Computer Basics

What’s that thingamagige?

Parts of a computer

Tower

The container for the CPU, memory, motherboard, video graphic card and drives.

Floppy Disk Drive

A drive used to read a floppy disk.

CD ROM Drive and Burner

Massive amounts of information can be placed on a single CD-ROM. A single CD-ROM can contain over 700 MB of information.

Storage Devices

These devices are used for storing digital information.

Floppy Disk

A flexible magnetic disk, sealed in a 3 ½ inch hard plastic casing, that has a maximum storage capacity of 1.4 megabytes. WARNING: Heat, water, and magnetic fields will damage the contents of a floppy disk.

Compact DiskCD

A disk used to store and read 700 megabytes digital data using lasers.

There are two types of CD’s• CD-R• CD-RW

Compact Disk- Recordable DiskCD-R

A compact disk on which a computer can write data. Data written to a CD-R disc cannot be overwritten.

Only CD that can record and play music.

Compact disc-read/writeCD-RW

A disk on which a computer can store, erase and replace of data.

Digital Video Disk-Random Access Memory

DVD-R

A DVD that allows users to record, erase, and re-record large amounts of data.They can only be used in a DVD-R drive.

Hard Drive

A digital storage device that stores large amounts of information and software applications.

Flash Drive

High-speed USB 2.0 interface for fast data transfer. They can hold 215 megabytes and up to 1 Terabyte.

Output Devices

These devices are used to display your work.

Monitor

A computer display screen.

Printer

Produces text and graphics on paper.

Input Devices

These devices are used to enter information into a computer.

Mouse

A computer input device for selecting options by pointing to and clicking items on a display screen.

Keyboard

An input device for entering text or numbers into a computer.

Scanner

Used to convert any printed picture or document to a digital file that can be uploaded to a computer.

Digital Camera

A camera capable of taking photos and uploading them directly to the computer.

Graphics Tablet

A device used to create sketches and drawings in digital format for display on a computer screen.

Memory

Read-Only Memory or ROM

Like the CPU, memory is part of the motherboard, but it comprises many chips instead of just one. The first kind of memory is read-only memory, or ROM, which can never be altered. ROM is like an animal’s instinct; your computer was born with this memory. It is hard-wired memory, it contains portions of the system software.

Memory continued

Random-Access Memory or RAM

The second kind of memory is random-access memory, or RAM, which you can alter. When you open a program, the CPU copies it to RAM in order to access it more quickly. When you quit the program, the CPU deletes it from RAM. When you restart or turn off your machine, all data stored in RAM is lost.

So RAM data is entirely temporary.

How digital space is measured

bit - either 0 or 1, off or on. The bit is the absolute smallest unit of measurement.

byte- equal to 8 bits. To give you an idea of how small this is, every letter in a word processor consumes exactly one byte of disk or memory space.

kilobyte (K)-1,024 bytes The standard unit of measurement for file sizes.

megabyte (MB)- is 1,024K, which is more than a million bytes. Typically, disk space and memory are measured in megabytes. The standard unit of measurement for RAM.

Digital Space Continued

gigabyte (GB)- which equals 1,024MB or more than a billion bytes. The standard unit of measurement for hard drives.

terabyte (TB) – equals 1,024 gigabyte. It is an extremely large storage capacity typically found in enterprise-level operations for large companies.

exabyte (EB) – equals 1, 048,576 gigabyte. It is an extremely large storage capacity typically found in enterprise-level operations for large companies.