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HARDWARE ISSUES

This material will look at various hardware issues whichyou should be familiar with. After finishing this material you should:

• know the components and functions of a computer system
• know the different computer sizes
• know the different peripheral devices
• know the benefits of various computer configurations

TYPES OF DEVICES

• INPUT
• PROCESSING
• OUTPUT
• STORAGE
• CONTROL

GUTS OF THE MACHINE: CPU

"CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT"

• ARITHMETIC/LOGIC UNIT
• PERFORMS CALCULATIONS
• CONTROL UNIT
• INPERPRETS DIRECTIONS AND ORDERS OTHER PARTS OF THE COMPUTERTO PERFORM THEM

HOW FAST ARE COMPUTERS?

• VERY FAST: MILLIONTHS OF A SECOND

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY STORAGE

• ALSO CALLED MAIN MEMORY
• HOLDS DATA AND INSTRUCTIONS BETWEN PROCESSING STEPS

• RAM: RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY
• ROM: READ ONLY MEMORY
• SECONDARY STORAGE DEVICES: MAGNETIC DISKS AND TAPE UNITS
• CANNOT BE PROCESSED WITHOUT BEING HOOKED UP TO THE MAINSTORAGE UNIT

COMPUTER STORAGE CAPACITIES

USES BINARY REPRESENTATIONS

• CIRCUITS EITHER ON OR OFF
• DATA ELEMENTS
• BIT (ON/OFF)
• BYTE: GROUP OF 8 BITS
• STORAGE CAPACITITIES: MEGABYTES OR GIGABYTES

TYPES AND TRENDS IN COMPUTERS (HISTORY)

COMPUTER GENERATIONS

COMPUTER CATEGORIES

MICROCOMPUTER SYSTEMS

MIDRANGE COMPUTER SYSTEMS

MAINFRAME COMPUTER SYSTEMS

SUPERCOMPUTERS

INPUT/OUTPUT HARDWARE TRENDS

DIRECT INPUT:

BAR-CODE SCANNERS

SMART CARDS

IMAGE SCANNERS

OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION (OCR)

DUMB TERMINALS/INTELLIGENT TERMINALS

POINTING DEVICES

• MOUSE
• ICONS
• TRACKBALL/POINTING STICK
• TOUCH -SENSITIVE SCREEN
• LIGHT PEN

PEN-BASED COMPUTING

VIDEO INPUT/OUTPUT

• CRT
• LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS
• PLASMA DISPLAY

PRINTED OUTPUT

• IMPACT PRINTERS
• PLOTTERS
• DOT MATRIX
• LASER PRINTERS
• INK JET PRINTERS

VOICE RECOGNITION AND RESPONSE

OPTICAL AND MAGNETIC RECOGNITION

OPTICAL SCANNING

WANDS

MAGNETIC DATA ENTRY

• MAGNETIC INK CHARACTER RECOGNITION
• MAGNETIC STRIPS

STORAGE TRENDS AND TRADE-OFFS

DIRECT ACCESS

SEQUENTIAL ACCESS

SEMICONDUCTOR MEMORY

MILLIONS OF CIRCUITS

RAM

ROM

OTHER

MAGNETIC DISK STORAGE

FLOPPY DISKS

HARD DISK DRIVES

RAID

MAGNETIC TAPE STORAGE

OPTICAL DISK STORAGE

CD/ROM

WORM

ERASABLE OPTICAL DISK

MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS

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This page was created by David Lewis on 6/18/97

This page last updated on 8/25/97