Hardware and Software
Your Name
Date
Class Name
Teacher’s name

The system that best resembles the hardware and software used at the nursing home located in PA that I used to work for is the Power Macintosh 9500. According to Wikipedia.org, the system was sold between 1995 through 1997 and has the following hardware installed, “It was powered by a PowerPC 604processor, a second-generation PowerPC chip which was faster than the earlier PowerPC 601 chip. The 180MP and 200 used the enhanced PowerPC 604e processor. The CPU was connected via a daughterboard, and so could be swapped easily. Available were single-processor cards ranging from 120 to 200 MHz, and a dual processor card with two 180 MHz CPUs. It was the first Macintosh to use the PCI standard, with six PCI slots available, with one always needed for the graphics card.” The exact breakdown of system hardware can be seen at the Apple website at the following link, http://support.apple.com/kb/SP492. The overall operations of the system are great for its age and can even be enhanced with a new program entitled “Leopard” (also available from Apple) that could help the overall performance of the system and was actually the oldest model that is compatible with that program. As for the software, we all know that there are significant differences between workgroup, personal, and enterprise uses such differences can be seen with the different programs each use has to offer, some examples of the differences are business tools such as interactive product catalogue, automated billing systems, online shopping and payment tools, and even in some businesses information management systems which are used for the enterprise software, Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008 for workgroup which allows groups of people on the same local area connection to access areas to work as a group towards a common goal, and software like Google Chrome which would be used for personal use. I believe the faculty works in a personal use setting but has many options blocked off due to the faculty not wanting their employees to use their system for personal use and only for business purposes. The downside to using this system reflects more on physical location than does the actual hardware of the system, from my knowledge, the faculty was using a dial up connection in order to connect to the internet using the Power Macintosh 9500, mainly due to cost cutting measures and not having the resources to connect to the internet wirelessly. On the other hand, I believe the operations of the system are up to par with what the faculty needs, regardless of the connection to the internet mainly due to the problems that were faced when nurses working at the faculty were taking notes by hand and keeping those notes in the patient’s files, it has certainly help the overall operations of the faculty. Another system that resembles the hardware used in the main offices of the faculty is the Power Macintosh 9600. The system’s hardware was also explained on Wikipedia.org and it is as followed, “The 9600 came in the same new case as the 8600, but was internally very similar to the 9500 that preceded it, with 12 RAM slots and 6 PCI slots instead of the 8 RAM and 3 PCI slots on the 8600. The 9600 used the new PowerPC 604e CPU, an enhanced version of the 9500 604. On introduction, three processor configurations were available: single 200 MHz, dual 200 MHz and single 233 MHz. In August 1997, they were replaced by two new models, with a single 300 MHz or 350 MHz "Mach 5" 604ev with a larger L2 cache. the PowerMac 9600 has no built-in video; instead, it shipped with an 8MB IXMICRO TwinTurbo 128-bit PCI video card installed.” Although, I have not had experience with the Power Macintosh 9600 model, I have heard the both the Power Macintosh 9500 and 9600, respectively run about the same with almost very little differences. From the conversation I have had with management about this system (upon gaining research for this very assignment), the Power Macintosh 9600 and 9500 allows the main offices and the faculty as a whole the opportunity to gather information and use it in ways that would better protect staff and residents alike thus giving their faculty on edge over nursing homes in our area, considering many nursing areas in the area simply do not have the hardware available or are running on even more outdated software. To think that faculties are still using hardware that can be dated back to the mid 1990’s and be so far outdated compared to operating systems that are currently placed out onto the market for the general public to purchase is mind boggling and technological advancements are only to increase as time goes on. It should certainly be an interesting and fascinating future.

Resources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_9500 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_9500 (Power Macintosh 9600 on same page)
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP492