Examples of Storage Device (Ass. - Dec. 05, 2010)

Examples of Storage Device

       
A data storage device is a device for recording (storing) information (data). Recording can be done using virtually any form of energy, spanning from manual muscle power in handwriting, to acoustic vibrations in phonographic recording, to electromagnetic energy modulating magnetic tape and optical discs.
A storage device may hold information, process information, or both. A device that only holds information is a recording medium. Devices that process information (data storage equipment) may either access a separate portable (removable) recording medium or a permanent component to store and retrieve information.

FLASH DRIVE
 

A USB flash drive consists of a flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface. USB flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g (1 oz). Storage capacities in 2010 can be as large as 256 with steady improvements in size and price per capacity expected. Some allow 1 million write or erase cycles and have a 10-year data retention cycle.

 

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COMPACT DISC
  

A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store sound recordings exclusively, but later it also allowed the preservation of other types of data. Audio CDs have been commercially available since October 1982. In 2010, they have been largely replaced by other forms of digital storage such as flash drives, with audio CD sales dropping nearly 50% from their peak in 2000.
Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 mm and can hold up to 80 minutes of uncompressed audio (700 MB of data). The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 mm; they are sometimes used for CD singles or device drivers, storing up to 24 minutes of audio.

 

DVD
 

 DVD, also known as Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc, is an optical disc storage media format, and was invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Time Warner in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage. DVDs are of the same dimensions as compact discs (CDs), but are capable of storing almost seven times as much data.

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HARD DISK
 

A hard disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile, random access device for digital data. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read and written on the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the platters.
The first HDD was invented by IBM in 1956. They have fallen in cost and physical size over the years while dramatically increasing capacity. Hard disk drives have been the dominant device for secondary storage of data in general purpose computers since the early 1960s

 

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FLOPPY DISK

A floppy disk is a data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible ("floppy") magnetic storage medium sealed in a square or rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles.
Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive or FDD, Invented by the American information technology IBM, floppy disks in 8 inch, 5¼ inch and 3½ inch forms enjoyed nearly three decades as a popular and ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange, from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. While floppy disk drives still have some limited uses, especially with legacy industrial computer equipment, they have now been superseded by USB flash drives, external hard disk drives, optical discs, memory cards and computer 
networks.

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Output Devices (Ass. - Dec. 5, 2010)

 Examples of Output Devices

    An output device is any piece of computer hardware equipment used to communicate the results of data processing carried out by an information processing system (such as a computer) to the outside world.
In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system (such as a computer), and the outside world. Inputs are the signals or data sent to the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent by the system to the outside.

 SPEAKERS
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Speakers are one of the most common output devices used with computer systems. Some speakers are designed to work specifically with computers, while others can be hooked up to any type of sound system. Regardless of their design, the purpose of speakers is to produce audio output that can be heard by the listener.

Speakers are transducers that convert electromagnetic waves into sound waves. The speakers receive audio input from a device such as a computer or an audio receiver.
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MONITOR


       A monitor or display (sometimes called a visual display unit) is an electronic visual display for computers. The monitor comprises the display device, circuitry, and an enclosure. The display device in modern monitors is typically a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) thin panel, while older monitors use a cathode ray tube about as deep as the screen size.
Originally computer monitors were used for data processing and television receivers for entertainment; increasingly computers are being used both for data processing and entertainment.

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PRINTER

       A printer is a peripheral which produces a text and/or graphics) of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most newer printers, a USB cable to a computer which serves as a document source.



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CD/DVD/Floppy Disk

CD, DVD and floppy disc are output devices that can also be used as storage and input devices. The computer sends data to the disc, where it is embedded and can be later retrieved. Compact disc, or CD, is an optical device that stores audio and visual data in a digital format. Data is placed on the disc, using a laser writer that embeds the data into the disc's coating.Digital Versatile Disc, or DVD, is an optical device that stores visual data in a media format. DVDs feature a dual coating system that allows audio and visual data to be written at the same time by using a laser.Floppy disc is a magnetic storage device. A layer of magnetized material is placed within a proactive plastic casing. The computer embeds the data into the magnetized material, using a writing head.

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PROJECTOR 

Projectors are display devices that project a computer created image. The computer sends the image data to the video card which then sends the video image to the projector. They are typically used for presentations or for viewing videos.

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Examples of Input Devices (Ass. Dec. 5, 2010)

 EXAMPLES OF INPUT DEVICES

        An input device is any peripheral (piece of computer hardware equipment) used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system (such as a computer). Input and output devices make up the hardware interface between a computer as a scanner or 6DOF controller.

Many input devices can be classified according to:

• modality of input (e.g. mechanical motion, audio, visual, etc.)
• the input is discrete (e.g. keypresses) or continuous (e.g. a mouse's position, though digitized into a discrete quantity, is fast enough to be considered continuous)
• the number of degrees of freedom involved (e.g. two-dimensional traditional mice, or three-dimensional navigators designed for CAD applications)

  KEYBOARD

      A 'keyboard' is a human interface device which is represented as a layout of buttons. Each button, or key, can be used to either input a linguistic character to a computer, or to call upon a particular function of the computer. Traditional keyboards use spring-based buttons, though newer variations employ virtual keys, or even projected keyboards.

     "MOUSE" or THE POINTING DEVICE

        A mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons. The mouse's motion typically translates into the motion of a cursor on a display, which allows for fine control of a graphical user interface.

                      

  HEADSET

A headset equipment is an audio headphone, particularly with an attached microphone. Headsets provide the equivalent functionality of a telephone handset with hands-free operation. Headsets typically have only one speaker like a telephone, but also come with speakers for both ears. They have many uses including in call centers and other telephone-intensive jobs and for personal use at the computer to facilitate comfortable simultaneous conversation and typing.

                       LIGHT PEN
                      
   A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's CRT TV set or monitor. It allows the user to point to displayed objects, or draw on the screen, in a similar way to a touch screen but with greater positional accuracy. A light pen can work with any CRT-based display, but not with LCD screens (though Toshiba and Hitachi displayed a similar idea at the "Display 2006" show in Japan), projectors and other display devices.

    SCANNER

An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner— is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting, or an object, and converts it to a digital image. Common examples found in offices are variations of the desktop (or flatbed) scanner where the document is placed on a glass window for scanning.

Lecture (Dec. 2, 2010)

    
      Wheew! I thought we're going to have a quiz today. We'll today's class was the continuation of last times lecture about the basics of computer. But this time, my teacher tackled about how the computer processes data.

        MOTHERBOARD

       Just about all computers perform the same general options: input, processing, output, and storage.  Input, output, and processing devices grouped together represent a computer system. The motherboard is the center of all processing. The motherboard contains CPU memory, basic controller systems, ports and expansion slots.

         The CPU chip is the main CPU. It is the brain of the computer. The CPUdetermines which of the millions of switches that it contains should be turned on or off by processing program statements that tell it what to do.

        It is now cleared to me that memory consists of addressable locations within the machine that the computer can access directly. If the power fails, everything in memory is lost. There are two types of memory: RAM and ROM.

Example of a ROM

RAM (Random Access Memory)is short-term memory in which data is processed while a program is running.  This type of memory loses any data it holds if the computer is shut down. On the other hand, ROM (Read-Only-Memory) is memory placed on the motherboard by the manufacturer and contains instructions that tell the computer how to start itself. The contents of this memory are not lost when the computer is shut down.

    There are also what we call ports wherein we connect peripheral devices to the computer circuitry like USB in where  we often use to connect our flash disk to store a file.
     

Lecture (Nov. 30, 2010)

     Last meeting, Nov. 30, 2010, we had a lecture about the basics of computer. Our teacher briefly explained the start of computers in human history. Even before 1940's, man started to use computers, not to mention the famous Apple computers nowadays, were first built during 1970`s by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

PROCESSING CYCLE OF THE COMPUTER

     We also name the main parts of the computer: the monitor, CPU and the internal parts of the CPU. Some of it parts are hard-disk,mother board,memory and the most important part is the microprocessor, which is the brain of the computer. It performs all the task-- from arithmetic operations to logical operations. I also learned its processing cycle. The computer inputs data, processes the data, stores the data and information and lastly, inputs the data information.

    What makes a computer powerful? Why is computer so important in our lives theses days? These devices created by man helped man a lot in many ways. It performs task quickly, accurately, and produces reliable results.  We can now set aside the old ways of storing files. Because of computers, we can now save huge amount of data like employee information, names of registered voters in a certain area and the like. Forget the dusty folders in shelves for storing files! Space consuming, isn't it? Most importantly, we are able to share any information you can think of through computers, from all over the world.

      Its undeniable that computers make our way of living pretty easy. It enhances our quality of life making it convenient for us to work, study, learn and have fun!