Week #1: PC Fundamentals

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rjagodowski
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Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 6:59 pm

Week #1: PC Fundamentals

Post by rjagodowski »

Here are some links describing the basic computer hardware, software and applications.

Computer Basics

Computer Fundamentals. Here is the website content as a single pdf document:
computer_fundamentals_tutorial.pdf
(2.04 MiB) Downloaded 158 times
We'll be using this website & document for most of our discussions.

Here is the pdf of a fairly complete, but also quite out of date, Beginner's Guide to PC Hardware. Concepts are good, but the current technology is way beyond what is contained here. However, there are some good historical references to the early days of PCs, it's loaded with pictures and some of the topics present (such as Chapter 2 on Digital & Electronic Concepts is pretty good). So....it's here if you want to check it out, but don't worry too much about the details. I probably should have deleted it! :)
pc-hardware-a-beginners-guide.pdf
(14.17 MiB) Downloaded 151 times


We'll be referring to different parts of these and other tutorials in the coming weeks. During the first lab session, you'll be investigating many of the basic parts of a computer. The first lab experiment can be found here. You will be provided with a printed copy for your lab session.


And now...for something completely different...

For some perspective on computer speed, we'll spend a bit of time discussing this sheet I wrote a few years back comparing the speed of our modern computers to the speed of light. (This IS the proverbial "Comparing Apples to Oranges" debate.") Don't worry about the math if you haven't reached this level yet. This is FYI only. :)
CPU Processor Speed vs Speed of Light v14.1.pdf
(82.47 KiB) Downloaded 162 times
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