Digital Planet:

Tomorrow’s Technology
and You
George Beekman • Ben Beekman

Tenth Edition

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall

 Digital Planet:
Tomorrow’s Technology and You

Chapter 2
Hardware Basics
Inside the Box

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall

 What Computers Do
Four basic operations:
 Receive input: Accept information from outside world
 Process information: Perform arithmetic or logical
operations on information
 Produce output: Communicate information to outside
world
 Store information: Store and retrieve information from
memory and storage devices

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 What Computers Do (cont.)
Hardware components
• Input devices
• Output devices
• Microprocessor (CPU)
• Memory and storage
devices
• Primary storage
• Secondary storage
• Peripherals

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 A Bit About Bits
 Information: Communication that has value because
it informs
or
 Information: Anything that can be communicated,
whether it has value or not

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 Bit Basics
 Bit: From Binary digit
• Smallest unit of information computer can process
• Can have one of two values: 0 or 1
 Byte
• Collection of 8 bits
• Can represent 256
different messages
(256 = 28)

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 Bits as Numbers
 Denotes all numbers with combinations of 0s and 1s
 Decimal numbers automatically converted to binary
 Binary number processing hidden from user
Decimal Binary Decimal Binary
0 0000 5 0101
1 0001 6 0110
2 0010 7 0111
3 0011 8 1000
4 0100 9 1001

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 Bits as Codes
• Codes represent each letter,
digit, and special character
• ASCII: Most widely used
• Each character is a unique 8-­bit
code
• 256 unique codes for 26 letters,
10 digits, special characters
• Unicode: Supports more than
100,000 unique characters

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 The World’s Languages
 ASCII character set was originally designed to include
only English-language characters from 0 to 127

 Unicode’s international standard character set allows

for more than 100,000 distinct codes to include
Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Arabic characters

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 Bits, Bytes, and Buzzwords
Byte = 8 bits or one character in ASCII
• Kilobyte (KB, K) ≈ 1,000 bytes
• Megabyte (meg, MB) ≈ 1,000 KB or 1 million bytes
• Gigabyte (gig, GB) ≈ 1,000 MB or 1 billion bytes
• Terabyte (TB) ≈ 1 million MB or 1 trillion bytes
• Petabyte (PB) ≈ 1 quadrillion bytes

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 The Computer’s Core:
CPU and Memory
 A digital computer is a collection of on/off switches
designed to transform information from one form to
another.
 The user provides the computer with patterns of bits
—input—and the computer follows instructions to
transform that input into a different pattern of bits—
output—to return to the user.

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 The CPU: The Real Computer
 CPU often called “processor”
 Performs transformations of input into output
 Interprets and executes instructions in programs
 Performs arithmetic and logical data manipulations
 Communicates with other parts of the computer
system indirectly through memory

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 The CPU: The Real Computer (cont.)
 Modern Microprocessor
• Complex collection of
electronic circuits
• CPU housed with other
chips on circuit board
• Circuit board containing
computer’s CPU is called
motherboard

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 The CPU: The Real Computer (cont.)
 Choosing a Computer
• Type of CPU is important part of decision
• Two important factors to consider:
• Compatibility
• Performance

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 Performance (cont.)
 Multicore Processors
• Single chip contains
multiple CPUs (cores)
• Run simultaneously
• Divide work
• Most new PCs have
at least two cores.
• Quad core becoming
common

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 Performance (cont.)
 Special Purpose Processors
• Supplement basic CPU
• Typical CPU contains graphics-processing unit
(GPU) which handles:
• 3-D graphics rendering
• Other visual calculations
• Frees main CPU to work on other tasks

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 The CPU
 Typical CPU is divided into several functional units:
• Control unit
• Arithmetic logic unit (ALU) includes registers
• Decode unit
• Bus unit
• Prefetch unit
 These units work together to complete the execution
of program instructions.

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 The CPU (cont.)

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 Green Computing
 When compared to other industries the computer
industry is relatively easy on the environment.
 The manufacture and use of computer hardware and
software does have a significant environmental
impact.
 You have some control over the environmental
impact of your computing activities.

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 Green Computing (cont.)
• Buy green equipment • Print only once
• Use a laptop • Use a green font
• Take advantage of energy • E-cycle your waste
saving features products
• Turn off your computer • Pass it on
when you are away • Send bits not atoms
• Save energy, not screens • Consider hidden
• Avoid moving parts environmental costs

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 The Computer’s Memory
 Random access memory (RAM)
• Most common type of primary storage
• Stores program instructions and data temporarily
• Memory locations have unique addresses
• Volatile—disappears when power is turned off

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 The Computer’s Memory (cont.)
 Read-only memory (ROM)
• Information is etched on chip when manufactured
• Stores start-up instructions and other critical information
 Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)
• Special low-energy type of RAM
 Flash memory
• Can be written and erased repeatedly
• Used for digital cameras, cell phones, handheld computers

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 Memory
1. When you turn on the computer, the CPU automatically
begins executing operating system instructions stored in
ROM.
2. The executing instructions help the system start up and tell
it how to load the operating system—copy it from disk into
RAM.
3. Once instructions for the
operating system are
loaded into RAM, the CPU
is able to execute them.

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 Buses
 Information travels between components on the
motherboard through wires called internal buses or
just buses.
 Buses: Bridges between processor and RAM
 Buses connect to:
• Storage devices in bays
• Expansion slots
• External buses and ports

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 Ports
 Computer has variety of ports to meet diverse needs
• Video port(s) to connect monitors
• Audio ports to connect speakers and/or headphones
• USB ports to connect keyboards, pointing devices,
printers, cameras, disk drives, portable storage
devices, and more
 Some ports connected directly to system board
 Others connected to expansion cards

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 Peripherals
 Slots and ports make it easy to add peripherals to
computer system.
 Some peripherals, such as keyboards and printers,
serve as communication links between people and
computers.
 Other peripherals link computer to other machines.
 Still others provide long-term storage media.

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