What do all these numbers and specifications mean and what's happening inside that beige box?
Listed below are the three main parts of your computer. Of course there are many other important parts but you'll note that virtually every advertisement lists these three items first.
650 MHz Intel Pentium III: This number represents the speed at which the central processing unit or CPU functions. I like to call it "The Brain" for simplicity. The larger the MHz. (megahertz) the faster "The Brain" is able to calculate. Most brains are either manufactured by INTEL or by AMD (Advanced Micro Devices).
Everything that happens on your computer has to go through "The Brain" before you see the end results displayed on your monitor. That's the part that looks like a television.
64MB Ram: This is the amount of memory the system has. I call this "The Hands". Increasing the MB (megabytes) of ram or memory increases the number of hands available to carry out a task. Many hands make light work!
10.2GB Hard Drive: This indicates the amount of space available to store your good stuff. For our purposes let's think of the hard drive as "The File Cabinet". Increasing the number of GB's (gigabytes), increases the size of "The File Cabinet" which gives you more space for your stuff. You can collect and save stuff for later use as you see fit.
As I mentioned previously, there are many other parts in a computer which I will describe in future articles. I plan to keep the explanations as simple as possible so a novice with very little experience can read it and hopefully glean some basic understanding of what's going on inside the box.
Brain = CPU measured in MHz's megahertz.
Hands = Ram/Memory measured in MB's megabytes.
File Cabinet = Hard Drive measured in gigabytes.
Stuff = Pictures, Movies, Data, Games, Music or anything else a person deems worthy of saving.
So for the simple explanation here goes!
When you click on for instance the big blue "e" on your desktop you expect that Internet Explorer will appear and you will be able to surf (look at stuff) on the Internet.
When you click on the "e" you are telling the computer that you want to get on the Internet so "The Hands" (ram/memory) go to "The File Cabinet" and get the Stuff stored there that makes this Internet thingy work and hand feed it to "The Brain" (CPU). "The Brain" takes all the stuff "The Hands" give it, thinks about it, then bingo Internet Explorer pops open on your screen. Of course this happens much faster than you can read it here. "The Brain" is making millions of calculations every second. Everything that happens has to eventually be processed by "The Brain", whether it be connecting you to the Internet, playing solitaire, or hearing those annoying Windows sounds.
Bottom line is the more MHz your brain is, the faster it does the calculations required to give you the expected result on screen.
The more hands you have to hold the information "The Brain" needs to think with, the fewer times "The Hands" need to go back to "The File Cabinet" to retrieve data.
I hope that this explains part of what is going on. I've used this analogy before with good results.
Greg Plaxton
"The Computer Surgeon"
Send your computer related questions to Greg at email and he will post the answers here. He intends to cater to the novice and to keep his answers as beginner friendly as possible. He will also add new content by answering the questions posed to him most frequently by his own computer customers.
Having problems with your computer? On-site service or training. Reasonable rates. Call Greg, "The Computer Surgeon" at (519)376-7151.
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Listed below are the three main parts of your computer. Of course there are many other important parts but you'll note that virtually every advertisement lists these three items first.
on your desktop you expect that Internet Explorer will appear and you will be able to surf (look at stuff) on the Internet.
When you click on the "e" you are telling the computer that you want to get on the Internet so "The Hands" (ram/memory) go to "The File Cabinet" and get the Stuff stored there that makes this Internet thingy work and hand feed it to "The Brain" (CPU). "The Brain" takes all the stuff "The Hands" give it, thinks about it, then bingo Internet Explorer pops open on your screen. Of course this happens much faster than you can read it here. "The Brain" is making millions of calculations every second. Everything that happens has to eventually be processed by "The Brain", whether it be connecting you to the Internet, playing solitaire, or hearing those annoying Windows sounds.