COMPUTER ELEMENTARY final 1

Unlike RAM, which is volatile, flash memory retains the information stored in the chip when the power is turned off. This makes it ideal for use in digital cameras, laptops, network switches, video game cards, mobile phones and portable multimedia players. In addition, it offers fast read access times (although not as fast as RAM), with transfer rates of 12MB per second. Unlike ROM chips, flash memory chips are rewritable, so you can update programs via software.

Flash memory is used in several ways. For example flash memory cards are used to store images on cameras, to back up data on PDAs, to transfer games in video consoles, to record voice and music on MP3 players or to store movies on MP4 players. They are as small as a stamp, and capacity can range from 8MB to several gigabytes. The only limitation is that flash cards are often not interchangeable between devices.

/“Infotech. English for computer users.” Cambridge 4th edition/

1.What storage devices can you name?

2.How does a hard drive work? How is the speed measured?

3.What recommendations are given to prevent a disk corruption?

4.What will be the future of hard drives?

5.What is the difference between CD and DVD?

6.What formats of CD and DVD can you name?

7.How does a DVD drive record data?

8.What is the difference between Blu-ray and DVD?

9.What is Flash memory? Where does the name come from?

10.How does flash memory differ from other types of memory?

11.Where can flash memory be used? What are the limitations?

Exercise 7. Find Russian equivalents for the following words or word

combinations from the text.

Exercise 8. Complete the sentences using the information from the text

1.Magnetic storage devices store data by… .

2.A hard drive spins at… .

3.When the disk is formatted, the operating system … .

4.The average time required for the read/write heads to move and find data… .

5.Hard drives are very sensitive to… .

6.To minimize the risk of data loss or corruption… .

7.The fact that optical discs are not affected by magnetic fields means that … .

8.CDs come in three different formats… .

9.HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs are… .

10.A Blu-ray disc has a capacity … .

11.Unlike RAM, which is volatile, flash memory retains… .

Text 3

Exercise 9. Read the text. Answer the questions.

Data storage

In case you haven't noticed (fat chance), the computer biz is filled with words that start with "kilo" and "mega", and abbreviations like "K" and "M" and "G". These words and abbreviations don't represent "things". Rather, they represent numbers. Kind of like the old gangster movies where a bad guy would say fifty g's rather

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than fifty thousand dollars. Computer nerds use a different slang for numbers. But the idea is the same.

K. M, and G are numbers

Let's start with just the numbers -- the K and M and G part. Table 1 shows what the abbreviations mean, how they're often spoken, the approximate number each represents, and the way-too-trivial-a-difference-to-worry-about actual number each represents.

Table 1

If you ignore the boring "actual" numbers, you'll see there's a simple pattern to it. Each time you go to from K to M to G, you stick another ,000 onto the end of the preceding number (also known as multiplying the previous number by a thousand),

as you can see below:

So "K" means "thousand" or ",000", and "M" means "million" or ",000,000" and G means "billion" or ",000,000,000". Suffice it to say if you're gonna buy a used car, and it has 80K miles on it, then that means the car has 80,000 miles on it. If the car has 20M or 20G miles on it, don't buy it.

Tip: Just in case you're some kinda math brain who's wondering where the actual numbers come from, K=210, M=220,

(Yawn)

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B is for byte

Information in your head doesn't have any particular "size" to it. Just because Albert Einstein was a genius doesn't mean his head was the size of hot-air balloon or the Good Year blimp. His head was probably about the same size as anyone else's, give or take a couple inches. That's because the human brain stores information in some really weird abstract way that nobody understands.

Computers have no brains, and really don't store "information" the way a human brain does. In fact, computers don't really store "information" per se. Except in the sense that a book stores information -- as letters, numbers, pictures, and words. The information in a book has no meaning to the book. Likewise, the information in a computer has no "meaning" to the computer. Books and computers are a lot alike in that way -- they both can be used to store text, numbers and pictures. And they're also alike in that the text, pictures, and numbers inside have no "meaning" to either the book or the computer.

Anyway, the point is it takes a certain amount of "space" to store information outside of our brains. That's because the information needs to be stored as words, numbers, pictures, or something that takes up space. In a computer, the basic "unit" of measure is a byte, which is the amount of space it takes to store one character, like the letter "A" or an exclamation point (!). So it takes exactly three bytes to store the word "cat". It takes about 2,000 bytes to store one double-spaced page of typed text.

When you see an uppercase letter "B", that stands for "byte". So instead of saying it takes "three bytes" to store the word "cat", I could have said it takes about 3B to store the word "cat". Likewise, I could have said it takes about 2,000B to store a typed page of text. So now, given all you know about K and M and G, I bet you can figure out what KB. MB, and GB mean before you even peek at Table 2.

Table 2

So before, when I was talking about a typed, double-spaced page of text taking up about "two thousand bytes" or "2,000B", I could have said it takes about 2 KB to store that page of text. Often, the "B" is assumed, so it would be just as accurate for me to say it takes about 2 K to store that page.

If you already have files stored on your computer, and know how to get around in folders, you can see that every file has a size. You'll need to use the Details view (choose View > Details from the menu bar above the icons). Figure 1 shows an example where you can see the sizes of some pictures in a folder on my computer.

Figure 1

The first file in in Figure 1 has a size of 735 KB, (or roughly 735,000 bytes). The biggest file in that folder is 1,732 KB. That could actually be expressed as 1.7MB (because a megabyte is about 1,000 kilobytes). But Windows always shows the file sizes in kilobytes (KB) just to keep all the numbers on the same scale.

Of course, not all information in a computer is a typed text. A computer can also store pictures, sound, and video. We generally refer to pictures, sound, and video as multimedia or media files. But like typed text, those files have sizes too. Table 3 provides some examples of multimedia files.

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Table 3

Exactly how much "stuff" you can get on a disk depends on the capacity of the disk. This is no difference from the capacity of a container for water (e.g. cup, bucket, bathtub). But of course, we don't use "pint", "quart", "gallon" and such for describing disk capacities. We use (what else?), KB, MB, and GB.

There are lots of different "types" of disks out there. You've probably already heard of most of them -- floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, and of course the hard disk that lives inside every computer. Hard disks come in many different size, usually in the range of 20GB to 120GB. Table 4 lists the storage capacities of common types of disks. The column on the right describes the capacity in relation to the capacity of a floppy disk, just to give you some perspective on how greatly these capacities vary.

Table 4

bps is for "bits per second"

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The letters bps are short for bits per second. A byte (described earlier) is actually 8 bits. But that's not important. What's important is that unlike a byte, which is a measure of size, bps is a measure of speed. Simply stated, the higher the bps, the less time it takes. It's a lot like Miles per Hour (MPH) in that sense. Think how long it would take to get from New York to California in a car going 55MPH. Now think how long that same trip would take in a jet going 700MPH. Simply stated, the higher the MPH (or bps), the less time it takes.

As a rule, we use bps as a measure of the speed of getting data from one computer to another across a network (including the Internet). And we use "K" for a thousand, "M" for a million, and "G" for a billion, as usual. Table 5 sums it all up. The fourth column shows some alternative abbreviations. The rule-of-thumb is that an uppercase B always stands for "bytes" while a lowercase "b" always stands for "bits per second".

Table 5

The most common use for the bps measurements is in types of Internet accounts. To give you a sense of how the speeds relate to one another in terms of "wait time", Table 6 compares the amount of time it would take to download (copy) a 1MB file from a computer on the Internet to your own computer. (Since a byte is equal to 8 bits, a 1 MB file is roughly 8,000,000 bits.)

Also, I'm using "Broadband" as a general term for Cable and DSL accounts, which are actually available in speeds ranging from about 256 Kbps to 1,000 Kbps. Note, too, that 1,000 Kbps is the same as 1 Mbps.

Table 6

So there you have it. To summarize, K, M, and G are all abbreviations for numbers:

•K = Thousand (1,000)

•M = Million (1,000,000)

•G = Billion (1,000,000,000)

The letters that come after are either a measure of size or capacity, or a measure of speed, as follows:

•B = Bytes or "how much" information.

•bps (or b) = "bits per second" or "how fast across some wire"

•Hz = Hertz of "how many calculations can be done in one second" You're becoming dangerously close to be a full-fledged computer nerd here...

Alan Simpson /www.coolnerds.com/

1.What is represented by K.M.G? Name an approximate number each represents?

2.In what way do computers store information? Does the stored information have any meaning to the computer?

3.What is a Byte?

4.Where can one check the size of a file?

5.Does the system of measurement differ if we speak about text file and media file?

6.How much “stuff” can one store on a disk?

7.What does bps stand for?

Exercise 10. Find Russian equivalents for the following words and word

combinations from the text:

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Exercise 11. Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and

word combinations:

Exercise 12: State whether it is true or false. Correct the false statements, if any.

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1.Each time you go to from K to M to G, you stick another ,000 onto the end of the preceding number.

2.Each of the letters ‘K’, ‘M’, ‘G’ stands for a thousand.

3.Information either in our head or in books or computers takes up space to be stored.

4.In a computer, the basic "unit" of measure is a byte, which is the amount of space it takes to store one character.

5.But Windows always shows the file sizes in kilobytes (KB) just to keep all the numbers on the same scale.

6.Exactly how much "stuff" you can get on a disk depends on the capacity of the disk.

7.The rule-of-thumb is that an uppercase B always stands for "bits" while a

lowercase "b" always stands for "bytes"per second.

Exercise 13: Read the outline given below, sum up the contents of the text. Try

to avoid informal speech.

1.The definition of the term ‘data storage’

2.The storage of information

a.the forms of information storage

b.the capacity of different discs

c.the units for information storage

3.The speed of information

a.the definition of the measure of speed

b.the units of the measure

VOCABULARY