Information Processing / Word Core – 1/13/2009

Today our class covered what exactly a computer is and how it works.  We talked about a wide range of topics.  One of them has to do with the bit and the byte.  We learned that a bit is a 1 or a 0, and those are the only two numbers that a computer truly knows.  Everything that a computer does is based on doing mathmatical computations on those 1s and 0s.  We also learned that a “box” of bits is a byte — and that they come in boxes of 8.  Approximately 1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte.  Approximately 1000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte.  Approximately 1000 megabytes = 1 gigabyte.  Approximately 1000 gigabyte = 1 terabyte.  Approximately 1000 terabytes = 1 petabyte.  Approximately 1000 petabytes = 1 exabyte.  I could go on and on, but I don’t know any higher than that. 

We also talked about the differences between input and output devices.  This was a concept many of you seemed to know really well, and that’s definitely a good thing.  It makes sense, really — input devices help us put things into our computers, wheras output devices help us experience data outside our computers.

One of the last things we discussed had to do with Standby and Hibernate.  Both of them allow us to save electricity and to bring our computers back to a usable state quickly, but there is a slight difference.  Standby brings our computers back to life very quickly, since the computer’s RAM is still kept powered on.  Standby is ideal for desktop comptuers and for notebook computers which aren’t going to be left alone for long periods of time (the small amount of power keeping the RAM “alive” is enough to kill a laptop battery over the course of the day).  Hibernation on the other hand, writes all of the stuff that’s in our RAM to our hard disks.  Then, the entire computer gets shut off.  This is good for notebook comptuers that aren’t going to be used again in the near future (as in an hour or so), but it does take slightly longer to bring back the computer from hibernation than it does Standby.  Still, both are a lot faster than booting your computer from a full shutdown.

We’re going to have a great quarter, and I’m excited to have you guys in class.  I’ll see you next week!!!

Homework:

• pg 40: Multiple Choice/True False