COMPUTER TERMINOLOGYThe most common words you’re going to hear when working with computers casually and professionally.

OKAY BUT WHY?! Computers are more than just the boxes with

screens sitting in your home that connect you to the internet, play games, and let you complete homework assignments.

The future of basically all of humanity is nested in how computers control and manage parts of your life.

The amount that you depend on computers is actually pretty deep. What do you do when the power goes out? How useless do you feel when your phone breaks? What do you do to keep yourself from being bored when

your phone battery dies? Can you sit through a dinner conversation without

looking at your phone and checking Twitter?

TECHNOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE Computers have become an extension of the human

consciousness. When I was a kid, growing up in the 1980s, I had 40

phone numbers memorized of the people that I called the most. And I had to run back to the house, use the phone on the wall or in my parents’ bedroom (which was a rotary phone, have any of you even seen one of those?!) and hope my friend was home. Otherwise I rode my bike over to his house to check since I was always out and about.

Nowadays, I don’t even have my own brother and sister’s phone numbers memorized, because they’re stored in my phone. Oh how the mighty have fallen…

How much do I need to learn if I can just Google it? Good question. How much do you “know” if your

computer/phone is broken, then?

ALL RIGHT, WHAT’S YOUR POINT? The reason I’m boring you to death with stories of my life

and basic things you might already know is this: Computers are everywhere. They record your TV, they sit

in your pocket, they take pictures of you when you run red lights, they host your twitter pictures, they hold on to all your contact information, they’re sold as consoles to play games.

Because they’re everywhere, you rely on them more and more You use Google or IMDB to end an argument in real time You use Facebook to organize a party You use Twitter to shame strangers with your misguided

opinions You use your phone as a way to express yourself on the

internet, and thus the entire world. You use your game console to scream at other people when

they play better than you and make fun of their mothers.

DON’T WORRY I’M GETTING TO MY POINT

With computers everywhere, it’s important to know how to navigate their use, what common commands or design elements are out there to operate and fix them.

Since computers are running our lives, we ought to know how to keep them going.

THE ON/OFF SWITCH, AND POWER BUTTON

The one thing that stands between you and most devices is electricity. Most devices will show you a button with a symbol like this:

This is the universal symbol for power.

OLD SKOOL SWITCHES

That silly little symbol has roots in the very fundamentals of computers. It’s a combination of the symbols on OLDER power switches, which in turn are representative of binary language.

BINARY

All electronic devices that you use are interpreting electricity in the form of binary language. Binary is all 1’s and 0’s

Binary language interprets the presence of electricity as a 1, and the absence as a 0.

Therefore this makes more sense, doesn’t it?

ON ( | )

OFF ( O )

CPU

The CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the main brain of the computer. All computers have a CPU of some sort.

The CPU utilizes all of a computer’s resources (input) and allows those resources to accomplish a task (output)

Input/Output is the basis of all computer operation.

Input/Output… I/O for short… doesn’t I/O look familiar?

Computer people love consistency, don’t they?

INPUT/OUTPUT

Where does the input come from? Hard Drives Operating Systems RAM Keyboards (Most common input device) Mice (Second most common input device) CD-ROMs Flash Drives The internet External devices (Controllers, webcams…)

INPUT/OUTPUT

Where does the output go? RAM Hard Drive Monitor/screen The Internet Flash Drive Other external devices

MOTHERBOARDS

The CPU is the brain, but the brain is pretty useless without a body.

The motherboard is the piece of a computer that everything else connects into. It allows all the pieces to talk to each other to make things happen.

MOTHERBOARDS

Motherboards, or main boards, are the body of the system, and in a lot of ways dictates the overall abilities and speed of a computer. Motherboards are designed for a specific range of CPUs Motherboards are designed with a specific speed range

of RAM in mind Motherboards may have older connections on it,

limiting the types of hardware available to connect to it. Should you ever accidentally disassemble your

phone in a spectacular act of droppage, you’ll see that even your phone has a mainboard where these elements all connect together. (It’s easier to show you on almost any Android vs. an

iPhone, obviously)

RAM

RAM, which stands for Random Access Memory, is the place where the CPU stores data it frequently accesses.

RAM makes the world of multi-tasking possible. To be able to have multiple programs running and switch between them, the majority of the programs’ code will have been loaded into the RAM.

RAM allows the CPU to hold critical and or commonly repeated information on hand instead of having to load it again from the hard drive, which takes much longer.

ROM

ROM stands for Read Only Memory. Unlike RAM, ROM is a device with information on it that does not change. It literally can only be read, hence the name Read Only Memory.

CD’s, DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs are all ROM devices. There are writable and re-writable versions of

these, yes, but when in use, they are not changeable.

It in uncommon nowadays to see the ROM part attached to their descriptions, but that music CD, that movie, or that PlayStation3 game you own are CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, and BD-ROMs, respectively.

HARD DRIVES / STORAGE

Hard Drives are devices inside computers where all data is held for use by the computer.

Hard Drives are called so because once upon a time, like a billion years ago (the late 70’s and 80’s) there were no hard drives, only these:

HARD DRIVES / STORAGE

This, my friends, is a relic of a time long past, but this is the original floppy disk. And before hard drives existed, computers would have two floppy disk drives One to run the

program, and One to save data to.

INTERESTING TO NOTE

There are now entire generations of people who know that this means “Save File”

And yet it’s very likely none of them have ever seen a 3.5” floppy disk in their lives.

HARD DRIVES / STORAGE

Floppy disks were named as such because, well, they were bendy.

When permanent storage solutions became available without costing a fortune, they were named as the opposite of the accepted standard at the time, which was a floppy disk. So the hard disk got its name, but also coincidentally was made of pretty stiff stuff so it was in fact hard and inflexible as its name suggests.

WHAT HARD DRIVES LOOK LIKE NOW

FUN FACT

My dad used to work for a company who had one of the first “hard drives” before they were able to fit inside of a computer.

Think about your phone. It sits in your pocket and sports anywhere from 8GB to 64GB of storage space.

My dad’s office had a 500MB hard drive from something like 1976. Not even sure how old it was, but it was OLD.

It was larger than a refrigerator. For 500MB! It’s hard to imagine, but think of how far we’ve

come. 64GB in your pocket, vs. 500MB in a fridge 40 years ago.

REVIEW QUESTIONS What is the universal Power Symbol made from? The CPU takes a computer’s ______ and turns it

into output What are the two most common input devices? Where does a computer store information

temporarily during operation? Where does a computer store information long

term? What is an example of Read-Only Memory?

(ROM) The universal symbol for saving a file is a little

icon of this old-school storage device – it’s “bendy”.

Class Demo – Tomorrow! Or today! Depends on how far along we are in this demonstration!

CLASS DEMONSTRATION – HOW A COMPUTER WORKS

In this demonstration, we’re going to need a few students. One to play the role of the CPU One to be the RAM One to be the Hard Drive One to be the Program

This little demonstration should assist in understanding, basically, how information moves in and out of a computer

THE ROLE OF CPU You are the CPU, and you have all the answers!

…Well, you WANT all the answers. To tomorrow’s math homework. As the CPU, you respond to the user’s requests. Mr. Buck is the user.

You are attempting to access the problems from your hard drive, run them through a program, and return the answers to the hard drive.

You will ask the hard drive to supply the questions, and transport them to you via the RAM. You then give them to the Program. The RAM will then take the answers back to the Hard Drive.

THE ROLE OF THE HARD DRIVE

The Hard Drive will have a sheet of math problems that need to get to the CPU.

The Hard Drive will supply the question(s) to the RAM, who will copy them down onto their own piece of paper, and deliver it to the CPU.

The CPU will pass the paper to the program, then back to the RAM to deliver the answers to the hard drive. The hard drive will update its file.

THE ROLE OF THE PROGRAM

The Program will answer the question(s) and give them back to the CPU.

It’s a pretty easy job.

THE ROLE OF THE RAM

The RAM’s job is to transfer data between the Hard Drive and the CPU.

This means you will have to copy the data from the hard drive, and transport it personally to the CPU, wait for the answer, and transport it back.

SOUNDS EASY. WHAT’S THE CATCH?

Sometimes you’re going to have to play by different rules.

There are rules for each component, which I want to surprise you with. But each role will be “modified” in some way to simulate things like: Slow CPU Small amount of RAM Large amount of RAM RAM speed Slow program Hard drive failure