Pieces of the puzzle
Monday, September 22, 2008 // 8:30 PM
When I was little, I loved taking apart the pieces to my makeshift oven and studying the inner parts. The bits and pieces that eventually led to the creation of delicious goodies. This fascinated me, and to this day, it still really interests me when things are taken apart to reveal the story behind it as well as allow you to get the bigger picture. So when we looked at the different parts of the computer today, I was really quite blown away at the fast paced improvements made on this vital piece of technology.
Here are just a few of the many parts:
Motherboard:- acts like the mom of the computer
- controls everything
- everything is connected to the motherboard
- uses BIOS -
Basic
Input
Output
System (wakes computer up)
- BIOS reminds computer what it has; starts a post, does tests so it can start up properly
CPU/Processor:
- size of a baby finger
- made up of ceramic, as it takes the heat away
- fan pushes down on ceramic to cool it off
- pins made up of real gold (good conductor of electricity)
- brain of the computer
Video Card:
- takes info that needs to be turned into graphics
- benefit: takes some of the work away from CPU so CPU can concentrate on other work
Hard Drive & Memory (RAM):
- connects to motherboard & power supply
- hard drive is long term storage (like a book shelf)
- RAM (memory) is like a table where you can open up a book
- when you open something, it puts it from the hard drive to RAM
- memory is stuff you use right now
- lot more hard drive space than RAM
- expensive RAMs have gold, inexpensive ones use silver
- USB uses flash memory
- memory in a computer is gone when you turn it off
CD ROM:
- laser slides down and reads from center
- uses lasers to read bumps & pits; bumps are 1 and pits are 0
- bit is a piece of data that is 0 or 1
- bite is is 8 bits and a Kilobyte is roughly 1000 bytes
Modem:
- takes binary data & turns it into sound
- transfers sound to phone line
- reversed: sound from phone line turns into binary and and goes into computer
That is just a few of the numerous parts that a computer requires to function. More will be added next class :)
Au revoir l'amore,
Serena
Labels: CD ROM, CPU, Hard Drive, Motherboard, Processor, RAM, Video Card