Unit 1: Software and Hardware

We trust your experience in the prerequisite Computer Science 20 course was both challenging and rewarding. Our first unit doesn't deal so much with computational science as it does learning about some of the nuts and bolts and responsibilities of working with computers at home and school. Knowing the capabilities of the computers you will be working on is essential to the course.

School Computers

If you work at school, you will want to make arrangements with the computer science teacher, librarian or person responsible for the schools' networked classrooms to find a suitable machine. Check the list of computer requirements to make sure that the computers you work on meet the specifications and have the required software. I recommend you find the most powerful computer you can to developer Microsoft Visual Basic Express programs. Printing out the page of requirements may help you and the resource person find a suitable machine with all the needed software installed.

Note: Students from Saskatoon High Schools should ask their LRC personnel which computers have the Visual Basic program installed.

Network Storage Area

You will need to have a storage space of at least 100MB available on a network drive for storing your projects and to enable you to create executable files in this area. This requires you to have administrative rights over your file storage area.

I recommend students purchase a USB memory stick to backup their assignments and transport work back and forth from home.

Debugger User Account Group

Members of the Debugger Users group can debug their own processes on a machine even if the same users do not belong to the Administrators group on a machine. Belonging to the Debugger Users group comes with a level of trust and responsibility to use these added rights appropriately. Keep your password safe and secure. You will learn more about this special group privilege later. The network manager will be able to set this up for you.