Sports Life is a private sports club. It has eight squash courts, two swimming pools, a badminton court, two tennis courts, a multi-gym and sauna. As well as the sporting side of the club there is a thriving social scene: a large dance hall, members’ lounge and childrens play area all help to make sports life a success.

The club now has over 550 members and Dave Granger, the club secretary, is wondering how best to keep track of records (such as addresses and telephone numbers). He is not keen on writing out 550 envelopes each month to send details of the latest club news to each member. Surely there is an easier way to do this ? As well as his secretarial duties, Dave Granger looks after the finances. Until now he has been doing his accounts on paper, but this is becoming more and more difficult and time consuming. He wants computer software to help him do the job faster. He is also keen to know if there is a fast way of putting the details of each club member into the computer. At the moment all the details are stored on standard A4 forms.

The Sports Life committee knows that club members have been taking friends into the club to play squash and tennis. Although they are allowed into the social areas, friends are not allowed into the sports complex. The committee have decided that some type of entry control system is required – possibly a credit card style entry control barrier. Each member will be issued with a card that allows them to access the facilities.

Your task is to write a report to the Sports Life committee which researches the following:

1. Types of computer hardware and their purposes.
2. Types of computer software and their purposes.
3. The effect of system specification on the performance of speed, parallel processing, quality and efficiency.