The Information Site we got in class.

Today we were given a website by Mr.Case and it pretty much covers all the system parts he told us about such as the motherboard,PCI slots and so on and so forth anywayz i'll have a look when i' home to gather more information on the test. Rite now im gona try to go through some of it cause I don't remember most of what Mr.Case said! This website is called http://www.kids-online.net/learn/c_n_l.html

The Information We did in Class Today..

Motherboard

There is something called a thermal compound which prevents the CPU from getting hot>Also the fan which comes attached to certain kinds of CPU. If nothing was there to cool it then the CPU would break down.

Theres a battery installed in the motherboard which controls the BIOS. If this battery is removed all your settings will get erased and your computer will be back to its old settings.

CD-ROMS

-CD-ROM is a storage device

-The information on the CD is stored in little dots called pits. They follow binary 0-is no pit 1-is the actual pit

The CD's we use have three layers 1) its the writable part its very thin here u can put a label. 2) the middle layer which consists of all the pits there. This part is delicate. Lastly a layer of plasctic covers it here you shouldn't be touching. This is what covers the delicate layer.

A CD holds 700MG and a DVD holds 4.7GB.

Optical Storage: This is something which is used to store and read with the help of the laser.

You should be very careful with both the upper and lowest layer of the disc by not writing with pen which contains acid and damages your pits. If by anychance there is a scratch in your CD which will mean the laser in your CD player will to mistrack> there are two ways of recovery:

1) There are CD-cleaning fluids that are available which you can buy

2) Toothpaste can also be used which you rub it on the scratch from the centre to the outer portion.

Magnetic Part

A magnet has two poles as we know> north & south. The magnet is used like a switch on & off representing binary.

One magnet is one bit

A hard drive disk is a metallic magnetic disk with loads of magnetic receptors.

One thing to remember is that unlike CD's, HDD's use magnets not pits.

Incase you don't know BUT NEVER!! PUT MAGNETS NEAR YOUR HARDDRIVE-THEN SAY GOODBYE!! TO IT.

The other Parts of the Motherboard

Controller Card which consists of:

1) power input

2) IDE which attaches the HDD to the CD-ROM by a long wide cable

3) jump switch (something movable and creates a circiut)

A capacitor- an elctronic device that holds charge

A laser which located on the arm inside the CD-ROM. While the disc spins the laser slides back and forth to read information from the center of the drive.

More InformationVideo and Sound card we did Yesterday..

Ok what we did in class yesterday was learn about the video and sound card.

Modem- this satnds for modualtor and demodulator. Its a kind of device which allows a computer to transfer data through a cable or a telephone line. Information that is transferred to through this is in the form of analog waves, while the one that is stored in the computer is digital. Then what the modem does is converts this from one form to another. There are two types of modems ones that can be attached externally or one that comes in an extension board. The external one is attached using a port and the other one is attached to a empty expansion slot which come with the motherboard.

Video Card- this kind of card helps your computer show visual graphics. This is another expansion board that can be attached to your motherboard. Like a listener if you're a computer game player then you should buy an expensive card so evrything visual runs smoothly otherwise there's really no need.

Sound Card- This particular card makes the computer to output sound,input sound and sound which is controlled. This is also a expansion boards which can be attached to empty slot in the motherboard like the modem. Most sound cards are built-in but to a listener maybe upgrading is better.

PCI- this stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect which is one of the slots in the motherboard.

There maybe more for now lets just leave it at this!

The Hearing on Motherboards and Others!

We learned about Motherboards, BIOS, and RAM!

First part was about the motherboard which is the main part of the computer(its the mother of all systems). It is where evrything is connected including the CPU(which may have a fan attached to it).

RAM which has a full form known as Random Access Memory. The RAM is different from the harddrive because it does not store any information. It can only remember when the computer is on, then if u turn it off n back on the information is lost. Usually the disk drive is where u store all ur files, but in the case of RAM its there to open them. Like imagine the hard disk is the bookshelf containing all information and the RAM is the desk which is needed in order to read that information. Usually a disk drive stores 1GB information.

BIOS is a part of the computer which reminds it what it's meant to do. When you power up your computer , what it does is tells every part of the computer what it is and what it has to do. Without BIOS the computer would'nt be a thing because it would have no clue what it must do.

I haven't got much down but i'm gona search these things out on the net and write down other points that need to be done till now i think this should do.

About the Input Information

Computer are devices that can input information. The first computer was abacus about 10000 years. Digital computers appeared int he 1940's.

Output Devices: monitors, printers

Input Devices: keyboard, mouse

Storage Devices: HDD, CD-ROM

Computers use the binary system. 0 -off and 1-on. These are the Binary numbers and these are what can make the computer do more. Otherwise nothing would work out evrything has to be done in Binary. This system has a lot more to it. If u use 6 digits of 0's and 1's it has 63 outcomes. A 0 or a 1 is called bit. 8 bits are called bytes. 1000 bytes are called kilobytes, 1000 kilobytes are called megabytes, 1000 megabytes are called gigabyte and lastly 1000 gigabytes are called 1000 terabytes.

It is important to round bytes to a thousand but actually its 1024 bytes to make a kilobyte and so on and so forth. This is because there is no exact 1000 in the place value of the binary numbers. Fingers are what we call Digits

My first assgn on monitors

We had learned on Monitors the two most common types LCD-Liquid Crystal Display, CRT- Cathode Ray Tube.

Now how LCD monitors work- the liquid crystal that is stored between two thin pieces of glass reacts to an electrical signal and gets "excited". Their refresh rate isnt as high as the rate of CRT's . The refresh rate depends on how fast the lights change.Though if u press on the front glass the place becomes weird for some time.

Now for CRT's is different they use rays of light which combine into other colours because of the refresh rate which is faster so video games and movies.

Next point how the screen is measured each dot is called a pixel (picture element) which the screen contains. the moer the dots the bigger the monitor. Plus the screen has a resolution -how many pixels it could fit wide and long. So Modern computers would usually have a resolution of 1024x768 pixels. The bigger the resolution the clearer the picture there is less noise (ex. wen in photoshop u zoom in, the noise appears, as u could see whats happenin on the screen).

Monitors are well measured. The are measured in diagnol. FOr the LCD monitors u measure everything u see since the plastic case does not cover glass. The again for CRT monitors its a completely different situation. About an inch on each side of the plastic that surrounds the tube covers the tube.. When measuring the size of your CRT monitor remember abt the plastic bit n that measure the viewable part but also the plastic bit(but the viewable part maybe viewed for other purposes).