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Information
Technology Revision Notes
Fundamentals of Hardware and Software
The computer
The computer is an electronic device designed to operate under the
control of stored programmed instructions, accept data (input),
process or manipulate (processing) that data and store (storage)
the result for future use or output it in a meaningful form for the
user.
Control Unit
The Control Unit (CU) is the circuitry that controls the flow of
information through the processor, and coordinates the activities of
the other units within the processor. It is the "brain within the
brain", as it controls what happens inside the processor, which in
turn controls the rest of the PC.
ALU
The arithmetic logic unit (ALU) is a digital circuit that calculates an
arithmetic operation (addition, subtraction, etc.) or a logic operation
(exclusive OR, AND, etc.) between two numbers. The ALU is a
fundamental building block of the central processing unit of a
computer.
Main memory/immediate access storage
The memory within the central processor. Also referred to as
internal use or main store.
Backing store/disc storage
Memory external to the computer used for storage of large
quantities of data or large programs. Backing store is also known as
secondary store, auxiliary store or external store.
Peripheral device
In computer hardware, a peripheral device is any device attached to
a computer in order to expand its functionality. Some of the more
common peripheral devices are printers, scanners, disc drives, tape
drives, microphones, speakers, and cameras. A peripheral device
can also refer to a non-physical item, such as a pseudo-tty, a RAM
drive, or a network adapter.
Bistable device
A device which can exist in two distinct stable states.
PROM
Short for Programmable Read-Only memory, a memory chip on
which data can be written only once. Once a program has been
written onto a PROM, it remains there forever. Unlike RAM (Random
Access Memory), PROMs retain their contents when the computer is
turned off.
Unlike main memory (RAM), ROM retains its contents even when
the computer is turned off. ROM is referred to as being nonvolatile,
whereas RAM is volatile.
Magnetic tape
A storage medium consisting of a flexible plastic strip of tape
covered with magnetic material on one side, used to store data. It is
available in spools or cassettes.
Floppy disc
A flexible magnetic coated disc, commonly used with
microcomputers on which data can be stored magnetically.
Micro-floppy disc
Refers to 3.5 inch floppy discs. They are housed in a rigid plastic
casing having a sliding shutter which automatically closes when the
disc is removed from the disc drive.
Hard disc/fixed disc
A rigid disc used for storing data magnetically. Its rigid construction
allows for higher storage densities. Access times for a hard disc are
much faster than for a floppy disc.
Optical disc CD
Known by its abbreviation, CD, a Compact Disc is a polycarbonate
with one or more metal layers capable of storing digital information.
The most prevalent types of compact discs are those used by the
music industry to store digital recordings and CD-ROMs used to
store computer data. Both of these types of compact disc are read-
only, which means that once the data has been recorded onto them,
they can only be read, or played.
Optical disc DVD
Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc. A high-density compact
disc for storing large amounts of data, especially high-resolution
audio-visual material.
Read/write head
The mechanism that reads data from or writes data to a magnetic
disc or tape. If the head becomes dirty, it will not work properly.
Sector
A pie-shaped division of each track.
Track
The path on a tape, disc or drum on which data are stored. On a
disc these paths are concentric circles; on a tape there are several
tracks parallel to the edge of the tape; on a drum there are bands of
equal size along the circumference of the drum.
Buffer
A temporary storage area, usually in RAM. The purpose of most
buffers is to act as a holding area, enabling the CPU to manipulate
data before transferring it to a device.
OMR
Short for Optical Mark Recognition, the technology of electronically
extracting intended data from marked fields, such as checkboxes
and fill-in fields, on printed forms. OMR technology scans a printed
form and reads predefined positions and records where marks are
made on the form. This technology is useful for applications in
which large numbers of hand-filled forms need to be processed
quickly and with great accuracy, such as surveys, reply cards,
questionnaires and ballots. A common OMR application is the use of
"bubble sheets" for multiple-choice tests used by schools. The
student indicates the answer on the test by filling in the
corresponding bubble, and the form is fed through an optical mark
reader (also abbreviated as OMR, a device that scans the document
and reads the data from the marked fields). The error rate for OMR
technology is less than 1%.
OCR
Often abbreviated OCR, Optical Character Recognition refers to the
branch of computer science that involves reading text from paper
and translating the images into a form that the computer can
manipulate (for example, into ASCII codes). An OCR system enables
you to take a book or a magazine article, feed it directly into an
electronic computer file, and then edit the file using a word
processor.
All OCR systems include an optical scanner for reading text, and
sophisticated software for analyzing images. Most OCR systems use
a combination of hardware (specialized circuit boards) and software
to recognize characters, although some inexpensive systems do it
entirely through software. Advanced OCR systems can read text in a
large variety of fonts, but they still have difficulty with handwritten
text.
MICR
Magnetic Ink Character Recognition is a character recognition
system that uses special ink and characters. When a document that
contains this ink needs to be read, it passes through a machine,
which magnetizes the ink and then translates the magnetic
information into characters.
Joysticks are used mostly for computer games, but they are also
used occasionally for CAD/CAM systems and other applications.
Light pen
An input device that utilises a light-sensitive detector to select
objects on a display screen. A light pen is similar to a mouse, except
that with a light pen you can move the pointer and select objects on
the display screen by directly pointing to the objects with the pen.
Touch terminal
Also called a touch screen. A device that allows data to be input by
touching a screen with the finger or other object. The surface of the
screen consists of a number of programmed touch points each of
which may trigger a different action when selected by the user.
Voice recognition
The field of computer science that deals with designing computer
systems that can recognize spoken words.
Monitor
A monitor is a display device that consists of a screen housed in a
plastic metal case. A colour monitor displays text, graphics and
video information in colour. The image on a screen is viewed by
pixels, which are also known as dots. A pixel is a single point in an
electronic image. A monitor consists of hundreds, thousands or
millions of pixels arranged in rows and columns that can be used to
create images. The pixels are so close together that they appear
connected. The monitor is said to output "soft copy" of data because
it is temporary output that is lost once electricity is removed from
the device.
Resolution
The resolution of a monitor indicates how densely packed the pixels
are. In general, the more pixels (often expressed in dots per inch),
the sharper the image. Most modern monitors can display 1024 by
768 pixels, the SVGA standard. Some high-end models can display
1280 by 1024, or even 1600 by 1200.
Printer
A printer is an output device that produces text and graphics on a
physical medium such as paper or transparency film. Printed
information is called hard copy because the information exists
physically and is a more permanent form of output than that
presented on a display device (soft copy), for example, a monitor.
1.Impact printers
2.Non-impact printers
Impact printers
Non-impact printers