Computers and Digital Basics

What are the four phases of the digital revolutions evolution?

1. Data processing 2. Personal computing 3. Network computing 4. Cloud computing

The word 'computer' has been a part of the English language since ______.

1646

Describe Unicode.

A coded that uses sixteen bits providing for 65,000 characters. Nice for representing the alphabets of multiple languages.

What is a personal computer?

A computer characterized by being a small , standalone computer powered by local software.

What is a 'scanner'?

A device that transfers the content on a piece of paper into memory.

A file can contain data for what?

A document, video, song, etc. Some files also contain certain instructions that tell the computer how to perform various tasks.

What is a 'byte'?

A group of 8 bits. Every character you type is represented by 8 bits.

What is a computer network?

A group of computers linked together to share data and resources.

What is a USB port?

A high-speed port that allows multiple connections at the same port.

What is a 'convertible'?

A hybrid of a laptop and tablet are essentially laptops that have a touchscreen.

What is an 'ergonomic keyboard'?

A keyboard that is designed to fit the natural placement of your hands and should reduce the risk of repetitive motion injuries.

What is a computer?

A multi-purpose device that accepts input, processes data, and produces output of some kind, all according to a series of stored instructions.

What is a file?

A named collection of stored data. It's a collection of data that exists on a storage medium, such as a hard disk, CD, DVD, or flash drive.

What is a 'stylus'?

A pen-like device used to interact with touchscreens--to input commands.

What is convergence?

A process whereby several technologies with distinct functionalities evolve to be available on a single digital device. Convergence is important to the digital revolution because it created the capability wanted by owners to have access to the same services available from full-size computers on their desks.

What is 'output'?

A result produced by a computer. For example: reports, documents, music, graphs, or pictures.

What is a 'computer program'?

A series of instructions that tell a computer how to carry out certain processing tasks.

What is 'software'?

A series of programs that tell a computer how to perform a specific task. When a computer "runs" software, it performs the instructions to carry out a task.

What is 'application software'?

A set of computer programs that helps a person perform a certain task.

What is an integrated circuit?

A super thin slice of semiconducting material packed with microscopic circuit elements, such as wires, transistors, capacitors, logic gates, and resistors.

What is a 'touchpad'?

A touch-sensitive device on which you drag your finger to control the pointer.

What is a 'scroll wheel'?

A wheel on a mouse that you roll with your finger to scroll the page on a screen.

What are four types of code used?

ASCII, Extended ASCII, EBCDIC, and Unicode.

Describe the difference between an analog sound wave and a digital sound wave.

An analog sound wave is a smooth curve of continuous values. A digitized wave is slice into samples which are each converted into binary numbers and then stored. Each sample is at fraction of a second intervals and the more samples there are, the closer it is to a continuous sound wave. And the better it sounds too.

What is 'memory'?

An area of the computer that temporarily holds data waiting to be processed, stored, or output.

What is a port?

An opening on a computer connected to a card or to an appropriate place on the motherboard into which you can plug a connector.

What is a DVD?

An optical storage device that can store 4.7GB of data in a single layer on one side of the device and up to 17.1 GB of data in dual layers on both sides.

What is a CD?

An optical storage device that can store up to 700 MB in a single layer on one side.

What is 'local software'?

Any software that is installed on a computer's hard drive.

What are the two main types of software that computers run?

Application software and system software.

How do digital devices store and transport all those bits?

By sending them traveling as electrical pulses through the electronic circuitry inside the device. Bits, at the simplest level take the form of two states of electric circuit; the state used for a 1 is 'on' and the state for 0 is 'off.' 1 might be represented by an elevated voltage, such as +5 volts, whereas a 0 bit is represented by a lower voltage, such as +.2 volts. All the circuits, chips, and mechanical components that form a digital device are designed to work with these bits.

Describe the fourth phase of the digital revolution.

Characterized by local applications being increasingly replaced by cloud computing. Cloud computing provides access to information, applications, communications, and storage over the Internet. Before cloud computing, most computers ran software based locally.

What is social media?

Cloud based applications designed for social interaction and consumer-generated content. They include: social networking services, wikis, blogging services, photo sharing services, and microblogging sites.

What is 'character data'?

Data that is composed of letters, symbols, as well as numbers, but only numbers that aren't being used for arithmetic operations.

What's the difference between digital and analog?

Digital data is information such as text, numbers, graphics, sound, and video that have been converted into a form of 1s and 0s (on and off switches) while analog data is information that takes the form of continuous range of values.

Describe how privacy is affected by digital technology.

Digital technology has put pressure on to diminish privacy by making it possible to easily collect and distribute data about individuals without their knowledge or consent. Internet marketers have a whole bag of tricks for surreptitiously getting personal information, and hackers are adept at breaking into sensitive databases to obtain confidential information. Social media encourage participants to reveal personal details online, and that information is being captured, aggregated, reposted, and distributed publicly. Many applications and social media sites want to know your location. Don't want to reveal it? Turn it off. Privacy advocates fear that these digital technologies are fundamentally changing our expectation of what is private and what is not.

How do digital devices represent numbers?

For numbers that are used in calculations, or numeric data, the binary number system (also called base 2 system) is used. The binary number system uses two symbols, 0 and 1 (each being a single bit) to represent any number whereas the decimal system or base 10 system uses ten symbols to represent numbers: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, an 9. For numbers that are not used in arithmetic calculations, they are still represented by bits of 1s and 0s, but depending on the code that is being used can be represented by seven or more of these bits.

How does digital technology affect freedom and democracy?

Freedom of speech, or more inclusively, freedom of expression is not an absolute. Most societies prohibit some types of expression, such as hate speech, libel, pornography, and flag burning. Although freedom of expression is guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, it recognizes the necessity for some restrictions, which might vary from one society to the next.

Describe what computers were like prior to 1940.

If you look in a dictionary printed before 1940, it defines a computer as a person who performs calculations. Prior to 1940, any machines designed to perform calculations were called 'calculators' or 'tabulators', not computers. The modern definition of 'computer' emerged in the 1940s.

How do digital devices store and represent images?

Images are not small discrete objects like numbers or the letters of the alphabet. Images have to be digitized by treating them as a series of color dots, each colored dot representing a binary number. So a digital image is simply a collection of binary numbers that represented all the colored dots it contains.

Describe consumer interest of personal computers starting from 1982 to the end of the second phase of digital computing.

In 1982, computers gained recognition by winning TIME magazines Man of the Year award. Social scientists even worried that people would become increasingly isolated as they focused on computer activities rather than social ones. But using a computer still wasn't for everyone. Computer ownership increased at a gradual pace until the mid 1990s, and then it suddenly accelerated into the third phase of the digital revolution.

Where does the word digital come from?

In Latin, the word 'digitus' means finger or toe. The modern use of the term digital is probably derived from this and the idea of counting on your fingers.

What methods are used in digital devices to store, process, and transmit data?

In circuitry, they take the form of two different voltages, such as +5 volts and +.2 volts. They can also be represented by two different tones as they flow over a phone line. They can be stored in the form of light and dark spots etched onto the surface of a CD or the positive and negative orientation of magnetic particles on the surface of a hard disk.

How are integrated circuits packaged?

In protective ceramic chip carriers that vary in shape and size.

When did digital devices become available to consumers?

In the 1970s when handheld calculators and digital watches hit the shelves.

What were computers like back when they were first built?

In their first phases, computers were huge, complex, and expensive devices. They existed in limited numbers, primarily housed out of sight in big corporations and government agencies. Computers were inaccessible to ordinary people and operated only by trained technicians and each computer installation required specialized software. Throughout the 1960s, the digital revolution was beginning to transform organizations, but ordinary people had little direct contact with computers. Computers were initially viewed with suspicion by consumers, who were uncomfortable with idea of giant machine "brains." In fact, protestors were concerned that computers would have a dehumanizing effect on society.

What are 'commands'?

Instructions to the computer on how to process data.

How does digital technology affect intellectual property?

Intellectual property is ownership of certain types of information, ideas, or representations. It includes patented, trademarked, and copyrighted material, such as music, software, books, and films. In the past, such works were difficult and expensive to copy. Digital technology has made it easy to produce copies with no loss of quality from the original. Pirating-illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted material-is simple and inexpensive. It has caused the loss of income for software publishers, recording studios, and film producers. In the U.S., it is legal to make a backup copy of software CDs or DVDs that you own. However, if a software CD is copy protected to prevent you from making a copy, it's against the law to break the copy protection.

Describe network technology before the internet became popular.

It existed mainly in schools and businesses. Networks were complicated and unreliable. As the internet became more popular, network technology became more user friendly, allowing homeowners to connect multiple computers, exchange files, and, most importantly, share an internet connection.

What is digital electronics?

It is a technology that uses electrical signals to represent data, such as numbers, words, pictures, and music.

What is the 'digital revolution?'

It is an ongoing process of social, political, and economic change due to digital technology, such as computers and the Internet.

What is digitization?

It is the process of converting text, numbers, sound, photos, and video into data that can be processed by digital devices.

What effect does digital technology have on the economy?

It is very important to the economy. Consumers gain access to a wide variety of products, including technology products manufactured in locations scattered all over the globe. Global communications technology offers opportunities for teleworkers in distant countries. Some individuals are affected by the 'digital divide.' This is a term that describes the gap between people who have access to technology and those who do not. Digital have-nots face many economic barriers. They cannot afford computers and other digital devices, or they live in an economically depressed region where electricity is not available, Internet access is slow, or where cell phone service is unavailable.

Describe what computing was like between 1995 and 2010.

It was characterized by the Web, e-mail, multiplayer games, music downloads, and enormous local software applications, such as Microsoft Office, Norton's Internet Security Suite, and Corel Digital Studio.

Describe how the internet was developed.

It was originally developed as a military project, and was then handed over to the National Science Foundation for research and academic use. When restrictions on commercial use of the Internet was lifted in 1995, companies such as AOL and CompuServe became popular services for access to e-mail and the World Wide Web.

What allows a computer to switch computing tasks?

Its ability to store programs and switch between them. A series of electronic instructions for a computing task can be loaded into a computers memory and then can be replaced by a different set of instructions when it's time for the computer to perform a different task.

What is 'processing'?

Modifying data and executing commands.

What are 'mobile devices'?

Small computers that are designed to fit in the palm of your hand, run on batteries, and usually have more limited capabilities than PCs. A smartphone is a mobile device.

What does a computer store data?

So that it will be available for processing.

What is 'system software'?

Software that has the purpose of helping the computer system monitor itself in order to function properly. An example of system software is a computer 'operating system', which is essentially the master controller for all the activities that take place with a computer. Operating systems don't directly help people perform application-specific tasks, such as word processing, but they are responsible for starting application -specific tasks and for storing and accessing files for them.

When did the digital revolution begin?

Some historians say the 1980s, but engineers built the first digital computers during the World War II for breaking codes and calculating missile trajectories. Then, in the 1950s, computers were marketed for business applications, such as payroll and inventory management.

What is a 'minicomputer'?

Sometimes called a 'midrange computer' it is a computer somewhere between a PC and a mainframe in both size and power.

How do digital devices store and represent sound?

Sound is characterized by the properties of a sound wave. The sound wave is a visual representation of the intensities of a sound. You can represent a sound wave digitally by sampling it at various points, each point being represented by a binary number. The more samples you take, the closer the points that are assigned a sound value come to approximate the full wave pattern.

Describe ASCII.

Stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Pronounced "ASKee". Requires only seven bits for each character. ASCII provides codes for 128 characters.

What is a DIP?

Stands for Dual In-line Package and is a chip carrier with caterpillar-like legs protruding from a black, rectangular body.

Describe Extended ASCII.

Stands for Extended American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is an extension of ASCII and uses 8 bits to represent each character. This provides codes for 256 characters.

Describe EBCDIC

Stands for Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange Code. Pronounced "EB seh dick." It is an 8 bit code used on older, mainframe computers.

What is a PGA?

Stands for Pin Grid Array. A Chip carrier that is square shaped and arranged with pins in concentric squares, like a pin cushion, and is typically used for microprocessors.

What is the 'CPU'?

Stands for central processing unit and is the microchip that performs most of the processing inside a computer. It can be programmed to perform tasks based on data it receives. The CPU is responsible for executing instructions to process data.

What is 'digital data'?

Text, numbers, graphics, sound, and video that have been converted into discrete digits such as 0s and 1s.

What is the single most important characteristic that distinguishes a computer from other simpler and less digital devices?

The ability to switch programs to perform different tasks.

What is 'data processing?'

The act of manipulating data in a computer that is input and then output.

What is 'storage'?

The area where data can be left on a permanent basis it's not immediately needed for processing.

How are chips connected together?

The electronic components of most digital devices are mounted on a circuit board called a system board, motherboard, or main board. This board houses all essential chips and provides connected circuitry between them.

What is the significant advantage of digitization?

The fact that information can be reduced down to a common set of signals that require fewer devices to operate.

What is 'data representation'?

The form in which data is stored, processed, and transmitted.

What is 'data processing'?

The manipulation of data to produce a result.

What is a hard drive?

The most common type of magnetic storage.

The number of bits used to represent character data is determined by what?

The types of codes that are being used.

Was is a 'bit'?

The word 'bit' is an abbreviation for 'binary digit.' A bit is the smallest unit of data in a computer. A single bit can hold one of two values, 1 or 0.

What is 'data'?

The words, numbers, figures, sounds, and graphics that describe people, events, things, and ideas.

What's the difference between digital data and information

They are both used interchangeably, but both are technically different. Data is a form of information which is represented by a series of on and off switches, (1s and 0s) that a computer a computer uses to create output. Data becomes information when the computer outputs data in a format that people can understand. Data is used by machines, such as computers; information is used by humans.

What are 'netbooks'?

They are smaller than normal notebook computers and usually less powerful, but have a longer battery life.

Describe the first computer microchips.

They contained fewer than 100 miniaturized components, such as diodes and transistors. The chips used as the CPUs for todays computers and cutting edge graphics cards contain billions of transistors.

Describe the first personal computers that came out

They made their debut on the shelves in 1976 with the Apple I. Then the Apple II came out in 1977 and is considered the first highly successful mass-produced personal computer. But even with the Apple II, sales got off to a slow start. Without much variety in the way of software, they seemed to offer little for their $2,400 price. As the variety of software increased, however, consumer interest grew. During this phase of the digital revolution, computers weren't connected to networks. They were essentially self-contained units that allowed users to interact only with installed software.

What caused the sudden upswing in computer ownership during the 1990s?

What the third phase of the digital revolution is characterized by; computers becoming networked and when the internet was opened to public use.

What is 'input'?

Whatever is typed, submitted, or transmitted to a computer system. Input can be supplied by a person, by the environment, or by another computer.

A bit is usually abbreviated how?

With a lower case b.

A byte is usually abbreviated how?

With an upper case B.

What is a 'mainframe computer'?

a computer that is typically used by larger businesses and government agencies to centrally store, process, and manage large amounts of data.

Like the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the digital revolution offers ______, but requires _______. Why?

advantages/adaptations/Because digital innovations challenge the status quo and require societies to make adjustments to traditions, lifestyles, and legislation.

Application software are sometimes referred to as _____, especially in the context of what?

apps/handheld devices.

Transmission speeds are usually expressed in _____ while storage space is typically expressed in _____

bits/bytes

Cloud computing is a result of ______________.

convergence.

Most computers have more than one place to put _____, depending on what?

data/on how the data is being used.

We live in the _________age. What is this?

information/it's the period of time that we live in and is characterized by the ease at which we can all access information using technology that is based on digital electronics. Almost any type of information can be accessed and affects many aspects of everyday life, from the economy to politics and social relationships.

When you use a pointing device to move the pointer on the screen and then click, your providing what?

input by issuing an instruction.

In common usage, the term "PC" refers to what? Personal computers that are sold only by Apple, Inc. are referred to as what?

personal computers that use Microsoft Windows/Macs

The price of a mainframe computer varies widely, from ____________________ dollars to close to a _____________ dollars.

several hundred thousand/million

Describe All-in-one computers.

they are desktop computers where the motherboard and CPU are part of the monitor instead of in a separate tower.