TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN COMPUTERS

           Taking advantage of a computer’s ability to calculate and process information at speeds well beyond human’s capability can be very beneficial to business organizations or anyone.  As a new computer user, it is always valuable to know the characteristic of each computer parts.  This detailed computer analysis will give a basic knowledge of the characteristic for each component, such as Hard disk, Floppy disk, RAM, CD ROM, Tape, and Flash drive.  These components are also known as storage devices.  Additionally, it will entail the technological advancements in computer speed.  The objective of this article is to help understand the fundamentals behind computer performance.  After reading this article, you will know the different types of storage devices and their functions, and as well as the speed of the computer.

           Computer technology has affected society and its surroundings in many ways.  It has changed the way people live and do business.  The computer capabilities have seen remarkable improvements in the last 30 years and will continue to do so at a high rate.  Personal computer or PC as a common terminology used in today’s environment.  The advancements in computer, communications, networking, and host of many other technologies will continue to reflect an impact on the PC industry (Technology Trends, 2010).

Computer Storage Devices

            The advancements of computer’s storage devices have changed for smaller and more capable memory tools as well.  The various types of storage devices are useful for variety of situations.  In these highly dynamic and ever changing computing environments, the hard disks are the major storage devices used.  It allows the computer to store information permanently, and offers high performance, large capacity, and high reliability (Jeng, 2011).  A Floppy disk is a hard-shelled 3.5-inch disk that was used to store temporary data.  Because of its small storage size for holding up to 1.44 megabytes (MB) and not very reliable, Floppy disks are no longer appropriate for temporary storage.  Random access memory (RAM) is the computer’s main working memory, which used for storing information temporarily, and can be accessed directly by the Central processing unit (CPU) via the processor’s high-speed external data bus.  The information on the RAM does not retain its contents when the computer is switched off.  Compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM) is an optical drive that reads data stored on CDs.  It is designed to store data in the form of text, graphic, and audio sound.  Tapes were used as music storage devices, and cars no longer equipped with tape players.  Compact disks and MP3 players are the appropriate ways for storage in today’s environment.  A Flash drive is a compact device that uses USB port for plug-and-play.  The data stored in memory, and it is faster than floppy diskettes and zip drives.  Flash drives are nonvolatile, which means that once the file saved in the drive, the file will not be lost when the computer switched off.  It is used best to transferring files, and backing up smaller files (Ferrer, 2003).

Example of computer lay-out.

Technological Advancements in Computer Speed

            There are a variety of storage devices that directly affected the computer performance.  The amount and quality of random access memory (RAM) can significantly improve a computer speed.  The computer needs to be balanced by having a motherboard, central processing unit (CPU), and hard disk to support the RAM.  More RAM will be used in certain operating system and application as well.  Probably the most common measurement of computer speed is the clock speed.  Clock speed directly impacts the speed at which data can move around the motherboard.  The typical clock speed range from several million cycles per second to several hundred million.  Some of the fastest computers have been in the rates of about a billion cycles per second (Computer, 2011).  Basically, the more cycle CPU outputs, the faster the computer is.

Example of motherboard

            Because the speed of a computer relies on aspects of CPU, memory, and graphics, a hard dive can have a serious affect in stability and performance.  Adding bigger hard drive will not increase speed of the computer, but it will increase the performance.  The same manner in compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM); it does not increase the speed of a computer.  It only determined the performance of the CD-ROM drive.  CD-ROM drive uses laser to read stored data on CD, and transmitted to the motherboard (Hample, 1994).  The computer will be able to read and copy data from CDs more quickly if equipped with faster drive.  Another optical drive that will not have an effect on the speed of the computer is Floppy disk.  Because it lacks storage capacity and not very reliable, it is no longer appropriate for use.

           In closing, computers have been around for a long time.  There have been dramatic increased in computer devices and speed, network capacity, and the Internet speed. These advances have paved the way people live and do business.  There is no telling what may be next on the horizon, but for certain, computers are the waves of the future.  

References

Chapter 3.0, PC Technology Trends, (2010). Worldwide PC Market (pp. 25-41), Computer Industry Almanac, Inc.

Computer, (2011). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6^th Edition, 1. Retrieved from website: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/computer.aspx

Ferrer, D., (2003). Try today’s Hip technology portable FLASH drives. (cover story). Computers in Libraries, 23(10), 10.

Hample, S. (1994). CD ROM delivers the data. Marketing Tools, 1(7), 44.

Jeng, Y., (2011). What is the future of disk drives? ACM Computing Surveys, 43(3), 1-27.