Computing Hardware
Ross McGeachie
Hard drive & SSD
Hard drives are the basis of the computer or device you are on now. They save the photos, the videos and the documents as well as much more. But what is the difference between a hard drive and an SSD? A hard drive is an older more chunky version of the modern SSD. An SSD is small and used for devises such as a mac book air and an iphone. Just because they are old doesnt mean the hard drive is not used any more. They are still used in most moder computers.
Hard Drive
SSD and hard drive
Hard Drive (left) and SSD (right)
Optical Drive
The optical drive is the DVD player stored in most computers. It can play all sorts of things from CD's to blu-ray disks. A good example of one that does most of the things an optical drive can do is a Sony Playstation 3 which can play blu-ray's CD's DVD's and games. The mac book air and a lot of Dell notebooks dont have an optical drive. They get CD's from the internet or memory stick's
Monitor
The monitor is the screen you are looking at now. Unlike the computer the monitor doesn't save things. It is attached to the body of the computer and all it does is display things. In a laptop it is the same all the top does is display things but below the keyboard there is the equivent to the body. That is where the optical and hard drives are.
C.P.U (Central Processing Unit)
The CPU is the main part of your computer. It is the whole basis of the computer. It is effectively the brain of the computer, it sends all the comands to the monitor. If you have more modern CPU's then you even get dual processors that can do four things at the same time and the same speed as a CPU can do one thing.
RAM ( Random Access Memory)
The RAM is the thing i a computer that provides space for your CPU to use up and display on the monitor. When you reffer to the computer memory you are reffering to RAM. When you add more RAM to your computer, you reduce the number of times your CPU must read data from your hard disk.
Motherboard
The motherboard is the thing that all the units are connected to inside the computer. It holds all the usefull things in the computer. Things like the Hard drive, The RAM ,The CPU and it holds all the leads that conect these things to the monitor. It is effectively the center point that all the filles, The disks and the games go to before being used.
Inputs and Ouputs.
The inputs and outputs are the accessory slots that you can coonect your accessories to. Things that you connect into inputs are Things like Memory sticks and headphones. You dont just have inputs in computers, anything that has a memory stick drive has an imput. For some things an input socket can conect more than one thing in an ipod you can get adaptors thatconnect more than one pair of headphone so two people are listening to the same thng through the same iput socket. The input is wht you connect to tell the computer what to do whereas the output is what you connect to display this.
Touch Screens
Touch screens are an amazing invention, it allows you to use your monitor without having an anoying keypads, this makes it more portable. In a touch screen it has a very small motherboard behind the screen. It contacts the motherboard as quick even though it is much closer. This is because the motherboard is smaler so you canot have as much things going at the same time at the same speed. When you tap the screen it sends a message to the C.P.U making it go to the link the was touched
Tim Berners Lee
Tim Berners Lee is the inventor of the world wide web. He had a dream that the was this one pace where everyone could access information of= rconnect, and best of all he did it for free.