NMIX 2020 Hardware Quiz

Retina Display

- A brand name used by Apple for its series of IPS panel displays that have a higher pixel density than other displays - When an Apple product has a Retina Display, each user interface widget is doubled in width and height to compensate for the smaller pixels. Apple calls this mode HiDPI mode.

Liquid-crystal display (LCD)

- A flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulated properties of liquid crystals - Liquid crystals do not emit light directly, instead using a backlight or selector to produce images in color or monochrome. - LCDs are available to display arbitrary images or fixed images with low information content, which can be displayed or hidden, such as preset words, digits, and 7-segment displays, as in a digital clock.

RAM (Random-Access Memory)

- A form of computer data storage which stores frequently used program instructions to increase the general speed of a system. - Allows data items to be read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the physical location of data inside the memory.

OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode)

- A light-emitting diode in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light in response to an electric current. - This later of organic semiconductor is situated between two electrodes; typically, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. - OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices such as TV screens, computer monitors, portable systems such as mobile phones, handheld game consoles, and PDAs. - A major area of research is the development of white OLED devices for us in solid-state lighting applications.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)

- A proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from a HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, to a compatible computer monitor, video projector, digital television, or digital audio device. - HDMI is a digital replacement for analog video standards.

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)

- A specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. - GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles.

Video Graphics Array (VGA) connector

- A three-row 15-pin DE-15 connector - The 15-pin VGA connector was provided on many video cards, computer monitors, laptop computers, projectors, and high definition television sets. - On laptop computers or other small devices, a mini-VGA port was sometimes used in place of the full-sized VGA connector.

Light-emitting diode (LED)

- A two-lead semiconductor light source - It is a p-n junction diode that emits light when activated - When a suitable voltage is applied to the leads, electrons are able to recombine with electron holes within the device, releasing energy in the form of photons. This effect is called electroluminescence, and the color of the light is determined by the energy band gap of the semiconductor. - LEDs are typically small and integrated optical components may be used to shape the radiation pattern

Plasma Display Panel (PDP)

- A type of flat panel display common to large TV displays 30 inches or larger - They are called "plasma" displays because they use small cells containing electrically charged ionized gases, which are plasmas. - Plasma displays have lost nearly all market share, mostly due to competitions from low-cost LCD and more expensive but high-contrast OLED flat-panel displays. - Plasma displays are bright, have a wide color gamut, and can be produced in fairly large sizes - up to 3.8 meters

Cathode ray tube (CRT)

- A vacuum tube that contains one or more electron guns and a phosphorescent screen, and is used to display images. - It modulates, accelerates, and deflects electron beam(s) onto the screen to create the images. - The images may represent electrical waveforms, pictures, radar targets, or other. - Have also been used as memory devices, in which case the visible light emitted from the fluorescent material (if any) is not intended to have significant meaning to a visual observer.

Bluetooth

- A wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, and building personal area networks

Phone Connector (audio)

- Also known as phone jack, audio jack, headphone jack, or jack plug - A family of electrical connectors typically used for analog signals - The phone connector was invented for use in telephone switchboards in the 19th century and is still widely used.

SoC (System on a Chip)

- An integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system. - It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions - all on a single substrate. - SoCs are very common in the mobile computing market because of their low power-consumption.

Most modern CPUs are multi-core, meaning that each CPU is actually two, or three, or four, or more CPUs on a single chip.... Why?

- First, as CPUs run faster and faster, they create more and more heat (this is why some desktops are water-cooled, and data centers are often built in cooler climates near water sources) - Second, we've figured out how to manufacture transistors at smaller and smaller scales, now measured in nanometers. This has allowed us to actually fit those multiple cores on a single chip,

Moore's Law

- Named after the co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore - The observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit double approximately every year.

CPU (Central Processing Unit)

- The electronic circuitry within a computer that carries out the instructions of a computer program by performing the basic arithmetic, logical, control and input/output operations specified by the instructions. - The brain of the computer - its what does most of the general-purpose computing in a computer.

USB 3.0

- The third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices - Among other improvements, USB 3.0 ads the new transfer rate referred to as SuperSpeed (SS)

Solid State Drive (SSDs or flash memory)

- Use integrated circuits to store data electrically, which means they're must faster, quieter and more durable than traditional HDD's, though they're still a fair bit more expensive than traditional HDDs - Called that specifically because they don't rely on moving parts or spinning disks. Instead, data is saved to a pool of NAND flash

Thunderbolt is....

- Very powerful, but fairly expensive - Alternative to USB - Mostly found on Macs.

Benefits of fitting multiple cores on a single chip:

- We can continue to increase computing power with much more lower increases in heat output - These increases in computing power also come at a lower power consumption cost

There are a bunch of different ways you can store these bits:

- We use to punch cards (there is/isn't a hole) - Magnetic storage (magnet's polarity is north/south) - this was the basis for most computer storage for a long time, including mechanical hard disk drives (sometimes called spinning disks) - We've mostly moved on to solid state drives

Electroluminescence

- When a suitable voltage is applied to the leads, electrons are able to recombine with electron holes within the device, releasing energy in the form of photons. - The color of light is determined by the energy band gap of the semiconductor.

Conversions:

1 Byte = 8 bits Kilobyte = KB = 1000 bytes (8000 bits) Megabyte = MB = 1,000,000 bytes (8,000,000) Gigabyte = GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes (8,000,000,000 bits) Terabyte = TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes (8,000,000,000,000 bits)

Over time, computer hardware becomes....

1. Smaller and smaller, to the point where a device's size is dictated by human factors (size of our hands, etc.), not hardware requirements 2. Mechanically simpler, containing fewer moving parts. The fewer things that move, the more reliable the devices. 3. Becomes faster and/or more efficient. Though it theoretically has a maximum limit, this rule of hard-ware has been described as Moore's Law (says that devices' computing power will double every 18-24 months)

In color imaging systems, a color is typically represented by...

3 or 4 component intensities such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black

We still use ____ to connect headphones and other audio devices to our computers

3.5mm

Bitmap

A mapping from some domain to bits, that is, values which are zero or one. It is also called a bit array or bitmap index

Mini DisplayPort

A miniaturized version of the DisplayPort audio-visual digital interface.

Pixel

A physical point in a rater image, or the smallest addressable element in all points addressable displace device; so it is the smaller controllable element of a picture represented on the screen.

Lightning (connector)

A proprietary computer bus and power connector created by Apple Inc. introduced on September 12, 2012, to replace its predecessor, the 30-pin dock connector, the Lightning connector is used to connect Apple mobile devices like iPhones, iPads, and iPods to host computers, external monitors, cameras, USB batters chargers, and other peripherals.

Bit

A switch that is either flipped on or off, represented as a 0 or a 1. (You start counting at 0, 1, 2...)

Parallel computing:

A type of computation in which many calculations or the execution of processes are carried out simultaneoulsy

Other mobile devices (not iOS) feature...

An array of mini-and micro-USB, though they're moving toward USB Type-C too.

USB (Universal Serial Bus)

An industry standard that defines cables, connectors and communications protocols for connection, communication, and power supply between computers and devices

Data transfer has gotten a lot _____ in recent years

Better

The basic unit of digital data is:

Bit or binary digit

We use _____ for connecting devices wirelessly over fairly short distance

Bluetooth

We used to use ____ as our computer monitors and TVs, but they're recently been replaced by ____

CRTs LCDs

Computers are...

Clever groupings of billions of very simply, very tiny machines that can perform operations really, really quickly.

USB Type-C

Commonly known as simply USB-C, is a 24-pin USB connector system allowing transport of data and power. It is distinguished by it's horizontally symmetrical "reversible" connector

Want to create a picture?

Create a standard to define a grid of a given size, and then a way to define the combination of red, green, and blue color values in each square on that grid, and congratulations - you've invented a bitmap file (or a JPEG, or a GIF, or whatever - all twists on the same idea)

CPU speed is currently measured in:

Gigahertz (GHz), meaning that modern CPUs can perform billions of operations every second. - Also... most modern CPUs are multi-core, meaning that each CPU is actually two, or three, or four, or more CPU's on a single chip.

We now have ____ as a single cable to transmit video and audio from a device to a display/speakers

HDMI

Some mobile CPUs are even designed to...

Have both high-powered cores that can be switched on for processor-intensive (and switched off when they're finished) tasks and low-powered cores that take care of simpler/background operations.

GPUs were originally designed for:

Improving computer systems' graphics (especially 3D) performance

NAND

Is made up of what are called floating gate transistors

iOS devices generally feature...

Lightning ports

Sometimes were use _____ to VGA adapters to connect to old projectors

Mini Display Port

PPW

Performance per watt - is now an important metric

The amount of _______ in a device affects its ability to multi-task, as well as a few other performance metrics

RAM (random-access memory)

What is the fastest possible tool a computer has at its disposal for reading and writing data?

RAM (random-access memory)

Apple has popularized very high resolution displays which it has marketed as...

Retina Displays

Hard disk drives (HDDs)

Sometime called spinning disks because the platters in them spun around very quickly and the data on them was read by a floating head, not unlike a record player

Thunderbolt (interface)

The brand name of a hardware interface developed by Apple and Intel that allows the connection of external peripherals to a computer.

SuperSpeed (SS)

The new transfer rate that can transfer data at up to a 5 Gbit/s, which is about ten times as fast as the USB 2.0

GPGPU (General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units)

The use of a graphics processing unit, which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditionally handled by the central processing unit (CPU)

We mostly use _____ to connect most peripherals to our laptops and desktops right now, but the move to _____ is underway (which will be a very good thing)

USB 3 USB Type-C

The intensity of each pixel is:

Variable

Digital data is...

What we call information that computers can understand.

Bluetooth is managed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG)

Which has more than 30,000 member companies in the areas of telecommunication, computing, networkings, and consumer electronics

How do you take groups of eight bits that are either 0s or 1s and turn them into meaningful information?

You make up some rules! These rules, made up by human beings just like you and me, are called formats or standard.

Each pixel is...

a sample of an original image; more samples typically provide more accurate representation of the original.

We typically group bits together into a...

byte

Regardless of the medium in which you store it...

digital data at the end of the day is just a bunch of 0s and 1s

The address of a pixel corresponds to...

its physical coordinates.

RAM stores information only while a device is....

powered on

Computers send output to displays by...

targeting individual pixels

The rise of SoCs has coincided with...

the rise of mobile electronics. As the devices were use have gotten smaller and smaller, integrating entire computing systems on a single chip has enabled the necessary reductions in size and has also led to efficiency gains.

The goal of Retina Displays is:

to make the display of text and images extremely crisp, so pixels are not visible to the naked eye. This allows displays to rival the smooth curves and sharpness of printed text and immediacy of photographic prints.

If a CPU is a computer's brain, RAM is its...

working memory