HOW PERSONAL COMPUTERS (PC’S) WORK

 

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PREPARED BY

RICHARD NELSON

 

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5/8/07

 

GENERAL

Most people think that computers are very smart. But I gotta tell you they are very, very dumb, but on the other hand, they are very, very fast. So humans have invented ways to make these dumb computers look smart, as well as fast, and that’s a win-win combination. That’s why humans buy them and use them by the millions.

This workshop is about how we humans made dumb computers look smart.

 

COMPUTERS ARE DUMB

As we said, computers are very fast but very dumb; they only know two things zero (0) and one (1) but humans know lots of things like an alphabet and words. So humans figured out a way to make these very fast computers look smart. They figured out a coding system that both humans and computes could understand.

It is called the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). Please see the ASCII sheet attached.

 

Humans have also figured out how to translate analog pictures, voice, and music into zeros and ones. This whole process is called digitizing.

Digitizing pictures into computer graphics is done by using small squares of color called pixels.

Digitizing voice and music is called sampling.

 

POOR MEMORY

Also computers can’t remember anything. So once you turn them off, all your work is gone. Unless you do what we call “save the document” it is gone because the computer memory goes blank when the power is turned off. Humans had to invent storage devices to hold your work when the power to the computer is turned off. Examples of these storage devices are a floppy disk, hard disc drive, USB flash drive, CD-R, CD-R/W, etc

 

BABY STEPS

Finally a computer does not do anything unless you tell it exactly what to do. Notice in the demo below, we have to tell the computer to save the document or print the document. It doesn’t do anything without you telling it to do it.

 

USING MICROSOFT WORD AS A DEMO OF HOW COMPUTERS WORK

 

WHAT IS MICROSOFT WORD?

Microsoft Word is a computer program that is used like a typewriter. You can type in text and it will display it on the screen of the computer.

 

NOTICE BELOW, WHEN IT SAYS CLICK IT MEANS LEFT CLICK

 

STARTING YOUR COMPUTER

TURN ON THE MONITOR BY PRESSING THE BUTTON ON THE FRONT BELOW THE SCREEN; THEN TURN ON THE COMPUTER BY PRESSING THE POWER BUTTON ON THE FRONT PANEL OF THE CONSOLE. WAIT WHILE THE COMPUTER COMES UP IT MAY TAKE QUITE AWHILE. YOU SHOULD SEE THE DESKTOP SCREEN. (IF THAT DOESN’T WORK, HOLD DOWN THE CTRL AND ALT KEYS, AND WHILE STILL HOLDING THEM DOWN, PECK THE DELETE KEY)

 

[Show the diagram of what has happened inside the computer]

 

STARTING MICROSOFT WORD

The easiest way to start the Microsoft Word program from the desktop screen is to single click on the Word icon, and then peck the enter key. In a few seconds you should now have a “Word” screen on your monitor with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the screen.

THE WORD ICON LOOKS LIKE A CHILDS BLOCK WITH A “W”.

 

THE WORD PROGRAM SCREEN DISPLAY

The Title bar

The Menu bar

The Tool bar

The Format bar

The Ruler with its left and right margin settings

The text area with its cursor and vertical scroll bar

The horizontal scroll bar

The Status bar

All Microsoft software has a similar display

 

DETERMINING THE PURPOSE OF THE CURSOR

The cursor is the little blinking vertical line on your screen. The cursor tells you where the next character (letter) will be inserted when you type it in from the keyboard. The cursor has other names like: insertion point and place marker. Actually the cursor marks the insertion point on the text screen..

TYPING IN TEXT

Type in the letter N for the beginning of the word: now and see what happens. What happens is the cursor moves over one space to the right. Next, type in the character o; notice that again the cursor moves one position to the right. Type the character w, and then press the space bar. Notice: that there is a space between the character w and where the cursor is blinking ready for you to type in the next word. Although you learned in first grade that spaces are between words, that is not the way computers work. Spaces are at the end of each word so the computer can tell when you have finished the word. At that point the computer compares the word to its dictionary and if there is a match nothing happens. But if there is no match the computer underlines the word in red. Type in the rest of the phrase: is the time

Now at this point if we were to turn the power to the computer off, all our work of typing in the word Now would be lost.

 

SAVING YOUR NEW DOCUMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME TO “MY DOCUMENTS” FOLDER ON THE HARD DRIVE

This is the easiest, because this is where the computer has been set to save.

 

Using your mouse, go up and click on the “File” button in the upper left corner of the Menu bar. This will give you a new menu.

 

Now click on the “Save as” button. This will give you a dialog box titled “Save As” (PLEASE SEE EXHIBIT ATTACHED TO THE WEB SITE)

 

Notice what is says in the “Save In” box. It says “My Documents”. So this time to make it easy we will save in a Folder on the hard drive called “My Documents”

 

Go down to the “File Name” box. Drag over the words in the File Name box to highlight them. Peck the Backspace key to clear the box.

 

Type in a new name for the document (I suggest you use EXERCISE as the file name and in addition, the date, in year, month, day order for example: 07.05.08

 

Now click the Save Button.

SEEING IF YOU SAVED OK

To check to see if the document saved OK, click the “File” button again, and then click the “Open” button. You should now see your documents name on the screen.

Click on the “cancel” button to get back to you document.

 

DETERMINING THE PURPOSE OF THE I-BEAM

In addition to the cursor there is also and I-Beam on the screen. The I-Beam is the presence of the mouse when it is in the TEXT area of the word processing screen. Notice when you move the mouse the I-Beam moves around the screen. So now we have learned there are two things we have to deal with on a word processing screen, a cursor and an I-Beam.

 

DETERMINING THE PURPOSE OF THE ARROW

However if you move the I-Beam up into the top of the word processing screen, notice it turns into an arrow. This is so you can select a command from the many possibilities from the menu or tool bars.

 

THREE IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

So all in all there are three things that we have to deal with:

1. The cursor

2. The mouse as an I-Beam

3. The mouse as an arrow.

 

TYPING IN MORE OF YOUR DOCUMENT

Without touching your mouse, type in the rest of the paragraph:

for every good students to come to the aid of their school, and now is the time for every good school to come to the aid of their students.

 

NOTICE! See how the computer automatically starts a new line when it gets to the right margin. This is called automatic line folding. Also notice that misspelled words are underlined in red, and grammar problems are underlined in green..

 

SAVING CHANGES TO YOUR DOCUMENT

The easiest way to do this is to hold down the CTRL Key and while still holding it down peck the S Key.

 

PRINTING YOUR DOCUMENT

Before you print your document peck the Enter key once and then peck it again. That will move the cursor down on the page two lines. Now type you first and last name.

Locate the print icon on the top of your screen. It looks like a printer. Click it with you mouse. That will send the document to one of the printers.

 

SHUTTING DOWN YOUR COMPUTER PROPERLY

First do a final save of all the files and documents that you have been working on.

Then close all the applications programs that you have been using.

Now click the “Start” button in the lower left corner of the screen.

Now click “Turn off Computer” or “Shut Down” depending on which version of Windows XP you are using.

 

Filed in Computer Tech folder