PC Hardware

• CPU: Central Processing Unit. This is the master controller that fetches information from various places, manipulates it, and stores it in other places. It operates at constant clock cycle, typically about 300 megahertz ( 300 million cycles per second). All operations, such as adding two numbers, are done in multiples of this clock cycle, say, 5 cycles to add two numbers.

• Buses: these are the "wires" that carry information from one place to another, such as between the CPU and disks

• Hard disk: this is the main repository of information and programs. It consists of a set of spinning platters which are divided into sectors and tracks. The CPU directs the computer to specific addresses (i.e., platter, sector, track) to store or retrieve information. If you store and erase lots of information over periods of time the disk becomes fragmented, making storage and retrieval much slower, but it is very easy to defragment your disk.

  A typical 3.2 Gbyte disk holds 3.2 billion bytes (or ASCII characters) of information. If you consider a page of high quality richly illustrated text in an 8.5 x 11 inch book as averaging about 100,000 characters ( 10,000 characters of text but up to 10,000,000 characters for full size, high quality full color pictures), then 1 Gbyte is equivalent to a stack of high quality books 1 foot high. So a 3.2 Gbyte disk = 3.2 foot stack, and the current available disks = 14 foot and next year 25 foot high stacks.

• Diskettes, also know as floppys: these store small amounts of information (1.4 Mbytes) but are convenient for getting files or programs from somewhere else.

• CD-ROM, DVD: these are read only plastic disks that store 650 Mbytes or 4.3 Gbytes (DVD). Most large programs or data sets now come on CD-ROM

• Monitor: your display screen. Typically it has a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels with 24 bits of color, but you can change this.

• Cache: a very high speed, but small, memory which stores the most recent information for very rapid access

• Mouse: on PCs this has a left and right part, and you use it by clicking or double-clicking it

• Keyboard: contains text and action keys, such as CONTROL, ALT, and others

• Modem: stands for MOdulate-DEModulate -- this converts the analog signals in the phone line to digital (1's and 0's ) needed by the PC, and vice-versa.

Class Topics

Bits and Bytes

PC Hardware

Using Help

Files, Folders, and Directories

Windows

File Manipulation

Customizing Your PC

Handling Errors and Aborts

Specific Applications: NotePad and WORD

Finding Information About Your PC

Connection to the Internet