2. COMPUTER BASIC PART MONITOR SPEAKER KEYBOARD MOUSE CPU CD-Drive DVD Drive Floppy Drive Flash drive INPUT DEVICE OUTPUT DEVICE SYSTEM UNIT
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4. WHAT IS COMPUTER DATA & INFORMATION INPUT CPU MAIN MEMORY OUTPUT DATA INFORMATION
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9. Software and Hardware If you use a player piano as an analogy, the piano can be thought of as the hardware and the roll of music as the software. The software a series of very simple computer instructions carefully organized to complete complex tasks. These instructions are written in programming languages (like BASIC, PASCAL, C...) to help simplify the development of applications. The hardware is what sits on your desk and executes the software instructions. The player piano is useless unless the roll of music has been written correctly.
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Notas del editor
To turn the slides you can either: Click once on the left mouse button Press the [Enter] key on the keyboard Use the [Page Down] key – to move to the next slide Use the [Page Up] key – to move back a slide
Hardware is all the equipment that you can touch and see The system unit is the main computer box containing the processor and memory. All the bits that plug into the system unit are called “peripherals”. Input devices: The keyboard – familiarise yourself with the position of the different keys. The more you use the keyboard, the quicker the typing will become! The mouse, the trackball and the touchpad – all respond to hand movement. The mouse activates on a button click and the trackball activates on a keyboard press. Text and graphical information can also be scanned into your computer where it can then be manipulated and saved. Output devices: The computer’s display is known as the “VDU” (Visual Display Unit), screen or monitor. The screen usually has its own independent power on/off button and controls, similar to those of a television, to adjust the picture’s brightness, contrast, colour, position and shape The printer and plotter both give a “hard copy” of results. The “inkjet” printer character is composed of thousands of dots measures in dots per inch (DPI) – the more dots, the greater the clarity of the print. The laser printer files the shape of the character at a rotating metal drum, toner is then heat-sealed onto the paper and gives the best results. Speakers and speech synthesisers give the computer an audio facility.
Forget about computers for a moment; when you have an idea that you want to get down onto paper, if it is a rough note, you will probably choose a pencil; if it is a letter, you will probably choose a pen; if it is a painting, you will probably choose a paintbrush. You select the best tool for the task. Software is a computer tool. When you turn the computer on, it goes though POST, loads Windows and then comes to a grinding halt. It is then up to you to decide what you want to do on the computer, and choose the best software tool for the task. As technology advances, so new “versions” of software are released. Be aware that a document created in a newer version of the software might not open in an older version - because the older version doesn’t contain all of the functionality necessary to run that document.
