It is important to know and understand your system, including the hardware and software.
When you go to add software or hardware to your system
it is critical that you know what your system is.
There are basically two types of computer systems in the typical consumer market, the “PC” and the “Mac”. The difference between the systems are significant. The “PC” uses Intel® technology and the “Mac” uses it’s own technology (Apple®). Each of these systems use different software to work. The “PC” uses “Microsoft Windows”® and the “Mac” uses “Mac OS”.
The PC is base on using an instruction set* developed by Intel Corporation known as the “I386 instruction set”, this instruction set is manufactured into the CPU chip (the brains of the computer). From the beginning the Intel instructions are based on an electronic processor chip numbered 8080/Z80(Zilog), then the 8088, 80286, 80386*, 80486 and the Pentium. The 8080 was the first practical processor made by Intel but it was short lived only to be upgraded to the 8088 which became the basis for the IBM PC in the early 1980s. The 8088 was upgraded to the 80286 which had more features built in and it could handle 16 bits of information whereas the 8080 could only handle 8 bits of information. Then came the 80386, wow it could now handle 32 bits of information and it too came with advanced features, you could even get a Math Coprocessor to go with it! By then the speed was really beginning to pick up, the Z80 ran at 2 MHz (Cycles per second), the 80386 ran at a lightning speed of 33 MHz. Shortly after the development of the 80386 Intel released the 80486 and it ran at 50 MHz. The Pentium was basically two 486s in the same package, later to be developed as today’s high level high speed processor chip installed in most computers around the world. So your system is designed around the I386 instruction set. Today’s speed is however around 3.5 GHZ (3500 MHz).
Even though the processor chip has some intelligence built into it, the computer can do nothing without further instructions, these instructions come from the “Operating system” or OS. Before Microsoft Windows we used MS DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System). When Microsoft developed it’s Windows GUI (Graphic User Interface) version of the DOS it became very popular and later became the standard for today's systems. Since then Windows has gone through many version upgrades, Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11 For Workgroups (the first true GUI networking OS for MS), Windows 95, 98, Windows NT, 2000, Windows XP (Home & Pro) and Windows 2003 Server family.
If you are planning on adding anything to your system,
software included, always check the minimum system requirements before
you purchase. Make sure your system can work with the new software or hardware.
You can not expect a 5 year old computer to work or work well with state-of-the-art add-ons or software.