Computers
as a Second LanguageComputers
as a Second LanguageHardware and Software
STORAGE
DEVICES Whether
you are writing a letter with a computer, entering accounting records,
or drawing a picture, your work is sitting inside the computer's memory
or RAM. If you want to store your efforts for future retrieval, you must
copy the work from memory to a storage device before
turning the computer off. This process is called SAVING
your work. When your work is saved it creates a computer FILE.The
most common storage devices are hard disks and floppy disks. If you
only save your work on the hard disk you are
taking a serious chance, because hard disks are prone to eventual
failure. Hard disks can also be erased by nasty computer programs called
viruses. It's very important to back up your important
files onto other media, such as floppy disks.Today's
floppy disks are 3.5 inches in diameter and they are
enclosed in a rigid plastic shell. Their storage capacity is 1.44
MB. Older floppy disks that were 5.25 inches
in diameter are now considered obsolete.It
could take dozens of floppies to back up all the files you originally
saved on your hard disk. Fortunately, several new products have arrived
on the market for storing greater amounts of information. One popular
item is the ZIP drive (from Iomega Corporation). This
drive uses a disk or cartridge just slightly larger
than a 3.5 inch floppy but capable of storing 100 MB
of data! Similar products are available from SyQuest Corporation. These
devices can be installed inside the computer case or connected outside
the computer via a special cable.For
archiving or backing up the entire contents
of your hard drive, a tape drive is a good bet. Like the ZIP drive or
SyQuest drive, tape drives can be mounted internally or used externally.
Tape cassettes can be purchased with large capacities (1 GB,
2 GB, 4 GB), so the entire contents
of your hard drive can easily fit onto one tape.Another
useful storage device is the CD or Compact
Disc. The new CD drives can record and store
approximately 650 MB of data. Blank recordable CDs are
priced reasonably around $2.00 to $3.00,
but the recordable CD drives are still expensive -- around $500.00.All
computers today come with CD-ROM drives. These drives
cannot be used for recording -- they can only be used to retrieve the
data that's pre-recorded on them by the manufacturer. The term CD-ROM,
which stands for Compact Disc
Read Only Memory,
is rather misleading. These disks have nothing to do with memory. They
should have been called CD-ROS, for Compact
Disc Read Only
Storage, because they are a storage medium NOT
memory. Read Only simply means they
cannot be recorded onto.CD-ROM
drives are usually part of the computer's multimedia
configuration. The CD-ROM unit is connected to a sound card.
The sound card contains an output jack for hooking up external stereo
speakers. This combination is capable of delivering CD-quality sound.
Today, many software programs are manufactured on CDs (especially games)
and they take full advantage of the high fidelity sound capabilities. |
