with the minimum QWERTY key layout, which is at least 13.5 keys across that are on ¾ (0.750) inch centers, plus some room on both ends for the case). Toshiba 99.N5682.A01 KeyboardThe measurement of at least 11 inches across has been suggested as the threshold for this class.[12] The first laptops were the size of a standard U.S. "A size" notebook sheet of paper (8.5 × 11 inches)[citation needed], but later "A4-size" laptops were introduced, which were the width of a standard ISO 216 A4 sheet of paper (297 mm, or about 11.7 inches), and added a vertical column of keys to the right and wider screens. It can also be laid sideways when not in useToshiba 99.n7482.001 Keyboard.
Netbook: A smaller, lighter, more portable laptop. It is also usually cheaper than a full-size laptop, but has fewer features and less computing power. Smaller keyboards can be more difficult to operate. There is no sharp line of demarcation between netbooks and inexpensive small laptops; some 11.6" models are marketed as netbooks. Since netbook laptops are quite small in size, netbooks typically do not come with an internal optical drive. Toshiba 9J.N5682.001 Keyboard
Tablet PC: these have touch screens. There are "convertable tablets" with a full keyboard where the screen rotates to be used atop the keyboard, and "slate" form-factor machines which are usually touch-screen only (although a few older models feature very small keyboards along the sides of the screen.) Toshiba 9J.N5682.701 Keyboard
Ultra-mobile PC: An ultra-mobile PC (ultra-mobile personal computer or UMPC) is a small form factor version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this direction in 2004 with its Vaio U series, which was however only sold in Asia. Toshiba 9J.N5682.D01 Keyboard
UMPCs are smaller than subnotebooks, have a TFT display measuring (diagonally) about 12.7 to 17.8 cm, and are operated like tablet PCs using a touchscreen or a stylus. There is no clear boundary between subnotebooks and ultra-mobile PCs.
Handheld PC: A Handheld PC, or H/PC for short, is a term for a computer built around a form factor which is smaller than any standard laptop computerToshiba 9J.N5682.N01 Keyboard
. It is sometimes referred to as a Palmtop. The first handheld device compatible with desktop IBM personal computers of the time was the Atari Portfolio of 1989. Another early model was the Poqet PC of 1989 and the Hewlett Packard HP 95LX of 1991. Other DOS compatible hand-held computers also existed.
Rugged: Engineered to operate in tough conditions Toshiba 9j.n7482.201 Keyboard
(mechanical shocks, extreme temperatures, wet and dusty environments, etc.)
Ultrabook: A very thin version of a laptop. They are a higher-end subnotebook "inspired" by Intel.
Desktop replacement
Main article: Desktop replacement computer
A modern laptop, Acer Aspire. Toshiba 9J.N7482.901 Keyboard
A desktop-replacement computer is a laptop that provides all of the capabilities of a desktop computer, with a similar level of performance. Desktop replacements are usually larger and heavier than standard laptops. They contain more powerful components and have a 15" or larger display.[11] They are bulkier and not as portable as other laptops, and their operation time on batteries is typically shorter; they are intended to be used as compact and transportable alternatives to a desktop computer.[11] Toshiba 9j.n7782.001 Keyboard
Some laptops in this class use a limited range of desktop components to provide better performance for the same price at the expense of battery life; a few of those models have no battery.[13]
In the early 2000s, desktops were more powerful, easier to upgrade, and much cheaper than laptops, Toshiba 9J.N9082.001 Keyboard but in later years laptops have become much cheaper and more powerful than before,[14] and most peripherals are available in laptop-compatible USB versions which minimise the need for internal add-on cards. In the second half of 2008, laptops outsold desktops for the first time.
The names "Media Center Laptops" and "Gaming Laptops" are used to describe specialized notebook computers.[10] Toshiba 9J.N9082.A01 Keyboard
Sony VAIO P series subnotebook
Subnotebook
Main article: Subnotebook
A subnotebook or ultraportable is a laptop designed and marketed with an emphasis on portability (small size, Toshiba 9J.N9082.C01 Keyboard low weight and often longer battery life) that retains performance close to that of a standard notebook. Subnotebooks are usually smaller and lighter than standard laptops, weighing between 0.8 and 2 kg (2 to 5 pounds);[10] the battery life can exceed 10 hours[15] when a large battery or an additional battery pack is installed. Since the introduction of netbooks, the line between subnotebooks and higher-end netbooks has been substantially blurred. Toshiba 9J.N9082.E01 Keyboard
To achieve the size and weight reductions, ultraportables use 13" and smaller screens (down to 6.4"), have relatively few ports (but in any case include two or more USB ports), employ expensive components designed for minimal size and best power efficiency, and utilize advanced materials and construction methods. Most subnotebooks achieve a further portability improvement by omitting an optical/removable media drive; Toshiba 9J.N9082.J01 Keyboard
in this case they may be paired with a docking station that contains the drive and optionally more ports or an additional battery.
The term "subnotebook" is reserved to laptops that run general-purpose desktop operating systems such as Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, Toshiba 9J.N9282.801 Keyboard rather than specialized software such as Windows CE, Palm OS or Internet Tablet OS.
At Computex 2011 Intel announced a new class for ultraportables called Ultrabooks. The term is used to describe a highly portable laptop that has strict limits for size, weight, battery life, and have tablet-like features such as instant on functionality. Intel estimates that by the end of 2012, Toshiba 9J.N9282.W01 Keyboard
40 percent of the consumer laptop market segment will be Ultrabooks.[16]
Netbook
Main article: Netbook
Netbooks are laptops that are light-weight, economical, energy-efficient and especially suited for wireless communication and Internet access.[17][18] Hence the name netbook (as "the device excels in web-based computing performance").[19] Toshiba 9J.N99282.D01 Keyboard
With primary focus given to web browsing and e-mailing, netbooks are intended to "rely heavily on the Internet for remote access to web-based applications"[19] and are targeted increasingly at cloud computing users who rely on servers and require a less powerful client computer.[20] A common distinguishing feature is the lack of optical disk (i.e. CD, DVD or Blu-ray) drives. Toshiba 9z.n1y82.001 KeyboardWhile the devices range in size from below 5 inches[21] to over 12,[22] most are between 9 and 11 inches (280 mm) and weigh between 0.9–1.4 kg (2–3 pounds).[19]
Netbooks are mostly sold with light-weight operating systems such as Linux, Windows XP and Windows 7 Starter edition.
Because they are very portable, netbooks have a few disadvantages. Toshiba 9Z.N3D82.001 Keyboard Because the netbooks are thin, the first such products introduced to the market had their primary internal storage in the form of solid-state drives and not hard disks, which are essential to installing very many programs. Hard disk drive technology and form factors have since been adapted to fit into netbooks.
Given their size and use of more rudimentary components compared to notebooks and subnotebooks, Toshiba 9Z.N4WOM.001 Keyboard netbooks also generally have a smaller-capacity hard drive, slower CPU, and a lower-profile RAM capacity.[23]
In 2009, Google announced an operating system called Google Chrome OS for this market.
The big breakthrough for netbook computers did not happen until the weight, diagonal form-factor and price combination of < 1 kg, < 9", < U.S. $400, respectively, became commercially available in around 2008.
Rugged laptopToshiba 9Z.N4WSC.001 Keyboard
Main article: Rugged computer
A Panasonic Toughbook.
A rugged (or ruggedized) laptop is designed to reliably operate in harsh usage conditions such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures, and wet or dusty environments. Rugged laptops are usually designed from scratch, rather than adapted from regular consumer laptop models. Rugged laptops are bulkier, heavier, and much more expensive than regular laptops,[24] and thus are seldom seen in regular consumer use. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
The design features found in rugged laptops include rubber sheeting under the keyboard keys, sealed port and connector covers, passive cooling, superbright displays easily readable in daylight, cases and frames made of magnesium alloys[25] that are much stronger than plastic found in commercial laptops, and solid-state storage devices or hard disc drives that are shock mounted to withstand constant vibrations. Toshiba A000014900 KeyboardRugged laptops are commonly used by public safety services (police, fire and medical emergency), military, utilities, field service technicians, construction, mining and oil drilling personnel. Rugged laptops are usually sold to organizations, rather than individuals, and are rarely marketed via retail channels.
Tablet laptop
See also: Tablet computerToshiba AEBD10IU011-US Keyboard
A tablet laptop with stylus
Typical modern convertible laptops have a complex joint between the keyboard housing and the display permitting the display panel to swivel and then lie flat on the keyboard housing.
Typically, the base of a tablet laptop attaches to the display at a single joint called a swivel hinge or rotating hinge. The joint allows the screen to rotate through 180° and fold down on top of the keyboard to provide a flat writing surface. This design, although the most common, Toshiba AEBD3U00050 Keyboard creates a physical point of weakness on the laptop.
Some manufacturers have attempted to overcome these weak points by adopting innovative methods such as a sliding design in which the screen slides up from the slate-like position and locks into place to provide the laptop mode.
Tablet laptops have the advantage to offer the keyboard and pointing device (usually a trackpad) of older laptops, Toshiba AEBD3U00150-US Keyboard for users who do not use the touchscreen display as the primary method of input. Tablets are also touchscreen.
Components
Main article: Personal computer hardware
Miniaturization: a comparison of a desktop computer motherboard (ATX form factor) to a motherboard from a 13" laptop (2008 unibody Macbook)
Inner view of a Sony VAIO laptop
The basic components of laptops are similar in function to their desktop counterparts, Toshiba AEBL5R00040-UI Keyboard but are miniaturized, adapted to mobile use, and designed for low power consumption. Because of the additional requirements, laptop components are usually slower compared to similarly priced desktop parts. Furthermore, the design bounds on power, size, and cooling of laptops limit the maximum performance of laptop parts compared to that of desktop components.[26]
The following list summarizes the differences and distinguishing features of laptop components in comparison to desktop personal computer parts:[27] Toshiba AEEW30IU018-US Keyboard
Central processing unit (CPU): Laptop CPUs have advanced power-saving features and produce less heat than desktop processors, but are not as powerful.[28] There is a wide range of CPUs designed for laptops available from Intel (Pentium M, Celeron M, Intel Core and Core 2 Duo), AMD (Athlon, Turion 64, and Sempron), VIA Technologies, Transmeta and others. Toshiba G83C0000E510 Keyboard On the non-x86 architectures, Motorola and IBM produced the chips for the former PowerPC-based Apple laptops (iBook and PowerBook). Most laptops have removable CPUs, although some support by the motherboard may be restricted to the specific models.[29] Some laptops uses a desktop processor instead of the laptop version. Those laptops have high performance at the cost of being likely to have overheating problems, Toshiba G83C0000EA10 Keyboard
and having less battery life. In other laptops the CPU is soldered on the motherboard and is non-replaceable.
A SODIMM memory module
Memory (RAM): SO-DIMM memory modules that are usually found in laptops are about half the size of desktop DIMMs.[27] They may be accessible from the bottom of the laptop for ease of upgrading, or placed in locations not intended for user replacement such as between the keyboard and the motherboard. Currently, Toshiba G83c00018610 Keyboard
most midrange laptops are factory equipped with 3–4 GB of DDR2 RAM, while some higher end notebooks feature up to 32 GB of DDR3 memory. Netbooks however, are commonly equipped with only 1 GB of RAM to keep manufacturing costs low.
Expansion cards: A PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) or ExpressCard bay for expansion cards is often present on laptops to allow adding and removing functionality, Toshiba G83C0001K210 Keyboard
even when the laptop is powered on. Some subsystems (such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or a cellular modem) can be implemented as replaceable internal expansion cards, usually accessible under an access cover on the bottom of the laptop. Two popular standards for such cards are MiniPCI and its successor, the PCI Express Mini.[30] Toshiba G83c0003b210 Keyboard
Power supply: Laptops are typically powered by an internal rechargeable battery that is charged using an external power supply, which outputs a DC voltage typically in the range of 7.2– 24 volts. The power supply is usually external, and connected to the laptop through a AC connector cable. It can charge the battery and power the laptop simultaneously; when the battery is fully charged, the laptop continues to run on power supplied by the external power supply. Toshiba G83c0003b710 Keyboard
The charger adds about 400 grams (1 lb) to the overall "transport weight" of the notebook.
Battery: Current laptops utilize lithium ion batteries, with more recent models using the new lithium polymer technology. These two technologies have largely replaced the older nickel metal-hydride batteries. Typical battery life for standard laptops is two to five hours of light-duty use, but may drop to as little as one hour when doing power-intensive tasks. Toshiba G83C0003G110 Keyboard
A battery's performance gradually decreases with time, leading to an eventual replacement in one to three years, depending on the charging and discharging pattern. This large-capacity main battery should not be confused with the much smaller battery nearly all computers use to run the real-time clock and to store the BIOS configuration in the CMOS memory when the computer is off. Lithium-ion batteries do not have a memory effect as older batteries may have. Toshiba G83c0004l410 Keyboard
The memory effect happens when one does not use a battery to its fullest extent, then recharges the battery. Innovations in laptops and batteries have seen new possible matchings which can provide up to a full 24 hours of continued operation, assuming average power consumption levels. An example of this is the HP EliteBook 6930p when used with its ultra-capacity battery.
Video display controller: Toshiba G83c0004lbus Keyboard
On standard laptops the video controller is usually integrated into the chipset to conserve power. This tends to limit the use of laptops for gaming and entertainment, two fields which have constantly escalating hardware demands, and because the integrated chipset is very difficult to upgrade for a standard user, laptops may grow obsolete quickly for use in gaming and entertainment. Toshiba G83C0009W2US Keyboard
[31] Higher-end laptops and desktop replacements in particular often come with dedicated graphics processors on the motherboard or as an internal expansion card. These mobile graphics processors are comparable in performance to mainstream desktop graphic accelerator boards.[32] A few notebooks have switchable graphics with both an integrated and discrete card installed. The user can choose between using integrated graphics when battery life is important and dedicated graphics when demanding applications call for it. This allows for greater flexibility and also conserves power when not required.[33] Toshiba H000001790 Keyboard
Display: Most modern laptops feature 13 inches (33 cm) or larger color active matrix displays based on CCFL or LED lighting with resolutions of 1280×800 (16:10) or 1366 × 768 (16:9) pixels and above. Some models use screens with resolutions common in desktop PCs (for example, 1440×900, 1600×900 and 1680×1050.) Models with LED-based lighting offer lesser power consumption, and often higher brightness. Toshiba H000006820 Keyboard
Netbooks with a 10 inches (25 cm) or smaller screen typically use a resolution of 1024×600, while netbooks and subnotebooks with a 11.6 inches (29 cm) or 12 inches (30 cm) screen use standard notebook resolutions. Having a higher resolution display will allow you to fit more onscreen at a time, thus improving your ability to multitask. A higher resolution in a fixed size display will make items onscreen appear smaller than they would on a lower resolution. Toshiba K000001600 Keyboard
The difference between available display resolutions will often affect the user's experience considerably more than the difference between available processors and available memory, but it is commonly misconceived to be the opposite. 15.6" 1366 × 768 displays and 17.3" 1600 × 900 displays make items onscreen rather large, and tend to have poor image quality due in part to low contrast compared to their higher-resolution counterparts such as 15.6" 1600×900, Toshiba K000009780 Keyboard
15.6" 1920×1080, and 17.3" 1920×1080, because the lower resolution displays are generally more cheaply manufactured. If you as a buyer have a budget that allows you to get a laptop that one of the higher-resolution displays and at the same time suits your needs, and if you don't require the larger text provided by a lower resolution for eyesight-related reasons, then it is commonly recommended that you avoid buying laptops that come with the lower-resolution 15.6" 1366 × 768 displays or 17.3" 1600 × 900 displays. Toshiba K000011870 Keyboard
1366 × 768-resolution displays of sizes 14" and under tend to exhibit the same low-contrast-related poor image quality, but do not make items onscreen as large. 1600 × 900 resolution is occasionally available in sizes of 13.3" and 14", improving multitasking capability, but it is rare for such displays to have noticeably better contrast.
A size comparison of 3.5" and 2.5" hard disk drives
Removable media drives: A DVD/CD reader/writer drive is nearly universal on full-sized models, and is common on thin-and-light models; Toshiba K000016050 Keyboard
it is uncommon on subnotebooks and unknown on netbooks. CD drives are becoming rare, while Blu-ray is becoming more common on notebooks.[34]
Internal storage: Laptop hard disks are physically smaller—2.5 inches (64 mm) or 1.8 inches (46 mm) —compared to desktop 3.5 inches (89 mm) drives. Some newer laptops (usually ultraportables) employ more expensive, Toshiba K000029390 Keyboard
but faster, lighter and power-efficient flash memory-based SSDs instead. Currently, 250 to 500 GB sizes are common for laptop hard disks (64 to 512 GB for SSDs).
Input: A pointing stick, touchpad or both are used to control the position of the cursor on the screen, and an integrated keyboard is used for typing. An external keyboard and/or mouse may be connected using USB or PS/2 port, or Bluetooth (if present). Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
Ports: several USB ports, an external monitor port (VGA, DVI, mini-DisplayPort or HDMI), audio in/out, and an Ethernet network port are found on most laptops. Less common are legacy ports such as a PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, serial port or a parallel port. S-video or composite video ports are more common on consumer-oriented notebooks.
Cooling: Toshiba K000073050 Keyboard
Waste heat from operation is difficult to remove in the compact internal space of a laptop. Early laptops used heat sinks placed directly on the components to be cooled, but when these hot components are deep inside the device, a large space-wasting air duct is needed to exhaust the heat. Modern laptops instead rely on heat pipes to rapidly move waste heat towards the edges of the device, to allow for a much smaller and compact fan and heat sink cooling system. Toshiba K000097450 Keyboard
Waste heat is usually exhausted away from the device operator, towards the rear or sides of the device. Multiple air intake paths are used, because some intakes can be blocked, such as when the device is placed on a soft conforming surface such as a chair cushion. Some designs with metal cases, like Apple's aluminum MacBook Pro and MacBook Air also employ the case of the machine as a "gigantic" heat sink, Toshiba K000097460 Keyboard
and rely on it to pump heat out of the device core.[citation needed]Secondary device temperature monitoring may reduce performance or trigger an emergency shutdown if it is unable to dissipate heat, such as if the laptop were to be left running and placed inside a carrying case. Such a condition has the potential to melt plastics or ignite a fire.
Docking stations
A docking station is a relatively bulky laptop accessory that contains multiple ports, Toshiba K000098730 Keyboard
expansion slots, and bays for fixed or removable drives. A laptop connects and disconnects easily to a docking station, typically through a single large proprietary connector. A port replicator is a simplified docking station that only provides connections from the laptop to input/output ports. Both docking stations and port replicators are intended to be used at a permanent working place (a desk) to offer instant connection to multiple input/output devices and to extend a laptop's capabilities. Toshiba K011126E1 US Keyboard
Docking stations became a common laptop accessory in the early 1990s. The most common use was in a corporate computing environment where the company had standardized on a common network card and this same card was placed into the docking station. These stations were very large and quite expensive. As the need for additional storage and expansion slots became less critical because of the high integration inside the laptop, Toshiba KFRSBA064A Keyboard
port replicators have gained popularity, being a cheaper, often passive device that often simply mates to the connectors on the back of the notebook, or connects via a standardized port such as USB or FireWire.
Charging stations
Laptop charging trolleys, Toshiba KFRSBA114A Keyboard
also known as laptop trolleys or laptop carts, are mobile storage containers to charge laptops, netbooks and tablet computers en masse. The trolleys are predominately used in schools that have replaced their traditional static ICT[35] suites of desktop computers with laptops, but do not have enough plug sockets in their buildings to charge all of the devices.
The trolleys can be wheeled between rooms and classrooms so that anyone in a particular building can access fully charged IT[36] equipment. Toshiba MP-03433US-6984 Keyboard
Laptop charging trolleys are also used to deter and protect against opportunistic and organized theft. Schools, especially those with open plan designs, are often prime targets for thieves and laptops, netbooks and tablets can easily be concealed and removed from buildings. Laptop charging trolleys were designed and constructed to protect against theft. They are generally made out of steel, and the laptops remain locked up while not in use. Toshiba MP-03433US-930 Keyboard
Although the trolleys can be moved between areas in buildings, they can often also be mounted to the floor or walls to prevent thieves walking off with investments, especially overnight.[35]
Standards
In general, components other than the four categories listed above are not intended to be replaceable; a few, such as processors, Toshiba MP-03433US-9301 Keyboard
follow their own standards but are difficult to replace because of other factors (for example, in the case of processors cooling and access limitations can make upgrades very difficult or impossible.)
In particular, motherboards are almost always make and model-specific: locations of ports, and design and placement of internal components are not standard. Toshiba MP-04273US-5281 Keyboard
Those parts are neither interchangeable with parts from other manufacturers (replaceable) nor upgradeable. If broken or damaged, they must be substituted with an exact replacement part. Those users uneducated in the relevant fields are those the most affected by incompatibilities, especially if they attempt to connect their laptops with incompatible hardware or power adapters.
Intel, Asus, Compal, Toshiba MP-06766U4-698 Keyboard
Quanta and some other laptop manufacturers have created the Common Building Block standard for laptop parts to address some of the inefficiencies caused by the lack of standards.
Advantages
Laptop computers are portable and can be used in many locations. Shown here is Vicente Fox using an Apple PowerBook
A woman listening to music on external speakers. Toshiba MP-06863UK-930 Keyboard
Portability is usually the first feature mentioned in any comparison of laptops versus desktop PCs.[37] Physical portability allows that a laptop can be used in many places— not only at home and at the office, but also during commuting and flights, in coffee shops, in lecture halls and libraries, at clients' location or at a meeting room, etc. The portability feature offers several distinct advantages: Toshiba MP-06863US-9308 Keyboard
Productivity: Using a laptop in places where a desktop PC can not be used, and at times that would otherwise be wasted. For example, an office worker managing their e-mails during an hour-long commute by train, or a student doing his/her homework at the university coffee shop during a break between lectures.[38]
Immediacy: Carrying a laptop means having instant access to various information, Toshiba MP-06866GB-6983 Keyboard
personal and work files. Immediacy allows better collaboration between coworkers or students, as a laptop can be flipped open to present a problem or a solution anytime, anywhere.
Up-to-date information: If a person has more than one desktop PC, a problem of synchronization arises: changes made on one computer are not automatically propagated to the others. There are ways to resolve this problem, Toshiba MP-06873US-6983 Keyboard
including physical transfer of updated files (using a USB flash memory stick or CDRs) or using synchronization software over the Internet. However, using a single laptop at both locations avoids the problem entirely, as the files exist in a single location and are always up-to-date.
Connectivity: A proliferation of Wi-Fi wireless networks and cellular broadband data services (HSDPA, EVDO and others) combined with a near-ubiquitous support by laptops[39Toshiba MP-06873US-9204 Keyboard
] means that a laptop can have easy Internet and local network connectivity while remaining mobile. Wi-Fi networks and laptop programs are especially widespread at university campuses.[40]
Other advantages of laptops:
Size: Laptops are smaller than desktop PCs. Toshiba MP-07A23A0-442 Keyboard
This is beneficial when space is at a premium, for example in small apartments and student dorms. When not in use, a laptop can be closed and put away.
Low power consumption: Laptops are several times more power-efficient than desktops. A typical laptop uses 20–90 W, compared to 100–800 W for desktops. This could be particularly beneficial for businesses (which run hundreds of personal computers, Toshiba MP-07A56CU-442 Keyboard
multiplying the potential savings) and homes where there is a computer running 24/7 (such as a home media server, print server, etc.)
Quiet: Laptops are often quieter than desktops, due both to the components (quieter, slower 2.5-inch hard drives) and to less heat production leading to use of fewer and slower cooling fans.
Battery: Toshiba MP-09K53US6698 Keyboard
a charged laptop can continue to be used in case of a power outage and is not affected by short power interruptions and blackouts. A desktop PC needs a UPS to handle short interruptions, blackouts and spikes; achieving on-battery time of more than 20–30 minutes for a desktop PC requires a large and expensive UPS.[41]
All-in-One: designed to be portable, Toshiba MP-09N13US-698 Keyboard
laptops have everything integrated in to the chassis. For desktops (excluding all-in-ones) this is divided into the desktop, keyboard, mouse, display, and optional peripherals such as speakers.
Disadvantages
Compared to desktop PCs, laptops have disadvantages in the following fields:
Performance
While the performance of mainstream desktops and laptops is comparable, and the cost of laptops Toshiba N860-7630-T101-03A Keyboard
has fallen more rapidly than desktops, laptops remain more expensive than desktop PCs at the same performance level.[42] The upper limits of performance of laptops remain much lower than the highest-end desktops (especially "workstation class" machines with two processor sockets), and "bleeding-edge" features usually appear first in desktops and only then, as the underlying technology matures, are adapted to laptops. Toshiba NSK-T4001 Keyboard
However, for Internet browsing and typical office applications, where the computer spends the majority of its time waiting for the next user input, even relatively low-end laptops (such as Netbooks) can be fast enough for some users.[43] As of mid-2010, at the lowest end, the cheapest netbooks—between US$200–300—remain more expensive than the lowest-end desktop computers (around US$200) only when those are priced without a screen/monitor. Once an inexpensive monitor is added, the prices are comparable. Toshiba NSK-T4101 Keyboard
Most higher-end laptops are sufficiently powerful for high-resolution movie playback, some 3D gaming and video editing and encoding. However, laptop processors can be disadvantaged when dealing with higher-end database, maths, engineering, financial software, virtualization, etc. Also, the top-of-the-line mobile graphics processors (GPUs) are significantly behind the top-of-the-line desktop GPUs to a greater degree than the processors, which limits the utility of laptops for high-end 3D gaming and scientific visualization applications. Toshiba NSK-T4301 Keyboard
Some manufacturers work around this performance problem by using desktop CPUs for laptops.[44]
Upgradeability
Upgradeability of laptops is very limited compared to desktops, which are thoroughly standardized. In general, hard drives and memory can be upgraded easily. Optical drives and internal expansion cards may be upgraded if they follow an industry standard, Toshiba NSK-T4701 Keyboard
but all other internal components, including the motherboard, CPU and graphics, are not always intended to be upgradeable. Intel, Asus, Compal, Quanta and some other laptop manufacturers have created the Common Building Block standard for laptop parts to address some of the inefficiencies caused by the lack of standards. Toshiba NSK-T4A01 Keyboard
The reasons for limited upgradeability are both technical and economic. There is no industry-wide standard form factor for laptops; each major laptop manufacturer pursues its own proprietary design and construction, with the result that laptops are difficult to upgrade and have high repair costs. With few exceptions, laptop components can rarely be swapped between laptops of competing manufacturers, or even between laptops from the different product-lines of the same manufacturer. Toshiba NSK-T4D01 Keyboard
Some upgrades can be performed by adding external devices, either USB or in expansion card format such as PC Card. Devices such as sound cards, network adapters, hard and optical drives, and numerous other peripherals are available, but these upgrades usually impair the laptop's portability, because they add cables and boxes to the setup and often have to be disconnected and reconnected when the laptop is on the move. Toshiba NSK-T4N01 Keyboard
Ergonomics and health effects
Wrists
Laptop cooler preventing heating of lap and improving laptop airflow
Because of their small and flat keyboard and trackpad pointing devices, prolonged use of laptops can cause repetitive strain injury.[45] Usage of separate, external ergonomic keyboards and pointing devices is recommended to prevent injury when working for long periods of time; Toshiba NSK-t6001 Keyboard
they can be connected to a laptop easily by USB or via a docking station. Some health standards require ergonomic keyboards at workplaces.
Neck, spinal
The integrated screen often causes users to hunch over for a better view, which can cause neck or spinal injuries. A larger and higher-quality external screen can be connected to almost any laptop to alleviate that and to provide additional screen space for more productive work. Toshiba NSK-T6401 Keyboard
Another solution is to use a computer stand.
For anyone not buying a new screen, a simple method to reduce risk of spinal injury is to position the laptop's screen in a manner that an obtuse angle (more than 90 degrees open) is formed. It is then possible for the neck to remain straight during use of the device.
Possible effect on fertilityToshiba NSK-T6901 Keyboard
A study by State University of New York researchers found that heat generated from laptops can increase the temperature of the lap of male users when balancing the computer on their lap, potentially putting sperm count at risk. The study, which included roughly two dozen men between the ages of 21 and 35, found that the sitting position required to balance a laptop can increase scrotum temperature by as much as 2.1 °C (3.78 °F). However, further research is needed to determine whether this directly affects male sterility.[46] Toshiba NSK-T7001 Keyboard
A 2010 study of 29 males published in Fertility and Sterility found that men who kept their laptops on their laps experienced scrotal hyperthermia (overheating) in which their scrotal temperatures increased by up to 2 °C. The resulting heat increase, which could not be offset by a laptop cushion, may increase male infertility.[47][48][49][50][51]
A common practical solution to this problem is to place the laptop on a Toshiba NSK-TA001 Keyboard
table or desk, or to use a book or pillow between the body and the laptop.[citation needed] Another solution is to obtain a cooling unit for the laptop. These are usually USB powered and consist of a hard thin plastic case housing one, two or three cooling fans – with the entire assembly designed to sit under the laptop in question – which results in the laptop remaining cool to the touch, and greatly reduces laptop heat buildup.[citation needed] Toshiba NSK-TACO1 Keyboard
Thighs
Heat generated from using a laptop on the lap can also cause skin discoloration on the thighs known as "toasted skin syndrome."[52][53][54][55]
Durability
A clogged heat sink on a laptop after 2.5 years of use
Equipment wear
Because of their portability, Toshiba NSK-TAE01 Keyboard
laptops are subject to more wear and physical damage than desktops. Components such as screen hinges, latches, power jacks and power cords deteriorate gradually from ordinary use. A liquid spill onto the keyboard, a rather minor mishap with a desktop system, can damage the internals of a laptop and result in a costly repair. One study found that a laptop is three times more likely to break during the first year of use than a desktop.[56]
Parts replacement
Original external components are expensive, Toshiba NSK-TAJ01 Keyboard
and usually proprietary and non-interchangeable; other parts are inexpensive—a power jack can cost a few dollars—but their replacement may require extensive disassembly and reassembly of the laptop by a technician. Other inexpensive but fragile parts often cannot be purchased separate from larger more expensive components.[57] The repair costs of a failed motherboard or LCD panel often exceed the value of a used laptop.
Heat and coolingToshiba NSK-TAP0U Keyboard
Laptops rely on extremely compact cooling systems involving a fan and heat sink that can fail from blockage caused by accumulated airborne dust and debris. Most laptops do not have any sort of removable dust collection filter over the air intake for these cooling systems, resulting in a system that gradually causes it to conduct more heat and noise as the years pass. Eventually the laptop starts to overheat even at idle load levels. This dust is usually stuck inside where casual cleaning and vacuuming cannot remove it. Toshiba NSK-TB801 Keyboard
Compressed air can dislodge the dust and debris but may not always remove it; after the device is turned on, the loose debris is reapplied to the cooling system by the fans. Instead, a complete disassembly is needed to clean the laptop. Many laptops are difficult to disassemble by the average user and contain components sensitive to electrostatic discharge (ESD).
Battery life
Battery life is limited because the capacity drops with time, eventually requiring replacement after as little as a year. A new battery typically stores enough energy to run the laptop for three to five hours, Toshiba NSK-TBA01 Keyboard
depending on usage, configuration, and power management settings. Yet, as it ages, the battery's energy storage will dissipate progressively until it lasts only a few minutes. The battery is often easily replaceable and a higher capacity model may be obtained for longer life. Replacement batteries can be expensive.
Security and privacy
Main article: Laptop theft
Because they are valuable, common, Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
and portable, laptops are prized targets for theft. The cost of stolen business or personal data, and of the resulting problems (identity theft, credit card fraud, breach of privacy), can be many times the value of the stolen laptop itself. Consequently, physical protection of laptops and the safeguarding of data contained on them are both of great importance.
Most laptops have a Kensington security slot, Toshiba Nsk-tg001 Keyboard
which can be used to tether them to a desk or other immovable object with a security cable and lock. In addition, modern operating systems and third-party software offer disk encryption functionality, which renders the data on the laptop's hard drive unreadable without a key or a pass phrase. Some laptops also now have additional security elements added by the consumer, including eye recognition software and fingerprint scanning components.[58] Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
In Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (Eastern District of Pennsylvania 2010), school-issued laptops loaded with special software afforded two high schools with the capability to take secret webcam shots of their students at home, via their students' laptops.[59][60][61]
Major brands and manufacturers
Major laptop brandsToshiba NSK-TK01D Keyboard
Apple: MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
Acer / Gateway / eMachines / Packard Bell: TravelMate, Extensa, Ferrari and Aspire; Packard Bell Easynote; Chromebook
Asus: Asus Eee, Lamborghini, ASUS G Series(ROG)
Dell: Alienware, Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, Studio, Vostro and XPS
Falcon Northwest: DRX, TLX, I / OToshiba NSK-TN001 Keyboard
Fujitsu: Lifebook
HCL (India): ME Laptop, ME Netbook, Leaptop and MiLeap
Hewlett-Packard / Compaq: HP Pavilion, HP Envy, HP ProBook, HP EliteBook, Compaq Presario
Lenovo: ThinkPad, IdeaPad, and the Essential B and G Series
LG: Xnote
Medion: Akoya (OEM version of MSI Wind)
MSI: E, C, P, G, V, A, X, U series and Wind NetbookToshiba NSK-TN0SC Keyboard
Panasonic: Toughbook, Satellite, Let's Note (Japan only)
Samsung: SENS: N, P, Q, R and X series; Chromebook
Sony: Vaio
TG Sambo (Korea): Averatec, Averatec Buddy
Toshiba: Dynabook, Portege, Tecra, Satellite, Qosmio, Libretto
v t e
Main article: List of laptop brands and manufacturersToshiba NSK-TN0SV Keyboard
There are a multitude of laptop brands and manufacturers; several major brands, offering notebooks in various classes, are listed in the box to the right.
The major brands usually offer good service and support, including well-executed documentation and driver downloads that will remain available for many years after a particular laptop model is no longer produced. Capitalizing on service, support and brand image, Toshiba P000349000 Keyboard
laptops from major brands are more expensive than laptops by smaller brands and ODMs.
Some brands are specializing in a particular class of laptops, such as gaming laptops (Alienware), selling high-performance laptops (HP Envy), netbooks (EeePC) and laptops for children (OLPC).
Many brands, including the major ones, Toshiba P000364900 Keyboard
do not design and do not manufacture their laptops. Instead, a small number of Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) design new models of laptops, and the brands choose the models to be included in their lineup. In 2006, 7 major ODMs manufactured 7 of every 10 laptops in the world, with the largest one (Quanta Computer) having 30% world market share.[62] Therefore, there often are identical models available both from a major label and from a low-profile ODM in-house brand. Toshiba P000373850 Keyboard
Sales
Battery-powered portable computers had just 2% worldwide market share in 1986.[63] However, laptops have become increasingly popular, both for business and personal use.[64] Around 109 million notebook PCs shipped worldwide in 2007, Toshiba P000377360 Keyboard
a growth of 33% compared to 2006.[65] In 2008 it was estimated that 145.9 million notebooks were sold, and that the number would grow in 2009 to 177.7 million.[66] The third quarter of 2008 was the first time when notebook PC shipments exceeded desktops, with 38.6 million units versus 38.5 million units.[64][67][68][69] Toshiba P000388740 Keyboard
For Microsoft Windows systems, the average selling price (ASP) showed a decline in 2008/2009, possibly due to low-cost netbooks, drawing US$689 at U.S. retail in August 2008. In 2009, ASP had further fallen to $602 by January and to $560 in February. While Windows machines fell $129 in these seven months, Mac laptop ASP declined just $12 from $1,524 to $1,512.[70]
Super usersToshiba P000405490 Keyboard
At the end of 2011, 10 percent of mobile users are using up 90 percent of wireless bandwidth, super/extreme users mostly use a laptop with 64 percent share, and that is followed by 33 percent of smartphone users (excluding a few iPad users). According to Ericsson, the super users watch videos 40 percent of the time.[71]
Extreme environments
See also: International Space Station#ComputersToshiba P000411620 Keyboard
The ruggedized Grid Compass computer was used since the early days of the Space Shuttle program. The first commercial laptop used in space was a Macintosh portable in 1991 aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-43.[72][73][74] Mac and other laptop computers continue to be flown aboard manned spaceflights though the only long duration flight certified computer for the International Space Station is the ThinkPad. Toshiba P000422920 Keyboard
[75] As of 2011 over 100 ThinkPads were aboard the ISS. Laptops used aboard the International Space Station and other spaceflights are generally the same ones that can be purchased by the general public but needed modifications are made to allow them to be used safely and effectively in a weightless environment such as updating the cooling systems to function without relying on hot air rising and accommodation for the lower cabin air pressure.[76]
Laptops operating in harsh usage environments and conditions, Toshiba P000436200 Keyboard
such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures and wet or dusty conditions differ from those used in space in that they are custom designed for the task and do not use commercial off-the-shelf hardware.
Accessories
A common accessory for laptops is a laptop sleeve or laptop case, which provides a degree of protection from drops or impacts. Sleeves, which are distinguished by being relatively thin and flexible, are most commonly made of neoprene, Toshiba P000440670 Keyboard
with sturdier ones made of LRPu (low-resilience polyurethane), with some wrapped in ballistic nylon to provide some measure of waterproofing. Bulkier and sturdier cases can be made of metal with polyurethane padding inside, and may have locks, for added security.
Another common accessory is a laptop cooler. This device helps lower the internal temperature of the laptop by using either active or passive methods. Toshiba P000482730 Keyboard
A general active method is plugging a laptop cooler into the laptop and using fans to draw heat away from the laptop. A common passive method is just propping the laptop up on some type of pad so it can receive more air flow.[77]
Used to have features
Features that certain early models of laptops used to have but not available anymore in most recent models of laptops include: Toshiba P000484960 Keyboard
Reset (Cold restart) button in a hole
Instant power off button in a hole
Integrated charger or power adapter inside the laptop
Portable computers, Toshiba 48.N5601.001A Keyboard originally monochrome CRT-based and developed into the modern laptops, were originally considered to be a small niche market, mostly for specialized field applications such as the military, accountants and sales representatives. As portable computers became smaller, lighter, cheaper, more powerful and as screens became larger and of better quality, laptops became very widely used for all sorts of purposes, by all sorts of people.
Contents [hide] Toshiba 4h.n7401.001-b Keyboard
1 History
2 Classification
2.1 Desktop replacement
2.2 Subnotebook
2.3 Netbook
2.4 Rugged laptop
2.5 Tablet laptop
3 Components
3.1 Docking stations
3.2 Charging stations
3.3 Standards
4 Advantages
5 Disadvantages
5.1 Performance
5.2 Upgradeability
5.3 Ergonomics and health effects
5.3.1 Wrists
5.3.2 Neck, spinalToshiba 4h.n7401.041-a Keyboard
5.3.3 Possible effect on fertility
5.3.4 Thighs
5.4 Durability
5.4.1 Equipment wear
5.4.2 Parts replacement
5.4.3 Heat and cooling
5.4.4 Battery life
5.5 Security and privacy
6 Major brands and manufacturers
7 Sales
8 Super users
9 Extreme environments
10 AccessoriesToshiba 6037B0017206 Keyboard
11 Used to have features
12 See also
13 References
14 External links
History
Main article: History of laptops
Alan Kay with "Dynabook" prototype
The Epson HX-20Toshiba 6037b0026805 Keyboard
s the personal computer became feasible in the early 1970s, the idea of a portable personal computer followed. A "personal, portable information manipulator" was imagined by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in 1968,[2] and described in his 1972 paper as the "Dynabook".[3]
The IBM SCAMP project (Special Computer APL Machine Portable), was demonstrated in 1973. This prototype was based on the IBM PALM processor (Put All Logic In Microcode or 128 bit).
The IBM 5100, the first commercially available portable computer, appeared in September 1975, and was based on the SCAMP prototype.[4] Toshiba 6037B0028502 Keyboard
As 8-bit CPU machines became widely accepted, the number of portables increased rapidly. The Osborne 1, released in 1981, used the Zilog Z80 and weighed 23.6 pounds (10.7 kg). It had no battery, a 5 in (13 cm) CRT screen, and dual 5.25 in (13.3 cm) single-density floppy drives. In the same year the first laptop-sized portable computer, the Epson HX-20, was announced.[5] The Epson had a LCD screen, a rechargeable battery, Toshiba 6037B0035302 Keyboard and a calculator-size printer in a 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) chassis. Both Tandy/RadioShack and HP also produced portable computers of varying designs during this period.[6][7]
The first laptops using the flip form factor appeared in the early 1980s. The Dulmont Magnum was released in Australia in 1981–82, but was not marketed internationally until 1984–85. The $8,150 ($19,630 today) GRiD Compass 1100, released in 1982, Toshiba 6037B0047802 Keyboardwas used at NASA and by the military among others. The Gavilan SC, released in 1983, was the first computer described as a "laptop" by its manufacturer.[8] From 1983 onward, several new input techniques were developed and included in laptops, including the touchpad (Gavilan SC, 1983), the pointing stick (IBM ThinkPad 700, 1992) and handwriting recognition (Linus Write-Top,[9] 1987). Some CPUs, such as the 1990 Intel i386SL, Toshiba 85 T0017801A Keyboardwere designed to use minimum power to increase battery life of portable computers, and were supported by dynamic power management features such as Intel SpeedStep and AMD PowerNow! in some designs.
Displays reached VGA resolution by 1988 (Compaq SLT/286), and colour screens started becoming a common upgrade in 1991 with increases in resolution and screen size occurring frequently until the introduction of 17"-screen laptops in 2003. Hard drives started to be used in portables, Toshiba 92.N4XBC.A01 Keyboard encouraged by the introduction of 3.5" drives in the late 1980s, and became common in laptops starting with the introduction of 2.5" and smaller drives around 1990; capacities have typically lagged behind physically larger desktop drives. Optical storage, read-only CD-ROM followed by writeable CD and later read-only or writeable DVD and Blu-Ray, became common in laptops soon in the 2000s.
ClassificationToshiba 99.N5682.701 Keyboard
The MacBook Air
The term "laptop" can refer to a number of classes of small portable computers:[10][11]
Full-size Laptop: A laptop large enough to accommodate a "full-size" keyboard (a keyboard with the minimum QWERTY key layout, which is at least 13.5 keys across that are on ¾ (0.750) inch centers, plus some room on both ends for the case). Toshiba 99.N5682.A01 KeyboardThe measurement of at least 11 inches across has been suggested as the threshold for this class.[12] The first laptops were the size of a standard U.S. "A size" notebook sheet of paper (8.5 × 11 inches)[citation needed], but later "A4-size" laptops were introduced, which were the width of a standard ISO 216 A4 sheet of paper (297 mm, or about 11.7 inches), and added a vertical column of keys to the right and wider screens. It can also be laid sideways when not in useToshiba 99.n7482.001 Keyboard.
Netbook: A smaller, lighter, more portable laptop. It is also usually cheaper than a full-size laptop, but has fewer features and less computing power. Smaller keyboards can be more difficult to operate. There is no sharp line of demarcation between netbooks and inexpensive small laptops; some 11.6" models are marketed as netbooks. Since netbook laptops are quite small in size, netbooks typically do not come with an internal optical drive. Toshiba 9J.N5682.001 Keyboard
Tablet PC: these have touch screens. There are "convertable tablets" with a full keyboard where the screen rotates to be used atop the keyboard, and "slate" form-factor machines which are usually touch-screen only (although a few older models feature very small keyboards along the sides of the screen.) Toshiba 9J.N5682.701 Keyboard
Ultra-mobile PC: An ultra-mobile PC (ultra-mobile personal computer or UMPC) is a small form factor version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this direction in 2004 with its Vaio U series, which was however only sold in Asia. Toshiba 9J.N5682.D01 Keyboard
UMPCs are smaller than subnotebooks, have a TFT display measuring (diagonally) about 12.7 to 17.8 cm, and are operated like tablet PCs using a touchscreen or a stylus. There is no clear boundary between subnotebooks and ultra-mobile PCs.
Handheld PC: A Handheld PC, or H/PC for short, is a term for a computer built around a form factor which is smaller than any standard laptop computerToshiba 9J.N5682.N01 Keyboard
. It is sometimes referred to as a Palmtop. The first handheld device compatible with desktop IBM personal computers of the time was the Atari Portfolio of 1989. Another early model was the Poqet PC of 1989 and the Hewlett Packard HP 95LX of 1991. Other DOS compatible hand-held computers also existed.
Rugged: Engineered to operate in tough conditions Toshiba 9j.n7482.201 Keyboard
(mechanical shocks, extreme temperatures, wet and dusty environments, etc.)
Ultrabook: A very thin version of a laptop. They are a higher-end subnotebook "inspired" by Intel.
Desktop replacement
Main article: Desktop replacement computer
A modern laptop, Acer Aspire. Toshiba 9J.N7482.901 Keyboard
A desktop-replacement computer is a laptop that provides all of the capabilities of a desktop computer, with a similar level of performance. Desktop replacements are usually larger and heavier than standard laptops. They contain more powerful components and have a 15" or larger display.[11] They are bulkier and not as portable as other laptops, and their operation time on batteries is typically shorter; they are intended to be used as compact and transportable alternatives to a desktop computer.[11] Toshiba 9j.n7782.001 Keyboard
Some laptops in this class use a limited range of desktop components to provide better performance for the same price at the expense of battery life; a few of those models have no battery.[13]
In the early 2000s, desktops were more powerful, easier to upgrade, and much cheaper than laptops, Toshiba 9J.N9082.001 Keyboard but in later years laptops have become much cheaper and more powerful than before,[14] and most peripherals are available in laptop-compatible USB versions which minimise the need for internal add-on cards. In the second half of 2008, laptops outsold desktops for the first time.
The names "Media Center Laptops" and "Gaming Laptops" are used to describe specialized notebook computers.[10] Toshiba 9J.N9082.A01 Keyboard
Sony VAIO P series subnotebook
Subnotebook
Main article: Subnotebook
A subnotebook or ultraportable is a laptop designed and marketed with an emphasis on portability (small size, Toshiba 9J.N9082.C01 Keyboard low weight and often longer battery life) that retains performance close to that of a standard notebook. Subnotebooks are usually smaller and lighter than standard laptops, weighing between 0.8 and 2 kg (2 to 5 pounds);[10] the battery life can exceed 10 hours[15] when a large battery or an additional battery pack is installed. Since the introduction of netbooks, the line between subnotebooks and higher-end netbooks has been substantially blurred. Toshiba 9J.N9082.E01 Keyboard
To achieve the size and weight reductions, ultraportables use 13" and smaller screens (down to 6.4"), have relatively few ports (but in any case include two or more USB ports), employ expensive components designed for minimal size and best power efficiency, and utilize advanced materials and construction methods. Most subnotebooks achieve a further portability improvement by omitting an optical/removable media drive; Toshiba 9J.N9082.J01 Keyboard
in this case they may be paired with a docking station that contains the drive and optionally more ports or an additional battery.
The term "subnotebook" is reserved to laptops that run general-purpose desktop operating systems such as Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, Toshiba 9J.N9282.801 Keyboard rather than specialized software such as Windows CE, Palm OS or Internet Tablet OS.
At Computex 2011 Intel announced a new class for ultraportables called Ultrabooks. The term is used to describe a highly portable laptop that has strict limits for size, weight, battery life, and have tablet-like features such as instant on functionality. Intel estimates that by the end of 2012, Toshiba 9J.N9282.W01 Keyboard
40 percent of the consumer laptop market segment will be Ultrabooks.[16]
Netbook
Main article: Netbook
Netbooks are laptops that are light-weight, economical, energy-efficient and especially suited for wireless communication and Internet access.[17][18] Hence the name netbook (as "the device excels in web-based computing performance").[19] Toshiba 9J.N99282.D01 Keyboard
With primary focus given to web browsing and e-mailing, netbooks are intended to "rely heavily on the Internet for remote access to web-based applications"[19] and are targeted increasingly at cloud computing users who rely on servers and require a less powerful client computer.[20] A common distinguishing feature is the lack of optical disk (i.e. CD, DVD or Blu-ray) drives. Toshiba 9z.n1y82.001 KeyboardWhile the devices range in size from below 5 inches[21] to over 12,[22] most are between 9 and 11 inches (280 mm) and weigh between 0.9–1.4 kg (2–3 pounds).[19]
Netbooks are mostly sold with light-weight operating systems such as Linux, Windows XP and Windows 7 Starter edition.
Because they are very portable, netbooks have a few disadvantages. Toshiba 9Z.N3D82.001 Keyboard Because the netbooks are thin, the first such products introduced to the market had their primary internal storage in the form of solid-state drives and not hard disks, which are essential to installing very many programs. Hard disk drive technology and form factors have since been adapted to fit into netbooks.
Given their size and use of more rudimentary components compared to notebooks and subnotebooks, Toshiba 9Z.N4WOM.001 Keyboard netbooks also generally have a smaller-capacity hard drive, slower CPU, and a lower-profile RAM capacity.[23]
In 2009, Google announced an operating system called Google Chrome OS for this market.
The big breakthrough for netbook computers did not happen until the weight, diagonal form-factor and price combination of < 1 kg, < 9", < U.S. $400, respectively, became commercially available in around 2008.
Rugged laptopToshiba 9Z.N4WSC.001 Keyboard
Main article: Rugged computer
A Panasonic Toughbook.
A rugged (or ruggedized) laptop is designed to reliably operate in harsh usage conditions such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures, and wet or dusty environments. Rugged laptops are usually designed from scratch, rather than adapted from regular consumer laptop models. Rugged laptops are bulkier, heavier, and much more expensive than regular laptops,[24] and thus are seldom seen in regular consumer use. Toshiba 9Z.N4WSV.001 Keyboard
The design features found in rugged laptops include rubber sheeting under the keyboard keys, sealed port and connector covers, passive cooling, superbright displays easily readable in daylight, cases and frames made of magnesium alloys[25] that are much stronger than plastic found in commercial laptops, and solid-state storage devices or hard disc drives that are shock mounted to withstand constant vibrations. Toshiba A000014900 KeyboardRugged laptops are commonly used by public safety services (police, fire and medical emergency), military, utilities, field service technicians, construction, mining and oil drilling personnel. Rugged laptops are usually sold to organizations, rather than individuals, and are rarely marketed via retail channels.
Tablet laptop
See also: Tablet computerToshiba AEBD10IU011-US Keyboard
A tablet laptop with stylus
Typical modern convertible laptops have a complex joint between the keyboard housing and the display permitting the display panel to swivel and then lie flat on the keyboard housing.
Typically, the base of a tablet laptop attaches to the display at a single joint called a swivel hinge or rotating hinge. The joint allows the screen to rotate through 180° and fold down on top of the keyboard to provide a flat writing surface. This design, although the most common, Toshiba AEBD3U00050 Keyboard creates a physical point of weakness on the laptop.
Some manufacturers have attempted to overcome these weak points by adopting innovative methods such as a sliding design in which the screen slides up from the slate-like position and locks into place to provide the laptop mode.
Tablet laptops have the advantage to offer the keyboard and pointing device (usually a trackpad) of older laptops, Toshiba AEBD3U00150-US Keyboard for users who do not use the touchscreen display as the primary method of input. Tablets are also touchscreen.
Components
Main article: Personal computer hardware
Miniaturization: a comparison of a desktop computer motherboard (ATX form factor) to a motherboard from a 13" laptop (2008 unibody Macbook)
Inner view of a Sony VAIO laptop
The basic components of laptops are similar in function to their desktop counterparts, Toshiba AEBL5R00040-UI Keyboard but are miniaturized, adapted to mobile use, and designed for low power consumption. Because of the additional requirements, laptop components are usually slower compared to similarly priced desktop parts. Furthermore, the design bounds on power, size, and cooling of laptops limit the maximum performance of laptop parts compared to that of desktop components.[26]
The following list summarizes the differences and distinguishing features of laptop components in comparison to desktop personal computer parts:[27] Toshiba AEEW30IU018-US Keyboard
Central processing unit (CPU): Laptop CPUs have advanced power-saving features and produce less heat than desktop processors, but are not as powerful.[28] There is a wide range of CPUs designed for laptops available from Intel (Pentium M, Celeron M, Intel Core and Core 2 Duo), AMD (Athlon, Turion 64, and Sempron), VIA Technologies, Transmeta and others. Toshiba G83C0000E510 Keyboard On the non-x86 architectures, Motorola and IBM produced the chips for the former PowerPC-based Apple laptops (iBook and PowerBook). Most laptops have removable CPUs, although some support by the motherboard may be restricted to the specific models.[29] Some laptops uses a desktop processor instead of the laptop version. Those laptops have high performance at the cost of being likely to have overheating problems, Toshiba G83C0000EA10 Keyboard
and having less battery life. In other laptops the CPU is soldered on the motherboard and is non-replaceable.
A SODIMM memory module
Memory (RAM): SO-DIMM memory modules that are usually found in laptops are about half the size of desktop DIMMs.[27] They may be accessible from the bottom of the laptop for ease of upgrading, or placed in locations not intended for user replacement such as between the keyboard and the motherboard. Currently, Toshiba G83c00018610 Keyboard
most midrange laptops are factory equipped with 3–4 GB of DDR2 RAM, while some higher end notebooks feature up to 32 GB of DDR3 memory. Netbooks however, are commonly equipped with only 1 GB of RAM to keep manufacturing costs low.
Expansion cards: A PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) or ExpressCard bay for expansion cards is often present on laptops to allow adding and removing functionality, Toshiba G83C0001K210 Keyboard
even when the laptop is powered on. Some subsystems (such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or a cellular modem) can be implemented as replaceable internal expansion cards, usually accessible under an access cover on the bottom of the laptop. Two popular standards for such cards are MiniPCI and its successor, the PCI Express Mini.[30] Toshiba G83c0003b210 Keyboard
Power supply: Laptops are typically powered by an internal rechargeable battery that is charged using an external power supply, which outputs a DC voltage typically in the range of 7.2– 24 volts. The power supply is usually external, and connected to the laptop through a AC connector cable. It can charge the battery and power the laptop simultaneously; when the battery is fully charged, the laptop continues to run on power supplied by the external power supply. Toshiba G83c0003b710 Keyboard
The charger adds about 400 grams (1 lb) to the overall "transport weight" of the notebook.
Battery: Current laptops utilize lithium ion batteries, with more recent models using the new lithium polymer technology. These two technologies have largely replaced the older nickel metal-hydride batteries. Typical battery life for standard laptops is two to five hours of light-duty use, but may drop to as little as one hour when doing power-intensive tasks. Toshiba G83C0003G110 Keyboard
A battery's performance gradually decreases with time, leading to an eventual replacement in one to three years, depending on the charging and discharging pattern. This large-capacity main battery should not be confused with the much smaller battery nearly all computers use to run the real-time clock and to store the BIOS configuration in the CMOS memory when the computer is off. Lithium-ion batteries do not have a memory effect as older batteries may have. Toshiba G83c0004l410 Keyboard
The memory effect happens when one does not use a battery to its fullest extent, then recharges the battery. Innovations in laptops and batteries have seen new possible matchings which can provide up to a full 24 hours of continued operation, assuming average power consumption levels. An example of this is the HP EliteBook 6930p when used with its ultra-capacity battery.
Video display controller: Toshiba G83c0004lbus Keyboard
On standard laptops the video controller is usually integrated into the chipset to conserve power. This tends to limit the use of laptops for gaming and entertainment, two fields which have constantly escalating hardware demands, and because the integrated chipset is very difficult to upgrade for a standard user, laptops may grow obsolete quickly for use in gaming and entertainment. Toshiba G83C0009W2US Keyboard
[31] Higher-end laptops and desktop replacements in particular often come with dedicated graphics processors on the motherboard or as an internal expansion card. These mobile graphics processors are comparable in performance to mainstream desktop graphic accelerator boards.[32] A few notebooks have switchable graphics with both an integrated and discrete card installed. The user can choose between using integrated graphics when battery life is important and dedicated graphics when demanding applications call for it. This allows for greater flexibility and also conserves power when not required.[33] Toshiba H000001790 Keyboard
Display: Most modern laptops feature 13 inches (33 cm) or larger color active matrix displays based on CCFL or LED lighting with resolutions of 1280×800 (16:10) or 1366 × 768 (16:9) pixels and above. Some models use screens with resolutions common in desktop PCs (for example, 1440×900, 1600×900 and 1680×1050.) Models with LED-based lighting offer lesser power consumption, and often higher brightness. Toshiba H000006820 Keyboard
Netbooks with a 10 inches (25 cm) or smaller screen typically use a resolution of 1024×600, while netbooks and subnotebooks with a 11.6 inches (29 cm) or 12 inches (30 cm) screen use standard notebook resolutions. Having a higher resolution display will allow you to fit more onscreen at a time, thus improving your ability to multitask. A higher resolution in a fixed size display will make items onscreen appear smaller than they would on a lower resolution. Toshiba K000001600 Keyboard
The difference between available display resolutions will often affect the user's experience considerably more than the difference between available processors and available memory, but it is commonly misconceived to be the opposite. 15.6" 1366 × 768 displays and 17.3" 1600 × 900 displays make items onscreen rather large, and tend to have poor image quality due in part to low contrast compared to their higher-resolution counterparts such as 15.6" 1600×900, Toshiba K000009780 Keyboard
15.6" 1920×1080, and 17.3" 1920×1080, because the lower resolution displays are generally more cheaply manufactured. If you as a buyer have a budget that allows you to get a laptop that one of the higher-resolution displays and at the same time suits your needs, and if you don't require the larger text provided by a lower resolution for eyesight-related reasons, then it is commonly recommended that you avoid buying laptops that come with the lower-resolution 15.6" 1366 × 768 displays or 17.3" 1600 × 900 displays. Toshiba K000011870 Keyboard
1366 × 768-resolution displays of sizes 14" and under tend to exhibit the same low-contrast-related poor image quality, but do not make items onscreen as large. 1600 × 900 resolution is occasionally available in sizes of 13.3" and 14", improving multitasking capability, but it is rare for such displays to have noticeably better contrast.
A size comparison of 3.5" and 2.5" hard disk drives
Removable media drives: A DVD/CD reader/writer drive is nearly universal on full-sized models, and is common on thin-and-light models; Toshiba K000016050 Keyboard
it is uncommon on subnotebooks and unknown on netbooks. CD drives are becoming rare, while Blu-ray is becoming more common on notebooks.[34]
Internal storage: Laptop hard disks are physically smaller—2.5 inches (64 mm) or 1.8 inches (46 mm) —compared to desktop 3.5 inches (89 mm) drives. Some newer laptops (usually ultraportables) employ more expensive, Toshiba K000029390 Keyboard
but faster, lighter and power-efficient flash memory-based SSDs instead. Currently, 250 to 500 GB sizes are common for laptop hard disks (64 to 512 GB for SSDs).
Input: A pointing stick, touchpad or both are used to control the position of the cursor on the screen, and an integrated keyboard is used for typing. An external keyboard and/or mouse may be connected using USB or PS/2 port, or Bluetooth (if present). Toshiba K000049460 Keyboard
Ports: several USB ports, an external monitor port (VGA, DVI, mini-DisplayPort or HDMI), audio in/out, and an Ethernet network port are found on most laptops. Less common are legacy ports such as a PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, serial port or a parallel port. S-video or composite video ports are more common on consumer-oriented notebooks.
Cooling: Toshiba K000073050 Keyboard
Waste heat from operation is difficult to remove in the compact internal space of a laptop. Early laptops used heat sinks placed directly on the components to be cooled, but when these hot components are deep inside the device, a large space-wasting air duct is needed to exhaust the heat. Modern laptops instead rely on heat pipes to rapidly move waste heat towards the edges of the device, to allow for a much smaller and compact fan and heat sink cooling system. Toshiba K000097450 Keyboard
Waste heat is usually exhausted away from the device operator, towards the rear or sides of the device. Multiple air intake paths are used, because some intakes can be blocked, such as when the device is placed on a soft conforming surface such as a chair cushion. Some designs with metal cases, like Apple's aluminum MacBook Pro and MacBook Air also employ the case of the machine as a "gigantic" heat sink, Toshiba K000097460 Keyboard
and rely on it to pump heat out of the device core.[citation needed]Secondary device temperature monitoring may reduce performance or trigger an emergency shutdown if it is unable to dissipate heat, such as if the laptop were to be left running and placed inside a carrying case. Such a condition has the potential to melt plastics or ignite a fire.
Docking stations
A docking station is a relatively bulky laptop accessory that contains multiple ports, Toshiba K000098730 Keyboard
expansion slots, and bays for fixed or removable drives. A laptop connects and disconnects easily to a docking station, typically through a single large proprietary connector. A port replicator is a simplified docking station that only provides connections from the laptop to input/output ports. Both docking stations and port replicators are intended to be used at a permanent working place (a desk) to offer instant connection to multiple input/output devices and to extend a laptop's capabilities. Toshiba K011126E1 US Keyboard
Docking stations became a common laptop accessory in the early 1990s. The most common use was in a corporate computing environment where the company had standardized on a common network card and this same card was placed into the docking station. These stations were very large and quite expensive. As the need for additional storage and expansion slots became less critical because of the high integration inside the laptop, Toshiba KFRSBA064A Keyboard
port replicators have gained popularity, being a cheaper, often passive device that often simply mates to the connectors on the back of the notebook, or connects via a standardized port such as USB or FireWire.
Charging stations
Laptop charging trolleys, Toshiba KFRSBA114A Keyboard
also known as laptop trolleys or laptop carts, are mobile storage containers to charge laptops, netbooks and tablet computers en masse. The trolleys are predominately used in schools that have replaced their traditional static ICT[35] suites of desktop computers with laptops, but do not have enough plug sockets in their buildings to charge all of the devices.
The trolleys can be wheeled between rooms and classrooms so that anyone in a particular building can access fully charged IT[36] equipment. Toshiba MP-03433US-6984 Keyboard
Laptop charging trolleys are also used to deter and protect against opportunistic and organized theft. Schools, especially those with open plan designs, are often prime targets for thieves and laptops, netbooks and tablets can easily be concealed and removed from buildings. Laptop charging trolleys were designed and constructed to protect against theft. They are generally made out of steel, and the laptops remain locked up while not in use. Toshiba MP-03433US-930 Keyboard
Although the trolleys can be moved between areas in buildings, they can often also be mounted to the floor or walls to prevent thieves walking off with investments, especially overnight.[35]
Standards
In general, components other than the four categories listed above are not intended to be replaceable; a few, such as processors, Toshiba MP-03433US-9301 Keyboard
follow their own standards but are difficult to replace because of other factors (for example, in the case of processors cooling and access limitations can make upgrades very difficult or impossible.)
In particular, motherboards are almost always make and model-specific: locations of ports, and design and placement of internal components are not standard. Toshiba MP-04273US-5281 Keyboard
Those parts are neither interchangeable with parts from other manufacturers (replaceable) nor upgradeable. If broken or damaged, they must be substituted with an exact replacement part. Those users uneducated in the relevant fields are those the most affected by incompatibilities, especially if they attempt to connect their laptops with incompatible hardware or power adapters.
Intel, Asus, Compal, Toshiba MP-06766U4-698 Keyboard
Quanta and some other laptop manufacturers have created the Common Building Block standard for laptop parts to address some of the inefficiencies caused by the lack of standards.
Advantages
Laptop computers are portable and can be used in many locations. Shown here is Vicente Fox using an Apple PowerBook
A woman listening to music on external speakers. Toshiba MP-06863UK-930 Keyboard
Portability is usually the first feature mentioned in any comparison of laptops versus desktop PCs.[37] Physical portability allows that a laptop can be used in many places— not only at home and at the office, but also during commuting and flights, in coffee shops, in lecture halls and libraries, at clients' location or at a meeting room, etc. The portability feature offers several distinct advantages: Toshiba MP-06863US-9308 Keyboard
Productivity: Using a laptop in places where a desktop PC can not be used, and at times that would otherwise be wasted. For example, an office worker managing their e-mails during an hour-long commute by train, or a student doing his/her homework at the university coffee shop during a break between lectures.[38]
Immediacy: Carrying a laptop means having instant access to various information, Toshiba MP-06866GB-6983 Keyboard
personal and work files. Immediacy allows better collaboration between coworkers or students, as a laptop can be flipped open to present a problem or a solution anytime, anywhere.
Up-to-date information: If a person has more than one desktop PC, a problem of synchronization arises: changes made on one computer are not automatically propagated to the others. There are ways to resolve this problem, Toshiba MP-06873US-6983 Keyboard
including physical transfer of updated files (using a USB flash memory stick or CDRs) or using synchronization software over the Internet. However, using a single laptop at both locations avoids the problem entirely, as the files exist in a single location and are always up-to-date.
Connectivity: A proliferation of Wi-Fi wireless networks and cellular broadband data services (HSDPA, EVDO and others) combined with a near-ubiquitous support by laptops[39Toshiba MP-06873US-9204 Keyboard
] means that a laptop can have easy Internet and local network connectivity while remaining mobile. Wi-Fi networks and laptop programs are especially widespread at university campuses.[40]
Other advantages of laptops:
Size: Laptops are smaller than desktop PCs. Toshiba MP-07A23A0-442 Keyboard
This is beneficial when space is at a premium, for example in small apartments and student dorms. When not in use, a laptop can be closed and put away.
Low power consumption: Laptops are several times more power-efficient than desktops. A typical laptop uses 20–90 W, compared to 100–800 W for desktops. This could be particularly beneficial for businesses (which run hundreds of personal computers, Toshiba MP-07A56CU-442 Keyboard
multiplying the potential savings) and homes where there is a computer running 24/7 (such as a home media server, print server, etc.)
Quiet: Laptops are often quieter than desktops, due both to the components (quieter, slower 2.5-inch hard drives) and to less heat production leading to use of fewer and slower cooling fans.
Battery: Toshiba MP-09K53US6698 Keyboard
a charged laptop can continue to be used in case of a power outage and is not affected by short power interruptions and blackouts. A desktop PC needs a UPS to handle short interruptions, blackouts and spikes; achieving on-battery time of more than 20–30 minutes for a desktop PC requires a large and expensive UPS.[41]
All-in-One: designed to be portable, Toshiba MP-09N13US-698 Keyboard
laptops have everything integrated in to the chassis. For desktops (excluding all-in-ones) this is divided into the desktop, keyboard, mouse, display, and optional peripherals such as speakers.
Disadvantages
Compared to desktop PCs, laptops have disadvantages in the following fields:
Performance
While the performance of mainstream desktops and laptops is comparable, and the cost of laptops Toshiba N860-7630-T101-03A Keyboard
has fallen more rapidly than desktops, laptops remain more expensive than desktop PCs at the same performance level.[42] The upper limits of performance of laptops remain much lower than the highest-end desktops (especially "workstation class" machines with two processor sockets), and "bleeding-edge" features usually appear first in desktops and only then, as the underlying technology matures, are adapted to laptops. Toshiba NSK-T4001 Keyboard
However, for Internet browsing and typical office applications, where the computer spends the majority of its time waiting for the next user input, even relatively low-end laptops (such as Netbooks) can be fast enough for some users.[43] As of mid-2010, at the lowest end, the cheapest netbooks—between US$200–300—remain more expensive than the lowest-end desktop computers (around US$200) only when those are priced without a screen/monitor. Once an inexpensive monitor is added, the prices are comparable. Toshiba NSK-T4101 Keyboard
Most higher-end laptops are sufficiently powerful for high-resolution movie playback, some 3D gaming and video editing and encoding. However, laptop processors can be disadvantaged when dealing with higher-end database, maths, engineering, financial software, virtualization, etc. Also, the top-of-the-line mobile graphics processors (GPUs) are significantly behind the top-of-the-line desktop GPUs to a greater degree than the processors, which limits the utility of laptops for high-end 3D gaming and scientific visualization applications. Toshiba NSK-T4301 Keyboard
Some manufacturers work around this performance problem by using desktop CPUs for laptops.[44]
Upgradeability
Upgradeability of laptops is very limited compared to desktops, which are thoroughly standardized. In general, hard drives and memory can be upgraded easily. Optical drives and internal expansion cards may be upgraded if they follow an industry standard, Toshiba NSK-T4701 Keyboard
but all other internal components, including the motherboard, CPU and graphics, are not always intended to be upgradeable. Intel, Asus, Compal, Quanta and some other laptop manufacturers have created the Common Building Block standard for laptop parts to address some of the inefficiencies caused by the lack of standards. Toshiba NSK-T4A01 Keyboard
The reasons for limited upgradeability are both technical and economic. There is no industry-wide standard form factor for laptops; each major laptop manufacturer pursues its own proprietary design and construction, with the result that laptops are difficult to upgrade and have high repair costs. With few exceptions, laptop components can rarely be swapped between laptops of competing manufacturers, or even between laptops from the different product-lines of the same manufacturer. Toshiba NSK-T4D01 Keyboard
Some upgrades can be performed by adding external devices, either USB or in expansion card format such as PC Card. Devices such as sound cards, network adapters, hard and optical drives, and numerous other peripherals are available, but these upgrades usually impair the laptop's portability, because they add cables and boxes to the setup and often have to be disconnected and reconnected when the laptop is on the move. Toshiba NSK-T4N01 Keyboard
Ergonomics and health effects
Wrists
Laptop cooler preventing heating of lap and improving laptop airflow
Because of their small and flat keyboard and trackpad pointing devices, prolonged use of laptops can cause repetitive strain injury.[45] Usage of separate, external ergonomic keyboards and pointing devices is recommended to prevent injury when working for long periods of time; Toshiba NSK-t6001 Keyboard
they can be connected to a laptop easily by USB or via a docking station. Some health standards require ergonomic keyboards at workplaces.
Neck, spinal
The integrated screen often causes users to hunch over for a better view, which can cause neck or spinal injuries. A larger and higher-quality external screen can be connected to almost any laptop to alleviate that and to provide additional screen space for more productive work. Toshiba NSK-T6401 Keyboard
Another solution is to use a computer stand.
For anyone not buying a new screen, a simple method to reduce risk of spinal injury is to position the laptop's screen in a manner that an obtuse angle (more than 90 degrees open) is formed. It is then possible for the neck to remain straight during use of the device.
Possible effect on fertilityToshiba NSK-T6901 Keyboard
A study by State University of New York researchers found that heat generated from laptops can increase the temperature of the lap of male users when balancing the computer on their lap, potentially putting sperm count at risk. The study, which included roughly two dozen men between the ages of 21 and 35, found that the sitting position required to balance a laptop can increase scrotum temperature by as much as 2.1 °C (3.78 °F). However, further research is needed to determine whether this directly affects male sterility.[46] Toshiba NSK-T7001 Keyboard
A 2010 study of 29 males published in Fertility and Sterility found that men who kept their laptops on their laps experienced scrotal hyperthermia (overheating) in which their scrotal temperatures increased by up to 2 °C. The resulting heat increase, which could not be offset by a laptop cushion, may increase male infertility.[47][48][49][50][51]
A common practical solution to this problem is to place the laptop on a Toshiba NSK-TA001 Keyboard
table or desk, or to use a book or pillow between the body and the laptop.[citation needed] Another solution is to obtain a cooling unit for the laptop. These are usually USB powered and consist of a hard thin plastic case housing one, two or three cooling fans – with the entire assembly designed to sit under the laptop in question – which results in the laptop remaining cool to the touch, and greatly reduces laptop heat buildup.[citation needed] Toshiba NSK-TACO1 Keyboard
Thighs
Heat generated from using a laptop on the lap can also cause skin discoloration on the thighs known as "toasted skin syndrome."[52][53][54][55]
Durability
A clogged heat sink on a laptop after 2.5 years of use
Equipment wear
Because of their portability, Toshiba NSK-TAE01 Keyboard
laptops are subject to more wear and physical damage than desktops. Components such as screen hinges, latches, power jacks and power cords deteriorate gradually from ordinary use. A liquid spill onto the keyboard, a rather minor mishap with a desktop system, can damage the internals of a laptop and result in a costly repair. One study found that a laptop is three times more likely to break during the first year of use than a desktop.[56]
Parts replacement
Original external components are expensive, Toshiba NSK-TAJ01 Keyboard
and usually proprietary and non-interchangeable; other parts are inexpensive—a power jack can cost a few dollars—but their replacement may require extensive disassembly and reassembly of the laptop by a technician. Other inexpensive but fragile parts often cannot be purchased separate from larger more expensive components.[57] The repair costs of a failed motherboard or LCD panel often exceed the value of a used laptop.
Heat and coolingToshiba NSK-TAP0U Keyboard
Laptops rely on extremely compact cooling systems involving a fan and heat sink that can fail from blockage caused by accumulated airborne dust and debris. Most laptops do not have any sort of removable dust collection filter over the air intake for these cooling systems, resulting in a system that gradually causes it to conduct more heat and noise as the years pass. Eventually the laptop starts to overheat even at idle load levels. This dust is usually stuck inside where casual cleaning and vacuuming cannot remove it. Toshiba NSK-TB801 Keyboard
Compressed air can dislodge the dust and debris but may not always remove it; after the device is turned on, the loose debris is reapplied to the cooling system by the fans. Instead, a complete disassembly is needed to clean the laptop. Many laptops are difficult to disassemble by the average user and contain components sensitive to electrostatic discharge (ESD).
Battery life
Battery life is limited because the capacity drops with time, eventually requiring replacement after as little as a year. A new battery typically stores enough energy to run the laptop for three to five hours, Toshiba NSK-TBA01 Keyboard
depending on usage, configuration, and power management settings. Yet, as it ages, the battery's energy storage will dissipate progressively until it lasts only a few minutes. The battery is often easily replaceable and a higher capacity model may be obtained for longer life. Replacement batteries can be expensive.
Security and privacy
Main article: Laptop theft
Because they are valuable, common, Toshiba NSK-TBD01 Keyboard
and portable, laptops are prized targets for theft. The cost of stolen business or personal data, and of the resulting problems (identity theft, credit card fraud, breach of privacy), can be many times the value of the stolen laptop itself. Consequently, physical protection of laptops and the safeguarding of data contained on them are both of great importance.
Most laptops have a Kensington security slot, Toshiba Nsk-tg001 Keyboard
which can be used to tether them to a desk or other immovable object with a security cable and lock. In addition, modern operating systems and third-party software offer disk encryption functionality, which renders the data on the laptop's hard drive unreadable without a key or a pass phrase. Some laptops also now have additional security elements added by the consumer, including eye recognition software and fingerprint scanning components.[58] Toshiba NSK-TK001 Keyboard
In Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (Eastern District of Pennsylvania 2010), school-issued laptops loaded with special software afforded two high schools with the capability to take secret webcam shots of their students at home, via their students' laptops.[59][60][61]
Major brands and manufacturers
Major laptop brandsToshiba NSK-TK01D Keyboard
Apple: MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
Acer / Gateway / eMachines / Packard Bell: TravelMate, Extensa, Ferrari and Aspire; Packard Bell Easynote; Chromebook
Asus: Asus Eee, Lamborghini, ASUS G Series(ROG)
Dell: Alienware, Inspiron, Latitude, Precision, Studio, Vostro and XPS
Falcon Northwest: DRX, TLX, I / OToshiba NSK-TN001 Keyboard
Fujitsu: Lifebook
HCL (India): ME Laptop, ME Netbook, Leaptop and MiLeap
Hewlett-Packard / Compaq: HP Pavilion, HP Envy, HP ProBook, HP EliteBook, Compaq Presario
Lenovo: ThinkPad, IdeaPad, and the Essential B and G Series
LG: Xnote
Medion: Akoya (OEM version of MSI Wind)
MSI: E, C, P, G, V, A, X, U series and Wind NetbookToshiba NSK-TN0SC Keyboard
Panasonic: Toughbook, Satellite, Let's Note (Japan only)
Samsung: SENS: N, P, Q, R and X series; Chromebook
Sony: Vaio
TG Sambo (Korea): Averatec, Averatec Buddy
Toshiba: Dynabook, Portege, Tecra, Satellite, Qosmio, Libretto
v t e
Main article: List of laptop brands and manufacturersToshiba NSK-TN0SV Keyboard
There are a multitude of laptop brands and manufacturers; several major brands, offering notebooks in various classes, are listed in the box to the right.
The major brands usually offer good service and support, including well-executed documentation and driver downloads that will remain available for many years after a particular laptop model is no longer produced. Capitalizing on service, support and brand image, Toshiba P000349000 Keyboard
laptops from major brands are more expensive than laptops by smaller brands and ODMs.
Some brands are specializing in a particular class of laptops, such as gaming laptops (Alienware), selling high-performance laptops (HP Envy), netbooks (EeePC) and laptops for children (OLPC).
Many brands, including the major ones, Toshiba P000364900 Keyboard
do not design and do not manufacture their laptops. Instead, a small number of Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) design new models of laptops, and the brands choose the models to be included in their lineup. In 2006, 7 major ODMs manufactured 7 of every 10 laptops in the world, with the largest one (Quanta Computer) having 30% world market share.[62] Therefore, there often are identical models available both from a major label and from a low-profile ODM in-house brand. Toshiba P000373850 Keyboard
Sales
Battery-powered portable computers had just 2% worldwide market share in 1986.[63] However, laptops have become increasingly popular, both for business and personal use.[64] Around 109 million notebook PCs shipped worldwide in 2007, Toshiba P000377360 Keyboard
a growth of 33% compared to 2006.[65] In 2008 it was estimated that 145.9 million notebooks were sold, and that the number would grow in 2009 to 177.7 million.[66] The third quarter of 2008 was the first time when notebook PC shipments exceeded desktops, with 38.6 million units versus 38.5 million units.[64][67][68][69] Toshiba P000388740 Keyboard
For Microsoft Windows systems, the average selling price (ASP) showed a decline in 2008/2009, possibly due to low-cost netbooks, drawing US$689 at U.S. retail in August 2008. In 2009, ASP had further fallen to $602 by January and to $560 in February. While Windows machines fell $129 in these seven months, Mac laptop ASP declined just $12 from $1,524 to $1,512.[70]
Super usersToshiba P000405490 Keyboard
At the end of 2011, 10 percent of mobile users are using up 90 percent of wireless bandwidth, super/extreme users mostly use a laptop with 64 percent share, and that is followed by 33 percent of smartphone users (excluding a few iPad users). According to Ericsson, the super users watch videos 40 percent of the time.[71]
Extreme environments
See also: International Space Station#ComputersToshiba P000411620 Keyboard
The ruggedized Grid Compass computer was used since the early days of the Space Shuttle program. The first commercial laptop used in space was a Macintosh portable in 1991 aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-43.[72][73][74] Mac and other laptop computers continue to be flown aboard manned spaceflights though the only long duration flight certified computer for the International Space Station is the ThinkPad. Toshiba P000422920 Keyboard
[75] As of 2011 over 100 ThinkPads were aboard the ISS. Laptops used aboard the International Space Station and other spaceflights are generally the same ones that can be purchased by the general public but needed modifications are made to allow them to be used safely and effectively in a weightless environment such as updating the cooling systems to function without relying on hot air rising and accommodation for the lower cabin air pressure.[76]
Laptops operating in harsh usage environments and conditions, Toshiba P000436200 Keyboard
such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures and wet or dusty conditions differ from those used in space in that they are custom designed for the task and do not use commercial off-the-shelf hardware.
Accessories
A common accessory for laptops is a laptop sleeve or laptop case, which provides a degree of protection from drops or impacts. Sleeves, which are distinguished by being relatively thin and flexible, are most commonly made of neoprene, Toshiba P000440670 Keyboard
with sturdier ones made of LRPu (low-resilience polyurethane), with some wrapped in ballistic nylon to provide some measure of waterproofing. Bulkier and sturdier cases can be made of metal with polyurethane padding inside, and may have locks, for added security.
Another common accessory is a laptop cooler. This device helps lower the internal temperature of the laptop by using either active or passive methods. Toshiba P000482730 Keyboard
A general active method is plugging a laptop cooler into the laptop and using fans to draw heat away from the laptop. A common passive method is just propping the laptop up on some type of pad so it can receive more air flow.[77]
Used to have features
Features that certain early models of laptops used to have but not available anymore in most recent models of laptops include: Toshiba P000484960 Keyboard
Reset (Cold restart) button in a hole
Instant power off button in a hole
Integrated charger or power adapter inside the laptop
Computer keyboard
Computer keyboard
A key being pressed on a computer keyboard.
In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Following the decline of punch cards and paper tape, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards became the main input device for computers. acer laptop keyboard
Despite the development of alternative input devices, such as the mouse, touchscreen, pen devices, character recognition and voice recognition, the keyboard remains the most commonly used and most versatile device used for direct (human) input into computers.
A keyboard typically has characters engraved or printed on the keys and each press of a key typically corresponds to a single written symbol. acer laptop keyboard
However, to produce some symbols requires pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence. While most keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs (characters), other keys or simultaneous key presses can produce actions or computer commands.
In normal usage, apple laptop keyboard the keyboard is used to type text and numbers into a word processor, text editor or other program. In a modern computer, the interpretation of key presses is generally left to the software. A computer keyboard distinguishes each physical key from every other and reports all key presses to the controlling software. Keyboards are also used for computer gaming, either with regular keyboards or by using keyboards with special gaming features, which can expedite frequently used keystroke combinations. A keyboard is also used to give commands to the operating system of a computer, such as Windows' Control-Alt-Delete combination, which brings up a task window or shuts down the machine. ASUS laptop keyboard Keyboards are the only way to enter commands on a command-line interface.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Keyboard types
2.1 Standard
2.2 Laptop-size
2.3 Thumb-sized
3 Non-standard layout and special-use types
3.1 ChordedCompaq laptop keyboard
3.2 Software
3.3 Foldable
3.4 Projection (as by laser)
3.5 Optical keyboard technology
4 Layout
4.1 Alphabetic
4.2 Key types
4.2.1 Alphanumeric
4.2.2 Modifiers
4.2.3 Navigation and typing modes
4.2.4 System commands
4.2.5 Miscellaneous
4.2.6 Multiple layouts
4.2.7 Layout changing software
5 IlluminationCompaq laptop keyboard
6 Technology
6.1 Key switches
6.2 Control processor
6.3 Connection types
7 Alternative text-entering methods
8 Other issues
8.1 Keystroke logging
8.2 Wireless keystroke loggingCompaq laptop keyboard
8.3 Physical injury
8.4 Health risks
9 See also
10 Notes and references
11 External links
[edit]History
While typewriters are the definitive ancestor of all key-based text entry devices, the computer keyboard as a device for electromechanical data entry and communication derives largely from the utility of two devices: teleprinters (or teletypes) and keypunches. It was through such devices that modern computer keyboards inherited their layouts. Dell laptop keyboard
As early as the 1870s, teleprinter-like devices were used to simultaneously type and transmit stock market text data from the keyboard across telegraph lines to stock ticker machines to be immediately copied and displayed onto ticker tape. The teleprinter, in its more contemporary form, was developed from 1903-1910 by American mechanical engineer Charles Krum and his son Howard, with early contributions by electrical engineer Frank Pearne. Fujitsu laptop keyboardEarlier models were developed separately by individuals such as Royal Earl House and Frederick G. Creed.
Earlier, Herman Hollerith developed the first keypunch devices, which soon evolved to include keys for text and number entry akin to normal typewriters by the 1930s. Gateway laptop keyboard
The keyboard on the teleprinter played a strong role in point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication for most of the 20th century, while the keyboard on the keypunch device played a strong role in data entry and storage for just as long. The development of the earliest computers incorporated electric typewriter keyboards: the development of the ENIAC computer incorporated a keypunch device as both the input and paper-based output device, Hp laptop keyboardwhile the BINAC computer also made use of an electromechanically-controlled typewriter for both data entry onto magnetic tape (instead of paper) and data output.
From the 1940s until the late 1960s, typewriters were the main means of data entry and output for computing, Hp laptop keyboard becoming integrated into what were known as computer terminals. Because of the lack of pace of text-based terminals in comparison to the growth in data storage, processing and transmission, a general move toward video-based computer terminals was affected by the 1970s, starting with the Datapoint 3300 in 1967. Hp laptop keyboard
The keyboard remained the primary, most integrated computer peripheral well into the era of personal computing until the introduction of the mouse as a consumer device in 1984. By this time, text-exclusive user interfaces with sparse graphics gave way to comparatively-graphics-rich icons on screen. However, keyboards remain central to human-computer interaction to the present, Hp laptop keyboardeven as mobile personal computing devices such as smartphones and tablets adapt the keyboard as an optional virtual, touchscreen-based means of data entry.
[edit]Keyboard types
One factor determining the size of a keyboard is the presence of duplicate keys, such as a separate numeric keyboard, for convenience. Hp laptop keyboard
Further the keyboard size depends on the extent to which a system is used where a single action is produced by a combination of subsequent or simultaneous keystrokes (with modifier keys, see below), or multiple pressing of a single key. A keyboard with few keys is called a keypad. See also text entry interface.
Another factor determining the size of a keyboard is the size and spacing of the keys. Hp laptop keyboard Reduction is limited by the practical consideration that the keys must be large enough to be easily pressed by fingers. Alternatively a tool is used for pressing small keys.
[edit]Standard
Computer keyboard in use for a Windows 7 Desktop Computer
Standard "full-travel" alphanumeric keyboards have keys that are on three-quarter inch centers (0.750 inches, 19.05 mm), and have a key travel of at least 0.150 inches (3.81 mm). Desktop computer keyboards, Hp laptop keyboardsuch as the 101-key US traditional keyboards or the 104-key Windows keyboards, include alphabetic characters, punctuation symbols, numbers and a variety of function keys. The internationally common 102/105 key keyboards have a smaller 'left shift' key and an additional key with some more symbols between that and the letter to its right (usually Z or Y). Hp laptop keyboard Also the 'enter' key is usually shaped differently.[1] Computer keyboards are similar to electric-typewriter keyboards but contain additional keys. Standard USB keyboards can also be connected to some non-desktop devices.[2]
[edit]Laptop-size
Keyboards on laptops and notebook computers usually have a shorter travel distance for the keystroke and a reduced set of keys. They may not have a numerical keypad, and the function keys may be placed in locations that differ from their placement on a standard, full-sized keyboard. Hp laptop keyboard
The keyboards on laptops usually have a shorter travel distance and a reduced set of keys.
[edit]Thumb-sized
Smaller external keyboards have been introduced for devices without a built-in keyboard, such as PDAs, and smartphones. Small keyboards are also useful where there is a limited workspace. Hp laptop keyboard
A chorded keyboard allows pressing several keys simultaneously. For example, the GKOS keyboard has been designed for small wireless devices. Other two-handed alternatives more akin to a game controller, such as the AlphaGrip, are also used as a way to input data and text.
IBM laptop keyboardA thumb keyboard (thumbboard) is used in some personal digital assistants such as the Palm Treo and BlackBerry and some Ultra-Mobile PCs such as the OQO.
Numeric keyboards contain only numbers, mathematical symbols for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, a decimal point, and several function keys. They are often used to facilitate data entry with smaller keyboards that do not have a numeric keypad, commonly those of laptop computers. These keys are collectively known as a numeric pad, numeric keys, or a numeric keypad, and it can consist of the following types of keys: samsung laptop keyboard
arithmetic operators such as +, -, *, /
numeric digits 0–9
cursor arrow keys
navigation keys such as Home, End, PgUp, PgDown, etc.
Num Lock button, used to enable or disable the numeric pad
enter key.
[edit]Non-standard layout and special-use types
[edit]Chorded
While other keyboards generally associate one action with each key, sony laptop keyboard chorded keyboards associate actions with combinations of key presses. Since there are many combinations available, chorded keyboards can effectively produce more actions on a board with fewer keys. Court reporters' stenotype machines use chorded keyboards to enable them to enter text much faster by typing a syllable with each stroke instead of one letter at a time. sony laptop keyboard
The fastest typists (as of 2007) use a stenograph, a kind of chorded keyboard used by most court reporters and closed-caption reporters. Some chorded keyboards are also made for use in situations where fewer keys are preferable, such as on devices that can be used with only one hand, Toshiba laptop keyboard
and on small mobile devices that don't have room for larger keyboards. Chorded keyboards are less desirable in many cases because it usually takes practice and memorization of the combinations to become proficient.
[edit]Software
Software keyboards or on-screen keyboards often take the form of computer programs that display an image of a keyboard on the screen. Another input device such as a mouse or a touchscreen can be used to operate each virtual key to enter text. Software keyboards have become very popular in touchscreen enabled cell phones, due to the additional cost and space requirements of other types of hardware keyboards. Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and some varieties of Linux include on-screen keyboards that can be controlled with the mouse. Toshiba laptop keyboard
[edit]Foldable
Further information: Flexible electronics
A foldable keyboard.
Foldable (also called flexible) keyboards are made of soft plastic or silicone which can be rolled or folded on itself for travel.[3] When in use, Toshiba laptop keyboard
these keyboards can conform to uneven surfaces, and are more resistant to liquids than standard keyboards. These can also be connected to portable devices and smartphones. Some models can be fully immersed in water, making them popular in hospitals and laboratories, as they can be disinfected.
[edit]Projection (as by laser) TravelMate 2352LCi keyboard
Projection keyboards project an image of keys, usually with a laser, onto a flat surface. The device then uses a camera or infrared sensor to "watch" where the user's fingers move, and will count a key as being pressed when it "sees" the user's finger touch the projected image. Projection keyboards can simulate a full size keyboard from a very small projector. Because the "keys' are simply projected images, they cannot be felt when pressed. Users of projected keyboards often experience increased discomfort in their fingertips because of the lack of "give" when typing. A flat, non-reflective surface is also required for the keys to be projected onto. Most projection keyboards are made for use with PDAs due to their small form factor. TravelMate 2350 keyboard
[edit]Optical keyboard technology
Also known as photo-optical keyboard, light responsive keyboard, photo-electric keyboard and optical key actuation detection technology.
An optical keyboard technology utilizes light emitting devices and photo sensors to optically detect actuated keys. Most commonly the emitters and sensors are located in the perimeter, mounted on a small PCB. The light is directed from side to side of the keyboard interior and it can only be blocked by the actuated keys. Most optical keyboards require at least 2 beams (most commonly vertical beam and horizontal beam) to determine the actuated key. TravelMate 2313LCi keyboard Some optical keyboards use a special key structure that blocks the light in a certain pattern, allowing only one beam per row of keys (most commonly horizontal beam).
Further information: Keyboard technology
[edit]Layout
[edit]Alphabetic
Main article: Keyboard layout
The 104-key PC US English QWERTY keyboard layout evolved from the standard typewriter keyboard, with extra keys for computing. TravelMate 2310 keyboard
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout arranges keys so that frequently used keys are easiest to press, which reduces muscle fatigue when typing common English. TravelMate 2300 keyboard
There are a number of different arrangements of alphabetic, numeric, and punctuation symbols on keys. These different keyboard layouts arise mainly because different people need easy access to different symbols, either because they are inputting text in different languages, or because they need a specialized layout for mathematics, accounting, computer programming, or other purposes. The United States keyboard layout is used as default in the currently most popular operating systems: Windows,[4] Mac OS X[5] and Linux.[6][7] The common QWERTY-based layout was designed in the era of the mechanical typewriters, so its ergonomics was compromised to allow for the mechanical limitations of the typewriter. TravelMate 2200 Series keyboard
As the letter-keys were attached to levers that needed to move freely, inventor Christopher Sholes developed the QWERTY layout to reduce the likelihood of jamming. With the advent of computers, lever jams are no longer an issue, but nevertheless, QWERTY layouts were adopted for electronic keyboards because they were widely usedTravelMate 2010 keyboard. Alternative layouts such as the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard are not in widespread use.
The QWERTZ layout is widely used in Germany and much of Central Europe. The main difference between it and QWERTY is that Y and Z are swapped, and most special characters such as brackets are replaced by diacritical characters.
Another situation takes place with “national” layouts. Keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shiftedTravelMate 2003LMi keyboard, to release the space for Ñ ñ; similarly, those for French and other European languages may have a special key for the character Ç ç . The AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium and some neighbouring countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout in that the A and Q are swapped, the Z and W are swapped, and the M is moved from the right of N to the right of L (where colon/semicolon is on a US keyboard). The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used for accented characters. TravelMate 2003LC keyboard
Keyboards in many parts of Asia may have special keys to switch between the Latin character set and a completely different typing system. In Japan, keyboards often can be switched between Japanese and the Latin alphabet, and the character ¥ (the Yen currency) is used instead of "\"[citation needed]. In the Arab world, keyboards can often be switched between Arabic and Latin characters.
In bilingual regions of Canada and in the French-speaking province of Québec, keyboards can often be switched between an English and a French-language keyboard; while both keyboards share the same QWERTY alphabetic layout, TravelMate 2002LMi keyboard the French-language keyboard enables the user to type accented vowels such as "é" or "à" with a single keystroke. Using keyboards for other languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the keys, because the standard keyboard layouts do not share even similar characters of different languages (see the example in the figure above). TravelMate 2002LCi keyboard
[edit]Key types
[edit]Alphanumeric
A Hebrew keyboard lets the user type in both Hebrew and the Latin alphabet.
A Greek keyboard lets the user type in both Greek and the Latin alphabet (Macbook Pro).
The Control and Alt keys are important modifier keys.
A Space-cadet keyboard has many modifier keys. TravelMate 2001XC keyboard
Alphabetical, numeric, and punctuation keys are used in the same fashion as a typewriter keyboard to enter their respective symbol into a word processing program, text editor, data spreadsheet, or other program. Many of these keys will produce different symbols when modifier keys or shift keys are pressed. The alphabetic characters become uppercase when the shift key or Caps Lock key is depressed. The numeric characters become symbols or punctuation marks when the shift key is depressed. The alphabetical, numeric, and punctuation keys can also have other functions when they are pressed at the same time as some modifier keys. TravelMate 2001X keyboard
The Space bar is a horizontal bar in the lowermost row, which is significantly wider than other keys. Like the alphanumeric characters, it is also descended from the mechanical typewriter. Its main purpose is to enter the space between words during typing. It is large enough so that a thumb from either hand can use it easily. Depending on the operating system, TravelMate 2001LCi keyboard when the space bar is used with a modifier key such as the control key, it may have functions such as resizing or closing the current window, half-spacing, or backspacing. In computer games and other applications the key has myriad uses in addition to its normal purpose in typing, such as jumping and adding marks to check boxes. In certain programs for playback of digital video TravelMate 2000LC keyboard, the space bar is used for pausing and resuming the playback.
[edit]Modifiers
Modifier keys are special keys that modify the normal action of another key, when the two are pressed in combination. For example, <Alt> + <F4> in Microsoft Windows will close the program in an active window. In contrast, pressing just <F4> will probably do nothing, unless assigned a specific function in a particular program. By themselves, modifier keys usually do nothing. TravelMate 2000 Series keyboard
The most widely used modifier keys include the Control key, Shift key and the Alt key. The AltGr key is used to access additional symbols for keys that have three symbols printed on them. On the Macintosh and Apple keyboards, the modifier keys are the Option key and Command key Ferrari 5005WLMi-FR keyboard, respectively. On MIT computer keyboards, the Meta key is used as a modifier and for Windows keyboards, there is a Windows key. Compact keyboard layouts often use a Fn key. "Dead keys" allow placement of a diacritic mark, such as an accent, on the following letter (e.g., the Compose key).
The Enter/Return key typically causes a command line, window form or dialog box to operate its default function, which is typically to finish an "entry" and begin the desired process. In word processing applications, Ferrari 5005WLMi keyboard pressing the enter key ends a paragraph and starts a new one.
[edit]Navigation and typing modes
Navigation keys include a variety of keys which move the cursor to different positions on the screen. Arrow keys are programmed to move the cursor in a specified direction; page scroll keys, such as the 'Page Up and Page Down keys' Ferrari 5005WLMi-FR keyboard, scroll the page up and down. The Home key is used to return the cursor to the beginning of the line where the cursor is located; the End key puts the cursor at the end of the line. The Tab key advances the cursor to the next tab stop.
The Insert key is mainly used to switch between overtype mode, in which the cursor overwrites any text that is present on and after its current location, and insert mode, where the cursor inserts a character at its current position Ferrari 5005WLMi keyboard, forcing all characters past it one position further. The Delete key discards the character ahead of the cursor's position, moving all following characters one position "back" towards the freed place. On many notebook computer keyboards the key labeled Delete (sometimes Delete and Backspace are printed on the same key) serves the same purpose as a Backspace key. The Backspace key deletes the preceding character Ferrari 5005WLHi keyboard.
Lock keys lock part of a keyboard, depending on the settings selected. The lock keys are scattered around the keyboard. Most styles of keyboards have three LEDs indicating which locks are enabled, in the upper right corner above the numpad. The lock keys include Scroll lock, Num lock (which allows the use of the numeric keypad), and Caps lock.
[edit]System commands
The SysRq / Print screen commands often share the same key. SysRq was used in earlier computers as a "panic" button to recover from crashes. The Print screen command used to capture the entire screen and send it to the printer, but in the present it usually puts a screenshot in the clipboard. The Break key/Pause key no longer has a well-defined purpose. Its origins go back to teleprinter users, who wanted a key that would temporarily interrupt the communications line. The Break key can be used by software in several different ways, such as to switch between multiple login sessions, to terminate a program, or to interrupt a modem connection. Ferrari 5005 keyboard
In programming, especially old DOS-style BASIC, Pascal and C, Break is used (in conjunction with Ctrl) to stop program execution. In addition to this, Linux and variants, as well as many DOS programs, treat this combination the same as Ctrl+C. On modern keyboards, the break key is usually labeled Pause/Break. In most Windows environments, the key combination Windows key+Pause brings up the system properties. Ferrari 5004WLMi keyboard
The Escape key (often abbreviated Esc) is used to initiate an escape sequence. As most computer users no longer are concerned with the details of controlling their computer's peripherals, the task for which the escape sequences were originally designed, the escape key was appropriated by application programmers, most often to "escape" or back out of a mistaken command. This use continues today in Microsoft Windows's use of escape as a shortcut in dialog boxes for No, Quit, Exit, Cancel, or Abort.
A common application today of the Esc key is as a shortcut key for the Stop button in many web browsers. On machines running Microsoft Windows, Ferrari 5000 keyboard prior to the implementation of the Windows key on keyboards, the typical practice for invoking the "start" button was to hold down the control key and press escape. This process still works in Windows 2000, XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.
The Menu key or Application key is a key found on Windows-oriented computer keyboards. It is used to launch a context menu with the keyboard rather than with the usual right mouse button Ferrari 1100 keyboard. The key's symbol is a small icon depicting a cursor hovering above a menu. This key was created at the same time as the Windows key. This key is normally used when the right mouse button is not present on the mouse. Some Windows public terminals do not have a Menu key on their keyboard to prevent users from right-clicking Ferrari 5000 keyboard (however, in many windows applications, a similar functionality can be invoked with the Shift+F10 keyboard shortcut).
[edit]Miscellaneous
Multimedia buttons on some keyboards give quick access to the Internet or control the volume of the speakers.
Many, but not all, computer keyboards have a numeric keypad to the right of the alphabetic keyboard which contains numbers Ferrari 1100 keyboard , basic mathematical symbols (e.g., addition, subtraction, etc.), and a few function keys. On Japanese/Korean keyboards, there may be Language input keys. Some keyboards have power management keys (e.g., Power key, Sleep key and Wake key); Internet keys to access a web browser or E-mail; and/or multimedia keys, such as volume controls or keys that can be programmed by the user to launch a specified software or command like launching a game or minimize all windows.
[edit]Multiple layouts Ferrari 1004WTMi keyboard
It is possible to install multiple keyboard layouts within an operating system and switch between them, either through features implemented within the OS, or through an external application. Microsoft Windows,[8] Ubuntu,[9] Linux,[10] and Mac[11] provide support to add keyboard layouts and choose from them.
[edit]Layout changing software
The character code produced by any key press is determined by the keyboard driver software. Ferrari 1000 keyboard A key press generates a scancode which is interpreted as an alphanumeric character or control function. Depending on operating systems, various application programs are available to create, add and switch among keyboard layouts. Many programs are available, some of which are language specific.
The arrangement of symbols of specific language can be customized. An existing keyboard layout can be edited Extensa 7720 keyboard, and a new layout can be created using this type of software.
For example, Ukelele for Mac, The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator[12] and open-source Avro Keyboard for Windows provide the ability to customize the keyboard layout as desired. Other programs with similar functions include Avro Keyboard, Tavultesoft Keyman Developer Extensa 7620Z keyboard,[13] The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator,[14] MountFocus Keyboard Designer,[15] Map Keyboard, KbdEdit, Key Customizer, Keyboard Remapper, Infine Keyboard Commander for Windows; and X Neural Switcher, Keyboard Layout Editor[16] and Keyboard Layout Creator[17] for Linux.
[edit]Illumination Extensa 7620G keyboard
Keyboards and keypads may be illuminated from inside, especially on equipment for mobile use. Illumination facilitates the use of the keyboard or keypad in dark environments. Some gaming keyboards have lighted keys, to make it easier for gamers to find command keys while playing in a dark room. Some computers may have small LED lights in a few important function keys, Extensa 7620 keyboard to remind users that the function is activated (see photo).
Keys with integrated LED indicator lights
[edit]Technology
Main article: Keyboard technology
[edit]Key switches
In the first electronic keyboards in the early 1970s, Extensa 7220 keyboard the key switches were individual switches inserted into holes in metal frames. These keyboards cost from 80–120 US dollars and were used in mainframe data terminals. The most popular switch types were reed switches (contacts enclosed in a vacuum in a glass capsule, affected by a magnet mounted on the switch plunger – from Clare-Pendar[18] in Post Falls Idaho Extensa 6700 keyboard, which became part of General Instrument, which used reedswitch capsules made by C.P. Clare Co.[19] in Illinois; and Key Tronic Corporation of Spokane, Washington), Hall-effect switches (using a Hall-effect semiconductor where a current is generated by a passing magnet – from Microswitch[20] in Illinois Extensa 5635ZG keyboard, which became part of Honeywell), and inductive core switches (again, activated by a magnet – from Cortron,[21] which was part of ITW/Illinois Tool Works). These switches were rated to last for 100 million cycles and had 0.187-inch (4.75 mm) key travel, compared to 0.110 inch (2.79 mm) today.
In the mid 1970s, Extensa 5635Z keyboard
lower-cost direct-contact key switches were introduced, but their life in switch cycles was much shorter (rated ten million cycles) because they were open to the environment. This became more acceptable, however, for use in computer terminals at the time, which began to see increasingly shorter model lifespans as they advanced.
In 1978, Key Tronic Corporation introduced keyboards with capacitive-based switches, Extensa 5635G 5635Z keyboard one of the first keyboard technologies to not use self-contained switches. There was simply a sponge pad with a conductive-coated Mylar plastic sheet on the switch plunger, and two half-moon trace patterns on the printed circuit board below. As the key was depressed, the capacitance between the plunger pad and the patterns on the PCB below changed, which was detected by integrated circuits (IC). These keyboards were claimed to have the same reliability as the other "solid-state switch" keyboards such as inductive and Hall-Effect, Extensa 5635G keyboard but competitive with direct-contact keyboards. Prices of $60 for keyboards were achieved and Key Tronic rapidly became the largest independent keyboard manufacturer.
Meanwhile, IBM made their own keyboards, using their own patented technology: Keys on older IBM keyboards were made with a "buckling spring" mechanism, in which a coil spring under the key buckles under pressure from the user's finger Extensa 5635 keyboard, triggering a hammer that presses two plastic sheets (membranes) with conductive traces together, completing a circuit. This produces a clicking sound, and gives physical feedback for the typist indicating that the key has been depressed.[22][23]
The first electronic keyboards had a typewriter key travel distance of 0.187 inches (4.75 mm), Extensa 5510Z keyboard
keytops were a half-inch (12.7 mm) high, and keyboards were about two inches (5 cm) thick. Over time, less key travel was accepted in the market, finally landing on 0.110 inches (2.79 mm). Coincident with this, Key Tronic was the first company to introduce a keyboard which was only about one inch thick. And now keyboards measure only about a half-inch thick.
Keytops are an important element of keyboards. Extensa 5510 keyboard
In the beginning, keyboard keytops had a "dish shape" on top, like typewriters before them. Keyboard key legends must be extremely durable over tens of millions of depressions, since they are subjected to extreme mechanical wear from fingers and fingernails, and subject to hand oils and creams, so engraving and filling key legends with paint, as was done previously for individual switches, was never acceptable. So, for the first electronic keyboards, Extensa 5235 keyboard
the key names/legends were produced by two-shot (or double-shot, or two-color) molding, where either the key shell or the inside of the key with the key legend was molded first, and then the other color molded second. But, to save cost, other methods were explored, such as sublimation printing and laser engraving, Extensa 4100 keyboard
both methods which could be used to print a whole keyboard at the same time. Initially, sublimation printing, where a special ink is printed onto the keycap surface and the application of heat causes the ink molecules to penetrate and commingle with the plastic modules, had a problem because finger oils caused the molecules to disperse, but then a necessarily very hard clear coating was applied to prevent this. Extensa 3002WLMi keyboard
Coincident with sublimation printing, which was first used in high volume by IBM on their keyboards, was the introduction by IBM of single-curved-dish keycaps to facilitate quality printing of key legends by having a consistently curved surface instead of a dish. But one problem with sublimation or laser printing was that the processes took too long and only dark legends could be printed on light-colored keys. Extensa 3000 keyboard
On another note, IBM was unique in using separate shells, or "keycaps", on keytop bases. This might have made their manufacturing of different keyboard layouts more flexible, but the reason for doing this was that the plastic material that needed to be used for sublimation printing was different from standard ABS keytop plastic material.
Three final mechanical technologies brought keyboards to where they are today, driving the cost well under $10:
"Monoblock" keyboard designs were developed where individual switch housings were eliminated and a one-piece "monoblock" housing used instead. Extensa 2600 keyboard
This was possible because of molding techniques that could provide very tight tolerances for the switch-plunger holes and guides across the width of the keyboard so that the key plunger-to-housing clearances were not too tight or too loose, either of which could cause the keys to bind.
The use of contact-switch membrane sheets under the monoblock. This technology came from flat-panel switch membranes, where the switch contacts are printed inside of a top and bottom layer, with a spacer layer in between, so that when pressure is applied to the area above, Extensa 2500 Series keyboard
a direct electrical contact is made. The membrane layers can be printed by very-high volume, low-cost "reel-to-reel" printing machines, with each keyboard membrane cut and punched out afterwards.
The use of pad-printed keytops (called "Tampo printed" at the time because Tampo[24] was the most popular equipment manufacturer). Extensa 2303LC keyboard
Initially sublimation ink was used (see above), but very durable clear-coats are now printed over the key legends to protect them. These coatings are also used to reduce glare, and in many cases have an anti-microbial content added for user protection.[25]
Plastic materials played a very important part in the development and progress of electronic keyboards. Until "monoblocks" came along, Extensa 2300 keyboard
GE's "self-lubricating" Delrin was the only plastic material for keyboard switch plungers that could withstand the beating over tens of millions of cycles of lifetime use. Greasing or oiling switch plungers was undesirable because it would attract dirt over time which would eventually affect the feel and even bind the key switches (although keyboard manufacturers would sometimes sneak this into their keyboards, eMachines G730ZG keyboard
especially if they could not control the tolerances of the key plungers and housings well enough to have a smooth key depression feel or prevent binding). But Delrin was only available in black and white, and was not suitable for keytops (too soft), so keytops use ABS plastic. However, as plastic molding advanced in maintaining tight tolerances, and as key travel length reduced from 0.187-inch to 0.110-inch (4.75 mm to 2.79 mm), single-part keytop/plungers could be made of ABS, with the keyboard monolocks also made of ABS.
[edit]Control processoreMachines G730Z keyboar
Computer keyboards include control circuitry to convert key presses into key codes (usually scancodes) that the computer's electronics can understand. The key switches are connected via the printed circuit board in an electrical X-Y matrix where a voltage is provided sequentially to the Y lines and, when a key is depressed, detected sequentially by scanning the X lines. eMachines G730G keyboard
The first computer keyboards were for mainframe computer data terminals and used discrete electronic parts. eMachines G730 keyboard
The first keyboard microprocessor was introduced in 1972 by General Instruments, but keyboards have been using the single-chip 8048 microcontroller variant since it became available in 1978. The keyboard switch matrix is wired to its inputs, it converts the keystrokes to key codes, and, for a detached keyboard, sends the codes down a serial cable (the keyboard cord) to the main processor on the computer motherboard. eMachines G640 keyboard
This serial keyboard cable communication is only bi-directional to the extent that the computer's electronics controls the illumination of the "caps lock", "num lock" and "scroll lock" lights.
One test for whether the computer has crashed is pressing the "caps lock" key. The keyboard sends the key code to the keyboard driver running in the main computer; if the main computer is operating, it commands the light to turn on. All the other indicator lights work in a similar way. The keyboard driver also tracks the shift, alt and control state of the keyboard. eMachines E732 keyboard
Some lower-quality keyboards have multiple or false key entries due to inadequate electrical designs. These are caused by inadequate keyswitch "debouncing" or inadequate keyswitch matrix layout that don't allow multiple keys to be depressed at the same time, both circumstances which are explained below:
When pressing a keyboard key, the key contacts may "bounce" against each other for several milliseconds before they settle into firm contact. When released, they bounce some more until they revert to the uncontacted state. If the computer were watching for each pulse, eMachines E730 keyboard
it would see many keystrokes for what the user thought was just one. To resolve this problem, the processor in a keyboard (or computer) "debounces" the keystrokes, by aggregating them across time to produce one "confirmed" keystroke.
Some low-quality keyboards also suffer problems with rollover eMachines E640 keyboard(that is, when multiple keys pressed at the same time, or when keys are pressed so fast that multiple keys are down within the same milliseconds). Early "solid-state" keyswitch keyboards did not have this problem because the keyswitches are electrically isolated from each other, and early "direct-contact" keyswitch keyboards avoided this problem by having isolation diodes for every keyswitch. These early keyboards had "n-key" rollover, which means any number of keys can be depressed and the keyboard will still recognize the next key depressed. eMachines E440 keyboard
But when three keys are pressed (electrically closed) at the same time in a "direct contact" keyswitch matrix that doesn't have isolation diodes, the keyboard electronics can see a fourth "phantom" key which is the intersection of the X and Y lines of the three keys. Some types of keyboard circuitry will register a maximum number of keys at one time. Aspire ONE NAV50 keyboard
"Three-key" rollover, also called "phantom key blocking" or "phantom key lockout", will only register three keys and ignore all others until one of the three keys is lifted. This is undesirable, especially for fast typing (hitting new keys before the fingers can release previous keys), and games (designed for multiple key presses).
As direct-contact membrane keyboards became popular, the available rollover of keys was optimized by analyzing the most common key sequences and placing these keys so that they do not potentially produce phantom keys in the electrical key matrix (for example, simply placing three or four keys that might be depressed simultaneously on the same X or same Y line, so that a phantom key intersection/short cannot happen), Aspire One D250-1Bw keyboard
so that blocking a third key usually isn't a problem. But lower-quality keyboard designs and unknowledgeable engineers may not know these tricks, and it can still be a problem in games due to wildly different or configurable layouts in different games.
[edit]Connection types
There are several ways of connecting a keyboard to a system unit (more precisely, to its keyboard controller) using cables, Aspire One D250-1Br keyboard
including the standard AT connector commonly found on motherboards, which was eventually replaced by the PS/2 and the USB connection. Prior to the iMac line of systems, Apple used the proprietary Apple Desktop Bus for its keyboard connector.
Wireless keyboards have become popular for their increased user freedom. Aspire One D250-1Bb keyboard
A wireless keyboard often includes a required combination transmitter and receiver unit that attaches to the computer's keyboard port. The wireless aspect is achieved either by radio frequency (RF) or by infrared (IR) signals sent and received from both the keyboard and the unit attached to the computer. Aspire One D250-1990 keyboard
A wireless keyboard may use an industry standard RF, called Bluetooth. With Bluetooth, the transceiver may be built into the computer. However, a wireless keyboard needs batteries to work and may pose a security problem due to the risk of data "eavesdropping" by hackers. Wireless solar keyboards charge their batteries from small solar panels using sunlight or standard artificial lighting. An early example of a consumer wireless keyboard is that of the Olivetti Envision.
[edit]Alternative text-entering methodsAspire One D250-1924 keyboard
An on-screen keyboard controlled with the mouse can be used by users with limited mobility.
Optical character recognition (OCR) is preferable to rekeying for converting existing text that is already written down but not in machine-readable format (for example, a Linotype-composed book from the 1940s). In other words, to convert the text from an image to editable text (that is, Aspire One D250-1610 keyboard
a string of character codes), a person could re-type it, or a computer could look at the image and deduce what each character is. OCR technology has already reached an impressive state (for example, Google Book Search) and promises more for the future.
Speech recognition converts speech into machine-readable text Aspire One D250-1326 keyboard
(that is, a string of character codes). The technology has already reached an impressive state and is already implemented in various software products. For certain uses (e.g., transcription of medical or legal dictation; journalism; writing essays or novels) it is starting to replace the keyboard; Aspire One D250-1289 keyboard
however, it does not threaten to replace keyboards entirely anytime soon. It can, however, interpret commands (for example, "close window" or "undo word") in addition to text. Therefore, it has theoretical potential to replace keyboards entirely (whereas OCR replaces them only for a certain kind of task).
Pointing devices can be used to enter text or characters in contexts where using a physical keyboard would be inappropriate or impossible. Aspire One D250-1185 keyboard
These accessories typically present characters on a display, in a layout that provides fast access to the more frequently used characters or character combinations. Popular examples of this kind of input are Graffiti, Dasher and on-screen virtual keyboards. Aspire One D250-1165 keyboard
[edit]Other issues
[edit]Keystroke logging
Keystroke logging (often called keylogging) is a method of capturing and recording user keystrokes. While it is used legally to measure employee productivity on certain clerical tasks, or by law enforcement agencies to find out about illegal activities, it is also used by hackers for various illegal or malicious acts. Hackers use keyloggers as a means to obtain passwords or encryption keys and thus bypass other security measures. Aspire One D250-1151 keyboard
Keystroke logging can be achieved by both hardware and software means. Hardware key loggers are attached to the keyboard cable or installed inside standard keyboards. Software keyloggers work on the target computer’s operating system and gain unauthorized access to the hardware, hook into the keyboard with functions provided by the OS, Aspire One D250-1116 keyboard
or use remote access software to transmit recorded data out of the target computer to a remote location. Some hackers also use wireless keylogger sniffers to collect packets of data being transferred from a wireless keyboard and its receiver, and then they crack the encryption key being used to secure wireless communications between the two devices.
Aspire One D250-1042 keyboard Anti-spyware applications are able to detect many keyloggers and cleanse them. Responsible vendors of monitoring software support detection by anti-spyware programs, thus preventing abuse of the software. Enabling a firewall does not stop keyloggers per se, but can possibly prevent transmission of the logged material over the net if properly configured. Network monitors (also known as reverse-firewalls) can be used to alert the user whenever an application attempts to make a network connection. Aspire One D250-1026 keyboard
This gives the user the chance to prevent the keylogger from "phoning home" with his or her typed information. Automatic form-filling programs can prevent keylogging entirely by not using the keyboard at all. Most keyloggers can be fooled by alternating between typing the login credentials and typing characters somewhere else in the focus window.[26]
[edit]Wireless keystroke logging
Also known as remote keylogging or wireless keylogging.
In their research “Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired Keyboard”[27] Vuagnoux and Pasini have provided evidence that modern keyboards radiate compromising electromagnetic emanations. Aspire One D250 keyboard
The four techniques presented in their paper prove that these basic devices are generally not sufficiently protected against compromising emanations. Additionally, they showed that these emanations can be captured with relatively inexpensive equipment and keystrokes are recovered[28] not only in the semi-anechoic chamber but in practical environments as well (e.g. office). The consequences of these attacks are that compromising electromagnetic emanations of keyboards still represent a security risk. PS/2, USB, Aspire One D150-1Bw keyboard
laptop and wireless keyboards are vulnerable. Moreover, there is no software patch to avoid these attacks. Hardware has to be replaced to obtain safe devices. Due to cost pressure in the design and lack of knowledge, manufacturers do not systematically protect keyboards. Even in the practical space of an office with multiple keyboards, Vuagnoux and Pasini were able to deduce a specific fingerprint for every keyboard. When multiple keyboards are radiating at the same time, they are able to identify and differentiate them. Aspire One D150-1Br keyboard
[edit]Physical injury
Proper ergonomic design of computer keyboard desks is necessary to prevent repetitive strain injuries, which can develop over time and can lead to long-term disability.[29]
The use of any keyboard may cause serious injury (that is, carpal tunnel syndrome or other repetitive strain injury) to hands, Aspire One D150-1Bk keyboard
wrists, arms, neck or back. The risks of injuries can be reduced by taking frequent short breaks to get up and walk around a couple of times every hour. As well, users should vary tasks throughout the day, to avoid overuse of the hands and wrists. When inputting at the keyboard, Aspire One D150-1Br keyboard
a person should keep the shoulders relaxed with the elbows at the side, with the keyboard and mouse positioned so that reaching is not necessary. The chair height and keyboard tray should be adjusted so that the wrists are straight, and the wrists should not be rested on sharp table edges. Wrist or palm rests should not be used while typing. Aspire One D150-1Bw keyboard
Some adaptive technology ranging from special keyboards, mouse replacements and pen tablet interfaces to speech recognition software can reduce the risk of injury. Pause software reminds the user to pause frequently. Switching to a much more ergonomic mouse, Aspire One D150-1Bw keyboard
such as a vertical mouse or joystick mouse may provide relief. Switching from using a mouse to using a stylus pen with graphic tablet or a trackpad can lessen the repetitive strain on the arms and hands.
[edit]Health risks
Aspire One D150-1Br keyboard
A growing body of research raises the question if keyboards can be a health hazard. Some keyboards were found to contain five times more germs than a toilet seat.[30] Dr. Aaron Glatt, spokesperson for the Infectious Disease Society of America, remembers that "there is no surface under the sun ... that is sterile" and "there is overwhelming evidence that this is not a danger for most peopleAspire One D150-1Bw keyboard
." Basic hygiene measures like handwashing and not sharing the keyboard may reduce exposure to harmful bacteria.
A key being pressed on a computer keyboard.
In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Following the decline of punch cards and paper tape, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards became the main input device for computers. acer laptop keyboard
Despite the development of alternative input devices, such as the mouse, touchscreen, pen devices, character recognition and voice recognition, the keyboard remains the most commonly used and most versatile device used for direct (human) input into computers.
A keyboard typically has characters engraved or printed on the keys and each press of a key typically corresponds to a single written symbol. acer laptop keyboard
However, to produce some symbols requires pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence. While most keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs (characters), other keys or simultaneous key presses can produce actions or computer commands.
In normal usage, apple laptop keyboard the keyboard is used to type text and numbers into a word processor, text editor or other program. In a modern computer, the interpretation of key presses is generally left to the software. A computer keyboard distinguishes each physical key from every other and reports all key presses to the controlling software. Keyboards are also used for computer gaming, either with regular keyboards or by using keyboards with special gaming features, which can expedite frequently used keystroke combinations. A keyboard is also used to give commands to the operating system of a computer, such as Windows' Control-Alt-Delete combination, which brings up a task window or shuts down the machine. ASUS laptop keyboard Keyboards are the only way to enter commands on a command-line interface.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Keyboard types
2.1 Standard
2.2 Laptop-size
2.3 Thumb-sized
3 Non-standard layout and special-use types
3.1 ChordedCompaq laptop keyboard
3.2 Software
3.3 Foldable
3.4 Projection (as by laser)
3.5 Optical keyboard technology
4 Layout
4.1 Alphabetic
4.2 Key types
4.2.1 Alphanumeric
4.2.2 Modifiers
4.2.3 Navigation and typing modes
4.2.4 System commands
4.2.5 Miscellaneous
4.2.6 Multiple layouts
4.2.7 Layout changing software
5 IlluminationCompaq laptop keyboard
6 Technology
6.1 Key switches
6.2 Control processor
6.3 Connection types
7 Alternative text-entering methods
8 Other issues
8.1 Keystroke logging
8.2 Wireless keystroke loggingCompaq laptop keyboard
8.3 Physical injury
8.4 Health risks
9 See also
10 Notes and references
11 External links
[edit]History
While typewriters are the definitive ancestor of all key-based text entry devices, the computer keyboard as a device for electromechanical data entry and communication derives largely from the utility of two devices: teleprinters (or teletypes) and keypunches. It was through such devices that modern computer keyboards inherited their layouts. Dell laptop keyboard
As early as the 1870s, teleprinter-like devices were used to simultaneously type and transmit stock market text data from the keyboard across telegraph lines to stock ticker machines to be immediately copied and displayed onto ticker tape. The teleprinter, in its more contemporary form, was developed from 1903-1910 by American mechanical engineer Charles Krum and his son Howard, with early contributions by electrical engineer Frank Pearne. Fujitsu laptop keyboardEarlier models were developed separately by individuals such as Royal Earl House and Frederick G. Creed.
Earlier, Herman Hollerith developed the first keypunch devices, which soon evolved to include keys for text and number entry akin to normal typewriters by the 1930s. Gateway laptop keyboard
The keyboard on the teleprinter played a strong role in point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication for most of the 20th century, while the keyboard on the keypunch device played a strong role in data entry and storage for just as long. The development of the earliest computers incorporated electric typewriter keyboards: the development of the ENIAC computer incorporated a keypunch device as both the input and paper-based output device, Hp laptop keyboardwhile the BINAC computer also made use of an electromechanically-controlled typewriter for both data entry onto magnetic tape (instead of paper) and data output.
From the 1940s until the late 1960s, typewriters were the main means of data entry and output for computing, Hp laptop keyboard becoming integrated into what were known as computer terminals. Because of the lack of pace of text-based terminals in comparison to the growth in data storage, processing and transmission, a general move toward video-based computer terminals was affected by the 1970s, starting with the Datapoint 3300 in 1967. Hp laptop keyboard
The keyboard remained the primary, most integrated computer peripheral well into the era of personal computing until the introduction of the mouse as a consumer device in 1984. By this time, text-exclusive user interfaces with sparse graphics gave way to comparatively-graphics-rich icons on screen. However, keyboards remain central to human-computer interaction to the present, Hp laptop keyboardeven as mobile personal computing devices such as smartphones and tablets adapt the keyboard as an optional virtual, touchscreen-based means of data entry.
[edit]Keyboard types
One factor determining the size of a keyboard is the presence of duplicate keys, such as a separate numeric keyboard, for convenience. Hp laptop keyboard
Further the keyboard size depends on the extent to which a system is used where a single action is produced by a combination of subsequent or simultaneous keystrokes (with modifier keys, see below), or multiple pressing of a single key. A keyboard with few keys is called a keypad. See also text entry interface.
Another factor determining the size of a keyboard is the size and spacing of the keys. Hp laptop keyboard Reduction is limited by the practical consideration that the keys must be large enough to be easily pressed by fingers. Alternatively a tool is used for pressing small keys.
[edit]Standard
Computer keyboard in use for a Windows 7 Desktop Computer
Standard "full-travel" alphanumeric keyboards have keys that are on three-quarter inch centers (0.750 inches, 19.05 mm), and have a key travel of at least 0.150 inches (3.81 mm). Desktop computer keyboards, Hp laptop keyboardsuch as the 101-key US traditional keyboards or the 104-key Windows keyboards, include alphabetic characters, punctuation symbols, numbers and a variety of function keys. The internationally common 102/105 key keyboards have a smaller 'left shift' key and an additional key with some more symbols between that and the letter to its right (usually Z or Y). Hp laptop keyboard Also the 'enter' key is usually shaped differently.[1] Computer keyboards are similar to electric-typewriter keyboards but contain additional keys. Standard USB keyboards can also be connected to some non-desktop devices.[2]
[edit]Laptop-size
Keyboards on laptops and notebook computers usually have a shorter travel distance for the keystroke and a reduced set of keys. They may not have a numerical keypad, and the function keys may be placed in locations that differ from their placement on a standard, full-sized keyboard. Hp laptop keyboard
The keyboards on laptops usually have a shorter travel distance and a reduced set of keys.
[edit]Thumb-sized
Smaller external keyboards have been introduced for devices without a built-in keyboard, such as PDAs, and smartphones. Small keyboards are also useful where there is a limited workspace. Hp laptop keyboard
A chorded keyboard allows pressing several keys simultaneously. For example, the GKOS keyboard has been designed for small wireless devices. Other two-handed alternatives more akin to a game controller, such as the AlphaGrip, are also used as a way to input data and text.
IBM laptop keyboardA thumb keyboard (thumbboard) is used in some personal digital assistants such as the Palm Treo and BlackBerry and some Ultra-Mobile PCs such as the OQO.
Numeric keyboards contain only numbers, mathematical symbols for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, a decimal point, and several function keys. They are often used to facilitate data entry with smaller keyboards that do not have a numeric keypad, commonly those of laptop computers. These keys are collectively known as a numeric pad, numeric keys, or a numeric keypad, and it can consist of the following types of keys: samsung laptop keyboard
arithmetic operators such as +, -, *, /
numeric digits 0–9
cursor arrow keys
navigation keys such as Home, End, PgUp, PgDown, etc.
Num Lock button, used to enable or disable the numeric pad
enter key.
[edit]Non-standard layout and special-use types
[edit]Chorded
While other keyboards generally associate one action with each key, sony laptop keyboard chorded keyboards associate actions with combinations of key presses. Since there are many combinations available, chorded keyboards can effectively produce more actions on a board with fewer keys. Court reporters' stenotype machines use chorded keyboards to enable them to enter text much faster by typing a syllable with each stroke instead of one letter at a time. sony laptop keyboard
The fastest typists (as of 2007) use a stenograph, a kind of chorded keyboard used by most court reporters and closed-caption reporters. Some chorded keyboards are also made for use in situations where fewer keys are preferable, such as on devices that can be used with only one hand, Toshiba laptop keyboard
and on small mobile devices that don't have room for larger keyboards. Chorded keyboards are less desirable in many cases because it usually takes practice and memorization of the combinations to become proficient.
[edit]Software
Software keyboards or on-screen keyboards often take the form of computer programs that display an image of a keyboard on the screen. Another input device such as a mouse or a touchscreen can be used to operate each virtual key to enter text. Software keyboards have become very popular in touchscreen enabled cell phones, due to the additional cost and space requirements of other types of hardware keyboards. Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and some varieties of Linux include on-screen keyboards that can be controlled with the mouse. Toshiba laptop keyboard
[edit]Foldable
Further information: Flexible electronics
A foldable keyboard.
Foldable (also called flexible) keyboards are made of soft plastic or silicone which can be rolled or folded on itself for travel.[3] When in use, Toshiba laptop keyboard
these keyboards can conform to uneven surfaces, and are more resistant to liquids than standard keyboards. These can also be connected to portable devices and smartphones. Some models can be fully immersed in water, making them popular in hospitals and laboratories, as they can be disinfected.
[edit]Projection (as by laser) TravelMate 2352LCi keyboard
Projection keyboards project an image of keys, usually with a laser, onto a flat surface. The device then uses a camera or infrared sensor to "watch" where the user's fingers move, and will count a key as being pressed when it "sees" the user's finger touch the projected image. Projection keyboards can simulate a full size keyboard from a very small projector. Because the "keys' are simply projected images, they cannot be felt when pressed. Users of projected keyboards often experience increased discomfort in their fingertips because of the lack of "give" when typing. A flat, non-reflective surface is also required for the keys to be projected onto. Most projection keyboards are made for use with PDAs due to their small form factor. TravelMate 2350 keyboard
[edit]Optical keyboard technology
Also known as photo-optical keyboard, light responsive keyboard, photo-electric keyboard and optical key actuation detection technology.
An optical keyboard technology utilizes light emitting devices and photo sensors to optically detect actuated keys. Most commonly the emitters and sensors are located in the perimeter, mounted on a small PCB. The light is directed from side to side of the keyboard interior and it can only be blocked by the actuated keys. Most optical keyboards require at least 2 beams (most commonly vertical beam and horizontal beam) to determine the actuated key. TravelMate 2313LCi keyboard Some optical keyboards use a special key structure that blocks the light in a certain pattern, allowing only one beam per row of keys (most commonly horizontal beam).
Further information: Keyboard technology
[edit]Layout
[edit]Alphabetic
Main article: Keyboard layout
The 104-key PC US English QWERTY keyboard layout evolved from the standard typewriter keyboard, with extra keys for computing. TravelMate 2310 keyboard
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout arranges keys so that frequently used keys are easiest to press, which reduces muscle fatigue when typing common English. TravelMate 2300 keyboard
There are a number of different arrangements of alphabetic, numeric, and punctuation symbols on keys. These different keyboard layouts arise mainly because different people need easy access to different symbols, either because they are inputting text in different languages, or because they need a specialized layout for mathematics, accounting, computer programming, or other purposes. The United States keyboard layout is used as default in the currently most popular operating systems: Windows,[4] Mac OS X[5] and Linux.[6][7] The common QWERTY-based layout was designed in the era of the mechanical typewriters, so its ergonomics was compromised to allow for the mechanical limitations of the typewriter. TravelMate 2200 Series keyboard
As the letter-keys were attached to levers that needed to move freely, inventor Christopher Sholes developed the QWERTY layout to reduce the likelihood of jamming. With the advent of computers, lever jams are no longer an issue, but nevertheless, QWERTY layouts were adopted for electronic keyboards because they were widely usedTravelMate 2010 keyboard. Alternative layouts such as the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard are not in widespread use.
The QWERTZ layout is widely used in Germany and much of Central Europe. The main difference between it and QWERTY is that Y and Z are swapped, and most special characters such as brackets are replaced by diacritical characters.
Another situation takes place with “national” layouts. Keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shiftedTravelMate 2003LMi keyboard, to release the space for Ñ ñ; similarly, those for French and other European languages may have a special key for the character Ç ç . The AZERTY layout is used in France, Belgium and some neighbouring countries. It differs from the QWERTY layout in that the A and Q are swapped, the Z and W are swapped, and the M is moved from the right of N to the right of L (where colon/semicolon is on a US keyboard). The digits 0 to 9 are on the same keys, but to be typed the shift key must be pressed. The unshifted positions are used for accented characters. TravelMate 2003LC keyboard
Keyboards in many parts of Asia may have special keys to switch between the Latin character set and a completely different typing system. In Japan, keyboards often can be switched between Japanese and the Latin alphabet, and the character ¥ (the Yen currency) is used instead of "\"[citation needed]. In the Arab world, keyboards can often be switched between Arabic and Latin characters.
In bilingual regions of Canada and in the French-speaking province of Québec, keyboards can often be switched between an English and a French-language keyboard; while both keyboards share the same QWERTY alphabetic layout, TravelMate 2002LMi keyboard the French-language keyboard enables the user to type accented vowels such as "é" or "à" with a single keystroke. Using keyboards for other languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the keys, because the standard keyboard layouts do not share even similar characters of different languages (see the example in the figure above). TravelMate 2002LCi keyboard
[edit]Key types
[edit]Alphanumeric
A Hebrew keyboard lets the user type in both Hebrew and the Latin alphabet.
A Greek keyboard lets the user type in both Greek and the Latin alphabet (Macbook Pro).
The Control and Alt keys are important modifier keys.
A Space-cadet keyboard has many modifier keys. TravelMate 2001XC keyboard
Alphabetical, numeric, and punctuation keys are used in the same fashion as a typewriter keyboard to enter their respective symbol into a word processing program, text editor, data spreadsheet, or other program. Many of these keys will produce different symbols when modifier keys or shift keys are pressed. The alphabetic characters become uppercase when the shift key or Caps Lock key is depressed. The numeric characters become symbols or punctuation marks when the shift key is depressed. The alphabetical, numeric, and punctuation keys can also have other functions when they are pressed at the same time as some modifier keys. TravelMate 2001X keyboard
The Space bar is a horizontal bar in the lowermost row, which is significantly wider than other keys. Like the alphanumeric characters, it is also descended from the mechanical typewriter. Its main purpose is to enter the space between words during typing. It is large enough so that a thumb from either hand can use it easily. Depending on the operating system, TravelMate 2001LCi keyboard when the space bar is used with a modifier key such as the control key, it may have functions such as resizing or closing the current window, half-spacing, or backspacing. In computer games and other applications the key has myriad uses in addition to its normal purpose in typing, such as jumping and adding marks to check boxes. In certain programs for playback of digital video TravelMate 2000LC keyboard, the space bar is used for pausing and resuming the playback.
[edit]Modifiers
Modifier keys are special keys that modify the normal action of another key, when the two are pressed in combination. For example, <Alt> + <F4> in Microsoft Windows will close the program in an active window. In contrast, pressing just <F4> will probably do nothing, unless assigned a specific function in a particular program. By themselves, modifier keys usually do nothing. TravelMate 2000 Series keyboard
The most widely used modifier keys include the Control key, Shift key and the Alt key. The AltGr key is used to access additional symbols for keys that have three symbols printed on them. On the Macintosh and Apple keyboards, the modifier keys are the Option key and Command key Ferrari 5005WLMi-FR keyboard, respectively. On MIT computer keyboards, the Meta key is used as a modifier and for Windows keyboards, there is a Windows key. Compact keyboard layouts often use a Fn key. "Dead keys" allow placement of a diacritic mark, such as an accent, on the following letter (e.g., the Compose key).
The Enter/Return key typically causes a command line, window form or dialog box to operate its default function, which is typically to finish an "entry" and begin the desired process. In word processing applications, Ferrari 5005WLMi keyboard pressing the enter key ends a paragraph and starts a new one.
[edit]Navigation and typing modes
Navigation keys include a variety of keys which move the cursor to different positions on the screen. Arrow keys are programmed to move the cursor in a specified direction; page scroll keys, such as the 'Page Up and Page Down keys' Ferrari 5005WLMi-FR keyboard, scroll the page up and down. The Home key is used to return the cursor to the beginning of the line where the cursor is located; the End key puts the cursor at the end of the line. The Tab key advances the cursor to the next tab stop.
The Insert key is mainly used to switch between overtype mode, in which the cursor overwrites any text that is present on and after its current location, and insert mode, where the cursor inserts a character at its current position Ferrari 5005WLMi keyboard, forcing all characters past it one position further. The Delete key discards the character ahead of the cursor's position, moving all following characters one position "back" towards the freed place. On many notebook computer keyboards the key labeled Delete (sometimes Delete and Backspace are printed on the same key) serves the same purpose as a Backspace key. The Backspace key deletes the preceding character Ferrari 5005WLHi keyboard.
Lock keys lock part of a keyboard, depending on the settings selected. The lock keys are scattered around the keyboard. Most styles of keyboards have three LEDs indicating which locks are enabled, in the upper right corner above the numpad. The lock keys include Scroll lock, Num lock (which allows the use of the numeric keypad), and Caps lock.
[edit]System commands
The SysRq / Print screen commands often share the same key. SysRq was used in earlier computers as a "panic" button to recover from crashes. The Print screen command used to capture the entire screen and send it to the printer, but in the present it usually puts a screenshot in the clipboard. The Break key/Pause key no longer has a well-defined purpose. Its origins go back to teleprinter users, who wanted a key that would temporarily interrupt the communications line. The Break key can be used by software in several different ways, such as to switch between multiple login sessions, to terminate a program, or to interrupt a modem connection. Ferrari 5005 keyboard
In programming, especially old DOS-style BASIC, Pascal and C, Break is used (in conjunction with Ctrl) to stop program execution. In addition to this, Linux and variants, as well as many DOS programs, treat this combination the same as Ctrl+C. On modern keyboards, the break key is usually labeled Pause/Break. In most Windows environments, the key combination Windows key+Pause brings up the system properties. Ferrari 5004WLMi keyboard
The Escape key (often abbreviated Esc) is used to initiate an escape sequence. As most computer users no longer are concerned with the details of controlling their computer's peripherals, the task for which the escape sequences were originally designed, the escape key was appropriated by application programmers, most often to "escape" or back out of a mistaken command. This use continues today in Microsoft Windows's use of escape as a shortcut in dialog boxes for No, Quit, Exit, Cancel, or Abort.
A common application today of the Esc key is as a shortcut key for the Stop button in many web browsers. On machines running Microsoft Windows, Ferrari 5000 keyboard prior to the implementation of the Windows key on keyboards, the typical practice for invoking the "start" button was to hold down the control key and press escape. This process still works in Windows 2000, XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.
The Menu key or Application key is a key found on Windows-oriented computer keyboards. It is used to launch a context menu with the keyboard rather than with the usual right mouse button Ferrari 1100 keyboard. The key's symbol is a small icon depicting a cursor hovering above a menu. This key was created at the same time as the Windows key. This key is normally used when the right mouse button is not present on the mouse. Some Windows public terminals do not have a Menu key on their keyboard to prevent users from right-clicking Ferrari 5000 keyboard (however, in many windows applications, a similar functionality can be invoked with the Shift+F10 keyboard shortcut).
[edit]Miscellaneous
Multimedia buttons on some keyboards give quick access to the Internet or control the volume of the speakers.
Many, but not all, computer keyboards have a numeric keypad to the right of the alphabetic keyboard which contains numbers Ferrari 1100 keyboard , basic mathematical symbols (e.g., addition, subtraction, etc.), and a few function keys. On Japanese/Korean keyboards, there may be Language input keys. Some keyboards have power management keys (e.g., Power key, Sleep key and Wake key); Internet keys to access a web browser or E-mail; and/or multimedia keys, such as volume controls or keys that can be programmed by the user to launch a specified software or command like launching a game or minimize all windows.
[edit]Multiple layouts Ferrari 1004WTMi keyboard
It is possible to install multiple keyboard layouts within an operating system and switch between them, either through features implemented within the OS, or through an external application. Microsoft Windows,[8] Ubuntu,[9] Linux,[10] and Mac[11] provide support to add keyboard layouts and choose from them.
[edit]Layout changing software
The character code produced by any key press is determined by the keyboard driver software. Ferrari 1000 keyboard A key press generates a scancode which is interpreted as an alphanumeric character or control function. Depending on operating systems, various application programs are available to create, add and switch among keyboard layouts. Many programs are available, some of which are language specific.
The arrangement of symbols of specific language can be customized. An existing keyboard layout can be edited Extensa 7720 keyboard, and a new layout can be created using this type of software.
For example, Ukelele for Mac, The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator[12] and open-source Avro Keyboard for Windows provide the ability to customize the keyboard layout as desired. Other programs with similar functions include Avro Keyboard, Tavultesoft Keyman Developer Extensa 7620Z keyboard,[13] The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator,[14] MountFocus Keyboard Designer,[15] Map Keyboard, KbdEdit, Key Customizer, Keyboard Remapper, Infine Keyboard Commander for Windows; and X Neural Switcher, Keyboard Layout Editor[16] and Keyboard Layout Creator[17] for Linux.
[edit]Illumination Extensa 7620G keyboard
Keyboards and keypads may be illuminated from inside, especially on equipment for mobile use. Illumination facilitates the use of the keyboard or keypad in dark environments. Some gaming keyboards have lighted keys, to make it easier for gamers to find command keys while playing in a dark room. Some computers may have small LED lights in a few important function keys, Extensa 7620 keyboard to remind users that the function is activated (see photo).
Keys with integrated LED indicator lights
[edit]Technology
Main article: Keyboard technology
[edit]Key switches
In the first electronic keyboards in the early 1970s, Extensa 7220 keyboard the key switches were individual switches inserted into holes in metal frames. These keyboards cost from 80–120 US dollars and were used in mainframe data terminals. The most popular switch types were reed switches (contacts enclosed in a vacuum in a glass capsule, affected by a magnet mounted on the switch plunger – from Clare-Pendar[18] in Post Falls Idaho Extensa 6700 keyboard, which became part of General Instrument, which used reedswitch capsules made by C.P. Clare Co.[19] in Illinois; and Key Tronic Corporation of Spokane, Washington), Hall-effect switches (using a Hall-effect semiconductor where a current is generated by a passing magnet – from Microswitch[20] in Illinois Extensa 5635ZG keyboard, which became part of Honeywell), and inductive core switches (again, activated by a magnet – from Cortron,[21] which was part of ITW/Illinois Tool Works). These switches were rated to last for 100 million cycles and had 0.187-inch (4.75 mm) key travel, compared to 0.110 inch (2.79 mm) today.
In the mid 1970s, Extensa 5635Z keyboard
lower-cost direct-contact key switches were introduced, but their life in switch cycles was much shorter (rated ten million cycles) because they were open to the environment. This became more acceptable, however, for use in computer terminals at the time, which began to see increasingly shorter model lifespans as they advanced.
In 1978, Key Tronic Corporation introduced keyboards with capacitive-based switches, Extensa 5635G 5635Z keyboard one of the first keyboard technologies to not use self-contained switches. There was simply a sponge pad with a conductive-coated Mylar plastic sheet on the switch plunger, and two half-moon trace patterns on the printed circuit board below. As the key was depressed, the capacitance between the plunger pad and the patterns on the PCB below changed, which was detected by integrated circuits (IC). These keyboards were claimed to have the same reliability as the other "solid-state switch" keyboards such as inductive and Hall-Effect, Extensa 5635G keyboard but competitive with direct-contact keyboards. Prices of $60 for keyboards were achieved and Key Tronic rapidly became the largest independent keyboard manufacturer.
Meanwhile, IBM made their own keyboards, using their own patented technology: Keys on older IBM keyboards were made with a "buckling spring" mechanism, in which a coil spring under the key buckles under pressure from the user's finger Extensa 5635 keyboard, triggering a hammer that presses two plastic sheets (membranes) with conductive traces together, completing a circuit. This produces a clicking sound, and gives physical feedback for the typist indicating that the key has been depressed.[22][23]
The first electronic keyboards had a typewriter key travel distance of 0.187 inches (4.75 mm), Extensa 5510Z keyboard
keytops were a half-inch (12.7 mm) high, and keyboards were about two inches (5 cm) thick. Over time, less key travel was accepted in the market, finally landing on 0.110 inches (2.79 mm). Coincident with this, Key Tronic was the first company to introduce a keyboard which was only about one inch thick. And now keyboards measure only about a half-inch thick.
Keytops are an important element of keyboards. Extensa 5510 keyboard
In the beginning, keyboard keytops had a "dish shape" on top, like typewriters before them. Keyboard key legends must be extremely durable over tens of millions of depressions, since they are subjected to extreme mechanical wear from fingers and fingernails, and subject to hand oils and creams, so engraving and filling key legends with paint, as was done previously for individual switches, was never acceptable. So, for the first electronic keyboards, Extensa 5235 keyboard
the key names/legends were produced by two-shot (or double-shot, or two-color) molding, where either the key shell or the inside of the key with the key legend was molded first, and then the other color molded second. But, to save cost, other methods were explored, such as sublimation printing and laser engraving, Extensa 4100 keyboard
both methods which could be used to print a whole keyboard at the same time. Initially, sublimation printing, where a special ink is printed onto the keycap surface and the application of heat causes the ink molecules to penetrate and commingle with the plastic modules, had a problem because finger oils caused the molecules to disperse, but then a necessarily very hard clear coating was applied to prevent this. Extensa 3002WLMi keyboard
Coincident with sublimation printing, which was first used in high volume by IBM on their keyboards, was the introduction by IBM of single-curved-dish keycaps to facilitate quality printing of key legends by having a consistently curved surface instead of a dish. But one problem with sublimation or laser printing was that the processes took too long and only dark legends could be printed on light-colored keys. Extensa 3000 keyboard
On another note, IBM was unique in using separate shells, or "keycaps", on keytop bases. This might have made their manufacturing of different keyboard layouts more flexible, but the reason for doing this was that the plastic material that needed to be used for sublimation printing was different from standard ABS keytop plastic material.
Three final mechanical technologies brought keyboards to where they are today, driving the cost well under $10:
"Monoblock" keyboard designs were developed where individual switch housings were eliminated and a one-piece "monoblock" housing used instead. Extensa 2600 keyboard
This was possible because of molding techniques that could provide very tight tolerances for the switch-plunger holes and guides across the width of the keyboard so that the key plunger-to-housing clearances were not too tight or too loose, either of which could cause the keys to bind.
The use of contact-switch membrane sheets under the monoblock. This technology came from flat-panel switch membranes, where the switch contacts are printed inside of a top and bottom layer, with a spacer layer in between, so that when pressure is applied to the area above, Extensa 2500 Series keyboard
a direct electrical contact is made. The membrane layers can be printed by very-high volume, low-cost "reel-to-reel" printing machines, with each keyboard membrane cut and punched out afterwards.
The use of pad-printed keytops (called "Tampo printed" at the time because Tampo[24] was the most popular equipment manufacturer). Extensa 2303LC keyboard
Initially sublimation ink was used (see above), but very durable clear-coats are now printed over the key legends to protect them. These coatings are also used to reduce glare, and in many cases have an anti-microbial content added for user protection.[25]
Plastic materials played a very important part in the development and progress of electronic keyboards. Until "monoblocks" came along, Extensa 2300 keyboard
GE's "self-lubricating" Delrin was the only plastic material for keyboard switch plungers that could withstand the beating over tens of millions of cycles of lifetime use. Greasing or oiling switch plungers was undesirable because it would attract dirt over time which would eventually affect the feel and even bind the key switches (although keyboard manufacturers would sometimes sneak this into their keyboards, eMachines G730ZG keyboard
especially if they could not control the tolerances of the key plungers and housings well enough to have a smooth key depression feel or prevent binding). But Delrin was only available in black and white, and was not suitable for keytops (too soft), so keytops use ABS plastic. However, as plastic molding advanced in maintaining tight tolerances, and as key travel length reduced from 0.187-inch to 0.110-inch (4.75 mm to 2.79 mm), single-part keytop/plungers could be made of ABS, with the keyboard monolocks also made of ABS.
[edit]Control processoreMachines G730Z keyboar
Computer keyboards include control circuitry to convert key presses into key codes (usually scancodes) that the computer's electronics can understand. The key switches are connected via the printed circuit board in an electrical X-Y matrix where a voltage is provided sequentially to the Y lines and, when a key is depressed, detected sequentially by scanning the X lines. eMachines G730G keyboard
The first computer keyboards were for mainframe computer data terminals and used discrete electronic parts. eMachines G730 keyboard
The first keyboard microprocessor was introduced in 1972 by General Instruments, but keyboards have been using the single-chip 8048 microcontroller variant since it became available in 1978. The keyboard switch matrix is wired to its inputs, it converts the keystrokes to key codes, and, for a detached keyboard, sends the codes down a serial cable (the keyboard cord) to the main processor on the computer motherboard. eMachines G640 keyboard
This serial keyboard cable communication is only bi-directional to the extent that the computer's electronics controls the illumination of the "caps lock", "num lock" and "scroll lock" lights.
One test for whether the computer has crashed is pressing the "caps lock" key. The keyboard sends the key code to the keyboard driver running in the main computer; if the main computer is operating, it commands the light to turn on. All the other indicator lights work in a similar way. The keyboard driver also tracks the shift, alt and control state of the keyboard. eMachines E732 keyboard
Some lower-quality keyboards have multiple or false key entries due to inadequate electrical designs. These are caused by inadequate keyswitch "debouncing" or inadequate keyswitch matrix layout that don't allow multiple keys to be depressed at the same time, both circumstances which are explained below:
When pressing a keyboard key, the key contacts may "bounce" against each other for several milliseconds before they settle into firm contact. When released, they bounce some more until they revert to the uncontacted state. If the computer were watching for each pulse, eMachines E730 keyboard
it would see many keystrokes for what the user thought was just one. To resolve this problem, the processor in a keyboard (or computer) "debounces" the keystrokes, by aggregating them across time to produce one "confirmed" keystroke.
Some low-quality keyboards also suffer problems with rollover eMachines E640 keyboard(that is, when multiple keys pressed at the same time, or when keys are pressed so fast that multiple keys are down within the same milliseconds). Early "solid-state" keyswitch keyboards did not have this problem because the keyswitches are electrically isolated from each other, and early "direct-contact" keyswitch keyboards avoided this problem by having isolation diodes for every keyswitch. These early keyboards had "n-key" rollover, which means any number of keys can be depressed and the keyboard will still recognize the next key depressed. eMachines E440 keyboard
But when three keys are pressed (electrically closed) at the same time in a "direct contact" keyswitch matrix that doesn't have isolation diodes, the keyboard electronics can see a fourth "phantom" key which is the intersection of the X and Y lines of the three keys. Some types of keyboard circuitry will register a maximum number of keys at one time. Aspire ONE NAV50 keyboard
"Three-key" rollover, also called "phantom key blocking" or "phantom key lockout", will only register three keys and ignore all others until one of the three keys is lifted. This is undesirable, especially for fast typing (hitting new keys before the fingers can release previous keys), and games (designed for multiple key presses).
As direct-contact membrane keyboards became popular, the available rollover of keys was optimized by analyzing the most common key sequences and placing these keys so that they do not potentially produce phantom keys in the electrical key matrix (for example, simply placing three or four keys that might be depressed simultaneously on the same X or same Y line, so that a phantom key intersection/short cannot happen), Aspire One D250-1Bw keyboard
so that blocking a third key usually isn't a problem. But lower-quality keyboard designs and unknowledgeable engineers may not know these tricks, and it can still be a problem in games due to wildly different or configurable layouts in different games.
[edit]Connection types
There are several ways of connecting a keyboard to a system unit (more precisely, to its keyboard controller) using cables, Aspire One D250-1Br keyboard
including the standard AT connector commonly found on motherboards, which was eventually replaced by the PS/2 and the USB connection. Prior to the iMac line of systems, Apple used the proprietary Apple Desktop Bus for its keyboard connector.
Wireless keyboards have become popular for their increased user freedom. Aspire One D250-1Bb keyboard
A wireless keyboard often includes a required combination transmitter and receiver unit that attaches to the computer's keyboard port. The wireless aspect is achieved either by radio frequency (RF) or by infrared (IR) signals sent and received from both the keyboard and the unit attached to the computer. Aspire One D250-1990 keyboard
A wireless keyboard may use an industry standard RF, called Bluetooth. With Bluetooth, the transceiver may be built into the computer. However, a wireless keyboard needs batteries to work and may pose a security problem due to the risk of data "eavesdropping" by hackers. Wireless solar keyboards charge their batteries from small solar panels using sunlight or standard artificial lighting. An early example of a consumer wireless keyboard is that of the Olivetti Envision.
[edit]Alternative text-entering methodsAspire One D250-1924 keyboard
An on-screen keyboard controlled with the mouse can be used by users with limited mobility.
Optical character recognition (OCR) is preferable to rekeying for converting existing text that is already written down but not in machine-readable format (for example, a Linotype-composed book from the 1940s). In other words, to convert the text from an image to editable text (that is, Aspire One D250-1610 keyboard
a string of character codes), a person could re-type it, or a computer could look at the image and deduce what each character is. OCR technology has already reached an impressive state (for example, Google Book Search) and promises more for the future.
Speech recognition converts speech into machine-readable text Aspire One D250-1326 keyboard
(that is, a string of character codes). The technology has already reached an impressive state and is already implemented in various software products. For certain uses (e.g., transcription of medical or legal dictation; journalism; writing essays or novels) it is starting to replace the keyboard; Aspire One D250-1289 keyboard
however, it does not threaten to replace keyboards entirely anytime soon. It can, however, interpret commands (for example, "close window" or "undo word") in addition to text. Therefore, it has theoretical potential to replace keyboards entirely (whereas OCR replaces them only for a certain kind of task).
Pointing devices can be used to enter text or characters in contexts where using a physical keyboard would be inappropriate or impossible. Aspire One D250-1185 keyboard
These accessories typically present characters on a display, in a layout that provides fast access to the more frequently used characters or character combinations. Popular examples of this kind of input are Graffiti, Dasher and on-screen virtual keyboards. Aspire One D250-1165 keyboard
[edit]Other issues
[edit]Keystroke logging
Keystroke logging (often called keylogging) is a method of capturing and recording user keystrokes. While it is used legally to measure employee productivity on certain clerical tasks, or by law enforcement agencies to find out about illegal activities, it is also used by hackers for various illegal or malicious acts. Hackers use keyloggers as a means to obtain passwords or encryption keys and thus bypass other security measures. Aspire One D250-1151 keyboard
Keystroke logging can be achieved by both hardware and software means. Hardware key loggers are attached to the keyboard cable or installed inside standard keyboards. Software keyloggers work on the target computer’s operating system and gain unauthorized access to the hardware, hook into the keyboard with functions provided by the OS, Aspire One D250-1116 keyboard
or use remote access software to transmit recorded data out of the target computer to a remote location. Some hackers also use wireless keylogger sniffers to collect packets of data being transferred from a wireless keyboard and its receiver, and then they crack the encryption key being used to secure wireless communications between the two devices.
Aspire One D250-1042 keyboard Anti-spyware applications are able to detect many keyloggers and cleanse them. Responsible vendors of monitoring software support detection by anti-spyware programs, thus preventing abuse of the software. Enabling a firewall does not stop keyloggers per se, but can possibly prevent transmission of the logged material over the net if properly configured. Network monitors (also known as reverse-firewalls) can be used to alert the user whenever an application attempts to make a network connection. Aspire One D250-1026 keyboard
This gives the user the chance to prevent the keylogger from "phoning home" with his or her typed information. Automatic form-filling programs can prevent keylogging entirely by not using the keyboard at all. Most keyloggers can be fooled by alternating between typing the login credentials and typing characters somewhere else in the focus window.[26]
[edit]Wireless keystroke logging
Also known as remote keylogging or wireless keylogging.
In their research “Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Wired Keyboard”[27] Vuagnoux and Pasini have provided evidence that modern keyboards radiate compromising electromagnetic emanations. Aspire One D250 keyboard
The four techniques presented in their paper prove that these basic devices are generally not sufficiently protected against compromising emanations. Additionally, they showed that these emanations can be captured with relatively inexpensive equipment and keystrokes are recovered[28] not only in the semi-anechoic chamber but in practical environments as well (e.g. office). The consequences of these attacks are that compromising electromagnetic emanations of keyboards still represent a security risk. PS/2, USB, Aspire One D150-1Bw keyboard
laptop and wireless keyboards are vulnerable. Moreover, there is no software patch to avoid these attacks. Hardware has to be replaced to obtain safe devices. Due to cost pressure in the design and lack of knowledge, manufacturers do not systematically protect keyboards. Even in the practical space of an office with multiple keyboards, Vuagnoux and Pasini were able to deduce a specific fingerprint for every keyboard. When multiple keyboards are radiating at the same time, they are able to identify and differentiate them. Aspire One D150-1Br keyboard
[edit]Physical injury
Proper ergonomic design of computer keyboard desks is necessary to prevent repetitive strain injuries, which can develop over time and can lead to long-term disability.[29]
The use of any keyboard may cause serious injury (that is, carpal tunnel syndrome or other repetitive strain injury) to hands, Aspire One D150-1Bk keyboard
wrists, arms, neck or back. The risks of injuries can be reduced by taking frequent short breaks to get up and walk around a couple of times every hour. As well, users should vary tasks throughout the day, to avoid overuse of the hands and wrists. When inputting at the keyboard, Aspire One D150-1Br keyboard
a person should keep the shoulders relaxed with the elbows at the side, with the keyboard and mouse positioned so that reaching is not necessary. The chair height and keyboard tray should be adjusted so that the wrists are straight, and the wrists should not be rested on sharp table edges. Wrist or palm rests should not be used while typing. Aspire One D150-1Bw keyboard
Some adaptive technology ranging from special keyboards, mouse replacements and pen tablet interfaces to speech recognition software can reduce the risk of injury. Pause software reminds the user to pause frequently. Switching to a much more ergonomic mouse, Aspire One D150-1Bw keyboard
such as a vertical mouse or joystick mouse may provide relief. Switching from using a mouse to using a stylus pen with graphic tablet or a trackpad can lessen the repetitive strain on the arms and hands.
[edit]Health risks
Aspire One D150-1Br keyboard
A growing body of research raises the question if keyboards can be a health hazard. Some keyboards were found to contain five times more germs than a toilet seat.[30] Dr. Aaron Glatt, spokesperson for the Infectious Disease Society of America, remembers that "there is no surface under the sun ... that is sterile" and "there is overwhelming evidence that this is not a danger for most peopleAspire One D150-1Bw keyboard
." Basic hygiene measures like handwashing and not sharing the keyboard may reduce exposure to harmful bacteria.
A galaxy is a massive,
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter.[1][2] The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally "milky", a reference to the Milky Waygalaxy. COMPAQ Presario V2000 keyboard
Examples of galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars[3] to giants with a hundredtrillion (1014) stars,[4] each orbiting their galaxy's own center of mass.
Galaxies contain varying amounts of star systems, star clusters and types of interstellar clouds. In between these objects is a sparse interstellar medium of gas, dust, and cosmic rays. HP Pavilion DV9000 keyboard
Dark matter appears to account for around 90% of the mass of most galaxies. Observational data suggests that supermassive black holes may exist at the center of many, if not all, galaxies. They are thought to be the primary driver of active galactic nuclei found at the core of some galaxies. The Milky Way galaxy appears to harbor at least one such object.[5] HP Pavilion DV9100 keyboard
Galaxies have been historically categorized according to their apparent shape; usually referred to as their visual morphology. A common form is the elliptical galaxy,[6] which has an ellipse-shaped light profile. Spiral galaxiesare disk-shaped with dusty, curving arms. HP AEUT5U00010 keyboard
Those with irregular or unusual shapes are known as irregular galaxiesand typically originate from disruption by the gravitational pull of neighboring galaxies. Such interactions between nearby galaxies, which may ultimately result in a merging, sometimes induce significantly increased incidents of star formation leading to starburst galaxies. HP 519265-001 keyboard
Smaller galaxies lacking a coherent structure are referred to as irregular galaxies.[7]
There are probably more than 170 billion (1.7 × 1011) galaxies in the observable universe,[8][9] and possibly more in a theoretical wider multiverse.[10] Most are 1,000 to 100,000[11] parsecs in diameter and usually separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs).[12] COMPAQ Presario V2000 keyboard
Intergalactic space (the space between galaxies) is filled with a tenuous gas of an average density less than one atom per cubic meter. The majority of galaxies are organized into a hierarchy of associations known as groups and clusters, which, in turn usually form larger superclusters. COMPAQ Presario V2100 keyboard
At thelargest scale, these associations are generally arranged into sheets and filaments, which are surrounded by immense voids. COMPAQ Presario V2200 keyboard,GATEWAY MX8000 keyboard,GATEWAY MX8711 keyboard,GATEWAY MT6730 keyboard,GATEWAY T-6800 keyboard
HP 405963-001 keyboard
Examples of galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars[3] to giants with a hundredtrillion (1014) stars,[4] each orbiting their galaxy's own center of mass.
Galaxies contain varying amounts of star systems, star clusters and types of interstellar clouds. In between these objects is a sparse interstellar medium of gas, dust, and cosmic rays. HP Pavilion DV9000 keyboard
Dark matter appears to account for around 90% of the mass of most galaxies. Observational data suggests that supermassive black holes may exist at the center of many, if not all, galaxies. They are thought to be the primary driver of active galactic nuclei found at the core of some galaxies. The Milky Way galaxy appears to harbor at least one such object.[5] HP Pavilion DV9100 keyboard
Galaxies have been historically categorized according to their apparent shape; usually referred to as their visual morphology. A common form is the elliptical galaxy,[6] which has an ellipse-shaped light profile. Spiral galaxiesare disk-shaped with dusty, curving arms. HP AEUT5U00010 keyboard
Those with irregular or unusual shapes are known as irregular galaxiesand typically originate from disruption by the gravitational pull of neighboring galaxies. Such interactions between nearby galaxies, which may ultimately result in a merging, sometimes induce significantly increased incidents of star formation leading to starburst galaxies. HP 519265-001 keyboard
Smaller galaxies lacking a coherent structure are referred to as irregular galaxies.[7]
There are probably more than 170 billion (1.7 × 1011) galaxies in the observable universe,[8][9] and possibly more in a theoretical wider multiverse.[10] Most are 1,000 to 100,000[11] parsecs in diameter and usually separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs).[12] COMPAQ Presario V2000 keyboard
Intergalactic space (the space between galaxies) is filled with a tenuous gas of an average density less than one atom per cubic meter. The majority of galaxies are organized into a hierarchy of associations known as groups and clusters, which, in turn usually form larger superclusters. COMPAQ Presario V2100 keyboard
At thelargest scale, these associations are generally arranged into sheets and filaments, which are surrounded by immense voids. COMPAQ Presario V2200 keyboard,GATEWAY MX8000 keyboard,GATEWAY MX8711 keyboard,GATEWAY MT6730 keyboard,GATEWAY T-6800 keyboard
HP 405963-001 keyboard
Keyboard matrix circuit
Keyboard matrix circuit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most electronic keyboards used in synthesizers, electronic organs, and digital pianos use a keyboard matrix circuit to connect the switches for each key . In this matrix circuit, the rows and columns are made up of wiring. Depressing a key connects a circuit in the matrix, which causes the tone generation mechanism to be triggered.Without a matrix circuit, a 61-key keyboard would have to have 62 wires connected to the integrated circuit of the keyboard, which would be
an awkward and thick bundle of wiring. Aspire 1360 Series keyboard keyboard With the matrix circuit, the entire 61-key keyboard can send signals to the integrated circuit with 16 wires -- they can be drawn schematically as a "key matrix" of 8 column wires and 8 row wires, with a mechanical switch at every intersection. The electronic or digital keyboard controller scans all of the columns, to determine if a key has been pressed. If a key in the column has been pressed, then the controller scan the rows, to determine which row has been activated. In a manner analogous to the children's board game "Battleship!", the keyboard controller determines which key has been pressed, and then plays that key's note. Aspire 1400 keyboard keyboard
This entire process takes place so quickly that the performer is not aware of the delay.[1]
The inside of a Yamaha SY77 synthesizer shows the various internal components. The switches for each key are connected to the microprocessor chip using a matrix circuit. Even though the SY77 has 61 keys, only a small ribbon cable of wiring comes from the keyboard.
The matrix circuit approach used in musical keyboards is also used in other types of non-musical keyboards, Aspire 1400L keyboard keyboard such as in the keypads for calculators and the "QWERTY" alphabetic and numeric keyboards used to enter information into computers.[2] The same matrix circuit approach is also used in many pinball machines.[3]
Matrix circuits for instruments that are intended to be used in a monophonic fashion (playing only one note at a time) such as a bass pedal keyboard are simpler than matrix circuits for instruments that will be used to play polyphonically (multiple notes at once). For keyboards that will be used to play multiple-note chords or multiple-part melodies, Aspire 1400LC keyboard keyboard the matrix circuit needs to have a diode soldered into the circuit for each key. The diode acts like a one-way valve in a water plumbing system. Without the diodes, the current would flow "backwards" up the matrix when several keys were pressed at once, which would trigger unwanted notes ("phantom keys") or mask intended notes ("phantom key blocking").[1] The diodes must be fitted at the switch (in series), Aspire 1400X keyboard keyboard not at the microprocessor end of the wires. [4]
Monophonic instruments and most low-cost computer keyboards reduce costs by leaving out most or all of those diodes. To avoid "phantom keys", the keyboard controller in modern low-cost computer keyboards will ignore further key presses once two keys (other than modifier keys) have been pressed down, which is known as jamming.
By lenkeyboard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most electronic keyboards used in synthesizers, electronic organs, and digital pianos use a keyboard matrix circuit to connect the switches for each key . In this matrix circuit, the rows and columns are made up of wiring. Depressing a key connects a circuit in the matrix, which causes the tone generation mechanism to be triggered.Without a matrix circuit, a 61-key keyboard would have to have 62 wires connected to the integrated circuit of the keyboard, which would be
an awkward and thick bundle of wiring. Aspire 1360 Series keyboard keyboard With the matrix circuit, the entire 61-key keyboard can send signals to the integrated circuit with 16 wires -- they can be drawn schematically as a "key matrix" of 8 column wires and 8 row wires, with a mechanical switch at every intersection. The electronic or digital keyboard controller scans all of the columns, to determine if a key has been pressed. If a key in the column has been pressed, then the controller scan the rows, to determine which row has been activated. In a manner analogous to the children's board game "Battleship!", the keyboard controller determines which key has been pressed, and then plays that key's note. Aspire 1400 keyboard keyboard
This entire process takes place so quickly that the performer is not aware of the delay.[1]
The inside of a Yamaha SY77 synthesizer shows the various internal components. The switches for each key are connected to the microprocessor chip using a matrix circuit. Even though the SY77 has 61 keys, only a small ribbon cable of wiring comes from the keyboard.
The matrix circuit approach used in musical keyboards is also used in other types of non-musical keyboards, Aspire 1400L keyboard keyboard such as in the keypads for calculators and the "QWERTY" alphabetic and numeric keyboards used to enter information into computers.[2] The same matrix circuit approach is also used in many pinball machines.[3]
Matrix circuits for instruments that are intended to be used in a monophonic fashion (playing only one note at a time) such as a bass pedal keyboard are simpler than matrix circuits for instruments that will be used to play polyphonically (multiple notes at once). For keyboards that will be used to play multiple-note chords or multiple-part melodies, Aspire 1400LC keyboard keyboard the matrix circuit needs to have a diode soldered into the circuit for each key. The diode acts like a one-way valve in a water plumbing system. Without the diodes, the current would flow "backwards" up the matrix when several keys were pressed at once, which would trigger unwanted notes ("phantom keys") or mask intended notes ("phantom key blocking").[1] The diodes must be fitted at the switch (in series), Aspire 1400X keyboard keyboard not at the microprocessor end of the wires. [4]
Monophonic instruments and most low-cost computer keyboards reduce costs by leaving out most or all of those diodes. To avoid "phantom keys", the keyboard controller in modern low-cost computer keyboards will ignore further key presses once two keys (other than modifier keys) have been pressed down, which is known as jamming.
By lenkeyboard