Lesson 1: Computer Concepts – Part 1

Computer Systems  Personal Computers Network server Desktop Laptop

Desktop Computer Components  System Unit Houses the Central Processing Unit (CPU)  Peripherals These are hardware items that are outside the system unit box, such as the keyboard, mouse, monitor, and printer.

Units of Measure  Bits/Bytes  Megahertz  Resolution

Inside the System Unit Part 1

A System Board PCI expansion slots ISA expansion slots AGP video slotMicroprocessor slot RAM modules plug in here Hard drive connections Floppy drive connection

The Microprocessor  A computer on a single silicon chip

Microprocessor Performance  Clock speed  Design  Benchmarks  Performance/C ost trade-offs

Random Access Memory  Your computer’s “workbench”  Also called Volatile Memory  Locations of RAM  Main memory  Cache  Video

Cache RAM  Special, high-speed RAM to make the computer process faster  How much RAM do you need? Enough to run your application programs efficiently.

Disk Drives  Drive Types:  Hard drive  Floppy drive  CD  Zip drive  DVD

How Disk Drives Work  RAM Compared to disk drives Workbench memory – Storage memory

Lesson 1: Computer Concepts – Part 1