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Hardware and Software

This version was saved 15 years, 4 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by HarryHuang
on November 24, 2008 at 9:52:21 am
 

 

Overview

 

Computer hardware and software work together for data processing. [1] Computer hardware is the physical presence of the computer with five parts – Processor, Control Unit, Memory, Input Devices, and Output Devices. Software in general is various programs that perform certain tasks in a computer, such as application software, and systems software. Hardware and software can only work together to complete tasks. And hardware and software can be considered as a new form of media.

 


Hardware

 

Computer hardware is the physical presence of the computer. [9] It can be cataloged by appearance as personal computer and laptop computer. All computers are organized based on Von Neumann architecture. [2] It has five parts – Processor, Control Unit, Memory, Input Devices, and Output Devices.

 

Present computers’ processor and control unit are combined together as CPU (Central Processing Unit). There are two main CPU factories in the world, Intel and AMD, which are both American factories. CPUs are often compared with clock rate, also with the number of cores, cache size. [4] The newest CPU is Intel® Core™ i7-965 Processor Extreme Edition, which has a 3.2 GHz clock rate with 4 cores and 8 MB Last Level Cache. [5]

 

Memory are divided into two parts – memory and storage, memory always refers to a form of semiconductor storage known as random access memory (RAM) [3] and storage refers to mass storage and magnetic storage, which are slower but can store more data than RAM, such as optical disk and hard disk. There are various types of memory (RAM), such as DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic RAM). RAM is compared with memory size and bandwidth, most computers are installed with 1, 2 or 4 GB (Gigabytes) RAM, and DDR 400 SDRAM can exchange data 3.2 GB per second. [6] The storage is mainly about optical disk and hard disk, and also the USB disk. Hard disk is the non-volatile storage for personal computers; it can store the data without power for ten years. Present hard disk has the storage size 250 GB, 500 GB or 1 TB (Terabytes), it is much larger than RAM, but its data exchange speed are much lower, with the highest theoretic speed 160 MB/s with SCSI Ultra320 technology, which the actual speed is between 70 to 80 MB/s. [7] And the most popular SATA hard disks only have the actual speed between 20 to 50 MB/s.

 

Input and output (I/O) devices are the interfaces of a computer, which computer can receive and send data through these interfaces. The input devices include keyboard, mouse, video camera, scanner, microphone, and so on. The output devices include monitor, printer, speaker, and so on. Hard disk also can be considered as the I/O device. These devices are linked to the I/O interfaces of the computer, send or receive data with the memory and processor through these interfaces.

 

Present multimedia computer is usually combined with CPU, Memory, Motherboard, Video Card, Sound Card, Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, Speaker, and some other devices.

 


Software

 

Software is used to process tasks. It includes system software, application software. System software usually means the operating system. There are several kinds of operating system, mainly about Windows (by Microsoft), Mac OS (by Apple), UNIX (by Sun) and Linux (Open Source). Historically, the DOS (Disk Operating System) used to be the most popular operating system from late 1980s to 1995. The DOS is a single task operating system that it can only do one task at one specific time, and the others are multitask operating systems that they can do several tasks at one specific time.

The operating system has a basic function of providing interfaces for application software to run on the computer hardware, the necessity of the operating system is that you can run the same applications on different computer with different hardware but same operating system and get the same result.

Application software includes websites, programs and games. Microsoft Office Word is the most widely used program for word processing.

Software is coded with various types of programming languages, such as C++, ASP, and so on..

The physical presence of software is the magnetic pole status which stands for 0 or 1.

 


Computer Hardware and Software

 

Hardware and software can only work together to complete tasks. Hardware has the capability to rapid calculating basic binary addition and logical judgment. Software tells the hardware when to do a specific task. [10] With the operating system have the basic function to display information on monitor, get the signal from the keyboard and other simple functions, the application software combines the simple functions into complicated functions to complete tasks.


 

Implications For Media Ecology

 

Hardware and software can be considered as a new form of media. With the multimedia capability, a personal computer can display text, audio, video and images. And 76% of people in the U.S own a computer [8], and most of them linked to the Internet, it can transfer news and other programs much wider and faster than newspaper, television because the Internet is linked all together and it transport electrical signal as the speed of light. And it is mutual, you can react to the news like making a comment to news, or skip the video you don’t like, it is superiority than the television. People get much more information today through the computer. With the computer, the amount of information you can get is million times than the books and television. There are more than 22 billion results from Google if you search the character “1” on it. Books are local because they cannot be moved fast. Television can broadcast faster and wider but it is limited by the network. But the computer linked the world together.

 


 

References

 

[1] Data processing, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_entry >

[2] Von Neumann Architecture, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_architecture >

[3] Computer Storage, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_storage >

[4] Clock Rate, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_rate >

[5] Intel CPU, < http://compare.intel.com/pcc/default.aspx?familyID=1>

[6]DDR SDRAM, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR_SDRAM>

[7] SCSI, < http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/scsi/protSpeed.html >

[8] How many people in the us own a computer ,< http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_in_the_US_own_a_computer_today >

[9] Miller, Keith W. "Hardware and Software." Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. Ed. Carl Mitcham. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 896-898. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Iowa Wesleyan College. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=GVRL&u=mt85337 >.

[10] Software, < http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software >.

 


Original Author:  Chris Walz, Harry Huang

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