Computer Terminology

List 2

Personal Computer = Hardware & Software

Hardware Computer

machinery Peripherals: Any

computer part, component or accessory

Software Computer

programs Any program

written for the computer

CPU: Brains of the computer

The CPU is housed on a tiny silcon chip which contains millions of switches and pathways that help your computer make decisions. The switches control the flow of electricity through the pathways; receives instruction from programs.

Central Processing Unit

The CPU is the brain of the computerIt processes all the information that runs through the computer.Runs the operating system, software and device peripherals.The speed of the processor is a hertz--a cycle per second.

Common CPU processing speeds: Intel Celeron:

500-800 MHz Intel Pentium II

& III: 233-450 Mhz

Intel Pentium III Xeon: 450 Mhz – 1Ghz

Motherboard

A circuit board that mounts into the PC case which houses all the main components. It contains many integral components on a thin plate.

Wafer or Chip

A thin, round slice of semiconductor material, typically silicon, from which microchips are made. Silicon is processed into large cylindrical ingots, sliced into ultra-thin wafers and then implanted with transistors before being cut into smaller semiconductor chips

RAM & ROM--Memory Terms

Random Access Memory is the computer’s temporary memory. Volatile: only exists

while you are using the program.

When you exit the program all RAM is erased

RAM is measured in bytes--megabytes; usually 16 or 32 MB.

Input & Output Devices

Input: Keyboard,

scanner, modem, mouse

Output Printers, monitors,

plotters, speakers, modem.

MonitorsMonitors are video devices made up of PIXELSA pixel is equal to one dot on the video screenAre there more pixels per square inch on a monitor or a TV?

Answer: Monitor

Monitors

The quality of monitors are determined by the screen size, resolution and dot pitch. Dot pitch is the

measurement between pixels; the lower the number, the better the resolution.

Mouse

A point and click device Select and object

on the screen and click or double click to activate the selected object

Web Site AddressesUniform Resource Locator (URL) the unique address of each Web page

Composed of three parts Protocol

set of rules computers follow HTTP

hypertext transport protocol

Http://Http://www.whitehouse.govwww.whitehouse.gov

Web Site Address--URL

Domain Name address where the Web page is

locatedHttp://www.whitehouse.govHttp://www.whitehouse.gov

• File Specification– filename and folder name called a path

Http://www.whitehouse.gov/Http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresidentvicepresident

Domain Names

Organized by computer groups .gov stands for government .edu stands for education .com stands for commercial .mil stands for military .org stands for organization

Http://www.whitehouse.Http://www.whitehouse.govgov//vicepresidentvicepresident

The End