Practical Literacy Ch. 1

Practical Computer
Literacy
Dan Zhiping
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Practical Computer Literacy 2

Teaching Plan
 Total Time: 64, Week 6-21
 Teaching: 32, Wed. 7-8
 Practice: 32, Fri. 7-8
 Usually Exam: 50% (tentative)
(exercise and presence)
 Finial Exam: 50% (tentative)

Chapter 1
Computer Hardware

Chapter 1
Chapter overview
 In this chapter, you will:
 Gain an overview of computer equipment and terminology
 Learn how computers are classified
 Learn how personal computers fit into the gamut of
machines from PDAs to supercomputers
 Review basics components of a typical personal computer
system
 Look inside system motherboard, processor, and memory
 Explore advantages and disadvantages of several computer
storage devices
 Learn some basics about maintaining your computer and
troubleshooting problems

Chapter 1
What is a computer?
 Von Neumann Model
A device that:
 Accepts input
 Processes data
 Stores data
 Processes output
John von Neumann

Father of Modern Compute

Chapter 1
What is a computer? Cont’d.

Chapter 1
 Computer input is whatever is typed, submitted, or
transmitted to a computer
 Data refers to symbols that represent facts, objects,
and ideas
 Processing is manipulation of data
 Most takes place in central processing unit (CPU), a
computer’s “brain”
 Computer programs are instructions that tell computers
how to process

Chapter 1
 An operating system is software that helps
a computer control itself to do specific tasks
 Application software helps users “apply”
computers to specific tasks
 Memory is temporary storage
 Storage is permanent
 Computer output is results produced by
computer

Chapter 1
Computer History
 1937 Alan M. Turing, of Cambridge University,
publishes a paper “ the mathematical theory of
computation”. This paper solves a mathematical
problem by the Turing machine.
The Founder of
Computing Theory The Turing machine
Chapter 1
There is a rumor about Turing…

Chapter 1
The First Computer
 1946 ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer ): One of the first totally electronic, valve
driven, digital, computers. Developed by John W.
Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It weighed 30
tonnes and contained 18,000 Electronic
Valves,160 square meters consuming around
15KW of electrical power — widely recognized as
the first Universal Electronic Computer. It could do
around 100,000 calculations a second.

Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The development of computers
1. The First Generation(1946--1959)
 Characteristics: Based on valves and wire
circuits. The are characterized by the use of

punched cards and vacuum valves. All
programming was done in machine code.

Chapter 1
2. The Second Generation(1959--1965)
 Characteristics: based on transistors and printed
circuits - resulting in much smaller computers. More
powerful, they could handle interpreters such as
FORTRAN (for science) or COBOL (for business)
Grace Hopper, the developer

of Interpreters and Cobol
Chapter 1
3. The Third Generation(1965--1971)
 Characteristics: they are based on the first
integrated circuits - creating even smaller

machines. Typical of such machines was the
IBM 360 series mainframe, while smaller
minicomputers began to open up computing
to smaller businesses.

Chapter 1
4. The Fourth Generation(1975--)
 Characteristics: based on LSI (Large Scale
Integration) and VLSI (Very Large Scale

Integration) of integrated circuits (such as
microprocessors). Modern circuits may now
contain millions of components. This has led
to very small, yet incredibly powerful
computers.

Chapter 1
How are computers classified?
Cont’d.
 Handheld computer (PDA) features include:
 Small keyboard or touch-sensitive screen

 Designed to fit in your pocket
 Runs on batteries
 Used while holding it

Chapter 1
 Computers are divided into five categories:
 Handheld computers
 Microcomputers
 Minicomputers
 Mainframe computers
 Supercomputers

Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 A microcomputer is designed to meet
needs of individual
 Desktop computers fit on desk and

run on power from wall outlet
 Notebook computer (laptop)

incorporates screen, keyboard, storage,
and processing

Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 A tablet computer is portable, featuring a
touch-sensitive screen used for writing or
drawing
• A minicomputer is a mid-sized
computer designed to accept data from
multiple sources (mostly outdated)

Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 A mainframe computer is capable of
simultaneously processing data for hundreds or
thousands of users
 A supercomputer is one of the fastest

computers in the world and can tackle complex
tasks

Chapter 1
Can computers connect to each
other?
 A PDA can connect to desktop with a cable or
wireless link
 Microcomputers can connect to each other or
larger computers via wired or wireless network
 A network can be as few as two or as many as
thousands of computers
 The Internet is world’s largest network,
connecting millions of computers

Chapter 1
other? Cont’d.
 Computers can be connected using a
centralized model or a distributed model
 Centralized computing system depends on
a centrally-located computer for processing
and storage
 A distributed computer network spreads
the processing and storage tasks among
many computers

Chapter 1
other? Cont’d.
Centralized computer system Distributed computer network

Chapter 1
other? Cont’d.
 Large-scale centralized and distributed
computer systems are used for many
tasks:
 Government applications include tax roles,
census records, and vehicle registration
 Commercial applications include inventory,
payroll, and point-of-sale

Chapter 1
other? Cont’d.
 Large-scale centralized and distributed
computer systems are used for many tasks
(cont’d):
 Hospital and healthcare organizations applications
include patient records, integrated diagnostic tools,
patient billing, and health insurance claims processing
 In education, applications include student records,
budgeting, and payroll

Chapter 1
What are the components of a
personal computer system?
 Included in a typical personal computer
system are:
 System unit
 Display device
 Keyboard
 Mouse
 Storage devices
 Sound card and speakers
 Modem
 Printer
 Network card

Chapter 1
What are the components of a personal
computer system?

Chapter 1
What’s inside the system unit?
 System contains storage devices, a power supply,

and main circuit board (motherboard)
 “Computer chip”, “microchip”, and “chip” are
technical jargon for an integrated circuit
 An integrated circuit is a super-thin slice of semi-
conducting material packed with microscopic circuit
elements

Chapter 1
What’s inside the system unit?

Chapter 1
How do computer circuits
manipulate data?
 Most computers are electronic, digital devices
 Digital devices work with discrete data, such as
digits 1 and 0, or like a light switch – on or off
 Analog devices work with continuous data, like a
dimmer switch with continuous range

Chapter 1
manipulate data? Cont’d.
 Most computers use simplest technology of two
possible states, like on-off switch
 Usually we indicate “on” state as 1 and “off” state as
0
 These 1s and 0s are referred to as binary digits or
shortened to bits
 Computers use sequences of bits to digitally
represent numbers, letters, punctuation marks,
music, pictures, and videos

Chapter 1
manipulate data? Cont’d.
 Computers employ several codes to
represent character data, including:
 ASCII – requires only seven bits for each
character
 Extended ASCII – requires eight bits for each
character
 EBCDIC – is eight-bit technology used on older,
IBM mainframe computers
 Unicode uses sixteen bits and provides code for
65,000 characters
Chapter 1
How do computer circuits manipulate
data? Cont’d.

Chapter 1
What factors affect computer
speed, power and compatibility?
 Computers have three major components:
 Processor
 Memory
 Storage
 When program is started, it is moved from
storage to memory
 The processor fetches program instructions
from memory, then begins to execute

Chapter 1
What factors affect computer speed, power
and compatibility? Cont’d.
 If instructions require data, the processor

fetches it from memory, loads it into memory,
then transfers it to processor
 The results are sent back to memory
 The results can be stored or sent to output
printer or screen

Chapter 1
What factors affect computer speed, power
and compatibility? Cont’d.
 Speed and efficiency of processing cycle can

be affected by factors such as:
 Processor type and speed
 Amount of memory
 Hard disk drive speed
 Monitor capability and video memory
 Network and modem connection speed

Chapter 1
What factors affect speed and
power?
 Bit is abbreviated as lowercase “b”
 Byte is composed of eight bits and is
abbreviated by uppercase “B”
 These abbreviations combined with kilo
produce specifications such as KB (kilobyte)
and Kb (kilobit)

Chapter 1
power? Cont’d.
 In world of computers kilo means 1024, not 1000
 Kilobit is 1024 bits and kilobyte is 1024 bytes
 Kilobytes often used when referring to size of

small computer files

Chapter 1
power? Cont’d.
 Prefix “ mega” means a million, or in context of
bits and bytes, 1,048,576
 Megabits used when referring to speed of data
transmission
 Megabytes used when referring to file size,
floppy disk capacity, or video card memory
capability

Chapter 1
power? Cont’d.
 Giga refers to a billion or 1,073,741,824
 Gigabytes are used to describe RAM and
hard disk capacity
 Mainframe and supercomputers use tera-
(trillion), peta- (quadrillion), and exa-
(quintillion) are used

Chapter 1
What factors affect speed and power?
Cont’d.

Chapter 1
power? Cont’d.
• Two most popular personal computer platforms are PCs
and Macs
 PCs based on design of IBM – Macs based on Macintosh,
PC manufactured by Apple
 Huge selection of Computer
descendents manufactured – iMac is one of Apple’s most
by companies such as IBM, popular computers
Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba,
Dell, and Gateway – Apple computers use Mac
OS as operating system
 Windows operating system
designed for PC – therefore
PC known as “Window
platform”

Chapter 1
power? Cont’d.
 PC and Mac computers use different types of
CPU’s and operating systems
 Application software designs are not

interchangeable

Chapter 1
What’s important about
microprocessors?
 Microprocessor (or “processor”) is an integrated
circuit designed to process instruction
 The most important, and usually the most
expensive, component of a computer
 Circuitry is grouped into important functional areas
 ALU ( arithmetic logic unit) performs arithmetic operations
 Control unit fetches each instruction

Chapter 1
microprocessors? Cont’d.
 Microprocessor speed is measured in megahertz
(MHz) or gigahertz (GHz)
 MHz = 1 million cycles per second
 GHz = 1 billion cycles per second
 During each cycle microprocessor executes
instruction
 The faster the clock speed the more instructions
executed per second

Chapter 1
microprocessors? Cont’d.
 Microprocessors also rated by word size
 Most process a 32-bit word
 Some 64-bit available, and are faster than 32-bit units
 Microprocessors manufactured by several companies:

 Intel produces Pentium, Celeron, and Itanium for PCs
 AMD produces for PCs
 Motorola and IBM produce for Apple Macintosh
 Transmeta produce tablet computer processors

Chapter 1
What’s important about microprocessors?
Cont’d.

Chapter 1
What’s important about computer
memory?
 RAM (random access memory) is
temporary holding area for data,
application programs instruction, and
operating system
 RAM is “waiting room” for processor
 When program started, it is held in RAM
until needed and remains there until
program is closed
Chapter 1
memory? Cont’d.
 RAM also holds data
 Most RAM is volatile, which means it needs
electrical power to hold data
 If power goes out, or computer is turned off,
data stored in RAM is instantly and
permanently lost
 It is important to frequently save work to a
permanent storage area, such as hard disk,
as you work
Chapter 1
memory? Cont’d.
 RAM also holds operating system
instructions, loaded each time you turn on
your computer and held until it is turned off
 RAM capacity is measured in megabytes
or gigabytes
 Today’s computers have between 128
megabytes and 2 gigabytes of RAM

Chapter 1
memory? Cont’d.

Chapter 1
memory? Cont’d.
 Most computers also contain ROM
(read only memory) – a type of memory
that holds the computers startup routine
 Whereas RAM is temporary and
volatile, ROM is permanent and non-
volatile

Chapter 1
Why do computers use multiple
storage devices?
 Computers feature multiple storage devices such
as:
 Floppy disk drive – stores data on removable disk
 Standard disk is 3.5 inches and holds 1.44MB
 High-capacity Zip drive holds 750 MB of data
 Floppy is slow, taking up to half second to get started
 Zip drive is about 20 times faster
 Major advantage is portability
 Floppy disk use is diminishing

Chapter 1
storage devices? Cont’d.
 Hard disk drive is main storage device in most
computers
 Provides lots of storage capacity
 Provides fast access to files
 Economical – cost is about three times as much as a
floppy drive but stores millions of times the data
 Capacity is measured in gigabytes and speed in
milliseconds (ms) or revolutions per minute (RPM)

Chapter 1
Why do computers use multiple storage
devices? Cont’d.

Chapter 1
 A tape drive – used to back up data on a hard
disk
 Magnetic tape used to restore lost data
 Too slow for everyday use
 Tape can contain thousands of feet
 Access time is measured in seconds
 Today most PC owners use CD and DVD as back-up
instead

Chapter 1
 A CD (compact disk) provides 650-700 MB of storage
 A DVD (digital video disk or digital versatile disk) is a variation
with a capacity of 4.7 GB
 CDs and DVDs are durable storage
 Higher tolerance for temperature fluctuations than hard
disk, floppy disks, and tapes
 Unaffected by magnetic fields
 Dust and dirt can be cleaned off
 Biggest threat are scratches

Chapter 1

Chapter 1
 CDs and DVDs come in several varieties:
 Read only (ROM) – permanent data stored
during manufacturing
 Recordable (R) – A writable drive can store data
but it can’t be changed
 Rewritable (RW) – can be changed many times,
much like a hard drive but much slower

Chapter 1
 A USB flash drive is a popular portable
storage device
 About the size of a highlighter pen
 Very durable
 Open, edit, delete, and run files just as if
they were on hard drive
 Plugs into USB port
 Provides fast access to data and uses little
power

Chapter 1
 In addition to storage devices connected to
computer, data can be stored on remote devices
such as network hard drives and virtual drives on
the Internet
 More storage than personal computer
 Speed of access is slow
 Easily accessible to others for collaborative work
 Potentially safe storage if computer is damaged or stolen

Chapter 1
What kind of maintenance and
care does a computer require?
 Large organizations protect equipment
from theft with high-tech security systems
 Protect personal computer by locking to
desk or locking room
 When traveling by air, carry it in your
carry-on bag
Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 Make sure computer is balanced safely on
desk or resting on floor
 When carrying notebook computer, use
padded carrying case
 When transporting desktop, use original
box or protect it with foam padding
Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 Environmental factors can do damage
 Excess heat can damage circuitry
 Excess humidity combined with salt air can
corrode contacts
 Magnetic fields can erase data
 Dust and dirt can cause overheating and clog up
mechanical parts

Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 Routine cleaning of mouse and keyboard
can keep them working smoothly
 Follow manufacturer’s instructions for
cleaning to keep printer from jamming and
printer head from smearing
 Keep floppy disks and hard drives away
from strong magnetic fields
Chapter 1
Cont’d.
Computers are vulnerable to power
irregularities
 Make sure power cable is positioned so it can’t be
accidentally disconnected
 When going to another country, ensure your
equipment conforms to power systems
 Use surge strips to protect against power spikes
and surges
 To protect against power outages, you can
connect to uninterruptible power supply (UPS)
Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 Owners should periodically make backups of data,
run a defragmentation utility, and update virus
checking software
 Consider following guidelines when troubleshooting:
 Make sure equipment is plugged in

 Check all cables
 Get clear idea of problem by trying to isolate malfunctioning
device or replicating steps

Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 Attempt basic solutions, such as restart device or
rebooting
 Look for information in manuals, the Web, or
manufacturer’s support line
 When communicating with technicians, explain
problem accurately and prepare to answer
questions about brand, model, operating system,
and application software

Chapter 1
Cont’d.
 Follow instructions carefully and completely
 Before you resume normal operations, make sure
problem is fixed
 If possible, take steps to avoid similar problems in
the future

Chapter 1

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Practical Computer

Practical Computer Literacy 2

Practical Computer Literacy 3

Practical Computer Literacy 4

Practical Computer Literacy 5

John von Neumann

Practical Computer Literacy 6

Practical Computer Literacy 7

Practical Computer Literacy 8

Practical Computer Literacy 9

Practical Computer Literacy 11

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circuits. The are characterized by the use of

Practical Computer Literacy 14

Grace Hopper, the developer

integrated circuits - creating even smaller

Practical Computer Literacy 16

Integration) and VLSI (Very Large Scale

Practical Computer Literacy 17

 Small keyboard or touch-sensitive screen

Practical Computer Literacy 18

Practical Computer Literacy 19

 Desktop computers fit on desk and

 Notebook computer (laptop)

Practical Computer Literacy 21

Practical Computer Literacy 22

 A supercomputer is one of the fastest

Practical Computer Literacy 23

Practical Computer Literacy 24

Practical Computer Literacy 25

Centralized computer system Distributed computer network

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 System contains storage devices, a power supply,

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 If instructions require data, the processor

Practical Computer Literacy 38

 Speed and efficiency of processing cycle can

Practical Computer Literacy 39

Practical Computer Literacy 40

 Kilobit is 1024 bits and kilobyte is 1024 bytes

 Kilobytes often used when referring to size of

Practical Computer Literacy 41

Practical Computer Literacy 42

Practical Computer Literacy 43

Practical Computer Literacy 44

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 Application software designs are not

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 Some 64-bit available, and are faster than 32-bit units

 Microprocessors manufactured by several companies:

 AMD produces for PCs

 Motorola and IBM produce for Apple Macintosh

 Transmeta produce tablet computer processors