The guide names mainframe, server, personal computer, tablet, smart phone and embedded systems. They are not different inventions. They are the same four jobs — take something in, work on it, keep it, put something out — at very different scales.
The five types placed on one axis: how many people a single machine serves.
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Most computers are not recognisable as computers. An embedded system is a computer built inside something else to do one job: a washing machine, a card reader, a pacemaker, a traffic light.
| Type | Serves | Why it matters here |
|---|---|---|
| Mainframe | Thousands at once | Banks and airlines still run them because they must never stop |
| Server | Many clients | The machine your apps actually talk to |
| Personal computer | One person | Moved computing out of institutions |
| Tablet and smart phone | One person, carried | Why data about individuals became abundant |
| Embedded | One job, invisibly | The most numerous, and the least examined |
The examinable point: Because nobody thinks of an embedded computer as a computer, nobody asks who updates it, who can reach it, or what it records. That is a governance gap, not a technical one.
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Real-world examples you can name
Agbogbloshie e-waste site, Accra — scrapyard cleared July 2021
A scrapyard where imported electronics were stripped and cables burned to recover copper, releasing lead and dioxins. It became the standard example of e-waste exported from rich countries to poor ones. Authorities demolished much of the site in 2021; the trade moved rather than stopped.
Who it affected: Workers and nearby residents exposed to heavy metals and smoke.
WannaCry and the NHS — May 2017
Ransomware spread through a Windows flaw for which a patch already existed, encrypting files and demanding payment. In England it disrupted around a third of hospital trusts; roughly 19,000 appointments and operations were cancelled.
Who it affected: Patients whose care was postponed, and organizations running unpatched systems.
Notice the link: Both of these are about machines nobody was maintaining.
WannaCry and the NHS (UK and worldwide, May 2017) spread through computers running software that had stopped being updated.
Agbogbloshie e-waste site, Accra (Ghana, scrapyard cleared July 2021) is where devices end up once nobody maintains them at all.
How this is tested — you have to name types of computer and explain why a described task needs one kind rather than another. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — structured question
- Part a: identify types of computer in a described system
- Part b: explain why a scenario needs a server or an embedded chip
Paper 2 — source-based question
- Q1: read what hardware a source describes
- Q2: explain how a source uses a technical term
The trap: “a computer”: Name the type. A question about a hospital's systems means servers, embedded devices in equipment, and personal computers at desks — three different answers with three different risks.
Identify two types of computer found in a modern car.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Explain one reason why embedded computers raise a security concern that personal computers do not.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.