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Processing: SummaryProcessing is the 'thinking' that the computer does. It is not like the way a human brain thinks. The computer processor must do many small commands to accomplish even a simple task like adding two numbers together and displaying the result on a screen. Computer do their thinking with 1's and 0's. All data must be turned into a sequence of on/off values, which are binary numbers. There are several code sets which translate our usual letters and numbers into binary numbers. ASCII is the smallest set. Unicode tries to represent every symbol in every language on the planet. The CPU, or central processing unit, is where the work gets done. It has two parts, Control Unit and Arithmetic/Logic Unit. It uses Main Memory to store values while working with them or while they are waiting their turn. The Machine Cycle has four parts - fetch an instruction, decode it into machine language, execute the instruction, store the result in main memory. The speed of this process is measured in MIPS, millions of instructions per second. A memory address hold one byte of data. This gives the computer a way to find a value or instruction, like a street address. A byte equals 8 bits. A kilobyte is 1024 bytes. A megabyte is 1024 kilobytes. 1024 is 2 raised to the 10th power. The speed of the processor is affected by the system clock speed (an electronic timing pulse), the system bus width (the amount of data the processor can send out at once), and the size of a word (the amount of data the processor can process at once). The physical parts in the machine cycle are the processor chip and the memory chips. These are attached to the motherboard, also called the main circuit board. The motherboard also has slots for peripheral devices like video cards and sound cards plus connections for drives like a hard drive and a DVD drive. The power supply provides power to all of the devices and the motherboard itself. Processing: Quiz For each question, click on Top of Form 1. The information processing cycle includes the following processes:
2. The computer's processor consists of the following parts:
3. CPU stands for______.
4. The arithmetic/logic unit performs the following actions:
5. The main memory of a computer must be large enough to contain the active parts of _____.
6. The name of the location of a particular piece of data is its _____.
7. A megabyte is actually equal to ____ kilobytes.
8. The clock rate of a processor is measured in ____.
9. If the bus width of a processor is 16 bits, that means that the processor can _____ 16 bits of data at a time.
10. If a processor has a word size of 32 bits, compared to a processor with a word size of 16 bits, it can process _____ at a time.
Output: Intro What is Output?
Output is data that has been processed into useful form, now called Information. Types of Output
Categories of Output
The most often used means of Output are the printer for hard copy and the computer screen for soft copy. Let's look at the features of each. Output: Printer Features The job of a printer is to put on paper what you see on your monitor. A successful print job must be easy to do and give you a document that looks like what you saw on the screen. That makes for a happy day! Monitor screens and printers do not use the same formatting rules. In the olden days of computers, the way something looked on the screen could be VERY different from how it would look when printed. Early word processors didn't have a way to show what the printed version would look like. Nowdays a word processor that doesn't have print preview, would be laughed off the shelf. We expect to see a WYSIWYG view (What You See Is What You Get), where you see almost exactly what the document will look like in print, while you are still working on it. How fast?
What paper type? Continuous-Form Paper
This kind of paper is not used as often as it once was. It is still used with sheets of forms amd receipts that make multiple copies with carbonless paper (using old-style dot-matrix printers).
Single Sheet
What print quality?
A measure of print quality using numbers is printer resolution. Measured in dots per inch (dpi), this determines how smooth a diagonal line is when printed. A resolution of 300 dpi will produce text that shows jagged edges only under a magnifying glass. A lower resolution than this will produce text with stair-step edges, especially at large sizes. Even higher resolutions are needed to get smooth photo reproduction. Professionals in graphics use 1200 to 2400 dpi printers. Draft quality on such a printer would be 600 dpi. What will it print? Printers vary in what varieties of type they can print. You must know the limits of your printer to avoid unhappy surprises! Modern printers can handle most anything, but older printers may not. Yes, there are still old, clunky computers and printers in use out there in the real world.
Will it fit?
There must be a good match between the space you need to work with the printer and the spot you choose to put it! Otherwise, your print-outs may wind up puddled on the floor or you could bash your knuckles whenever you put in a stack of blank paper. What kind of cable connection?
Date: 2015-01-11; view: 1576
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