Shopping for a home Computer

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

If you want a computer primarily for playing games, you should once again be looking for good graphics and a broad software base. Bear in mind, though, that most popular games are written for more than one computer, so don't let the availability of a particular game sway you too much. After all, when you tire of that game, what's to take its place?

For the more serious computer user, there are software packages for record keeping and for information processing. For these applications, a clear display of characters is more important than graphics capability. In computer lingo, a machine's record-keeping software is called a data base, and its information processing falls under the guise of a word processor or a spreadsheet. Don't let the jargon throw you: Word processors handle words, and spreadsheets manipulate numbers (it could as well be called a number processor). A knowledgeable salesperson can explain the capabilities of each and help you anticipate your needs.

COMPUTER MEMORY

If you're going to be using your computer for one of the more serious applications—which involve processing and sometimes storing data—you'll need to know about computer memory. There are essentially two types: permanent and temporary.

Permanent memory usually refers to the amount of information that can be stored on a program diskette. These plastic packages—which measure about 1/8" thick and 5-1/4" square—contain a round platter coated with magnetic material, usually iron oxide. This material records electrical impulses that the computer can recognize as program information. The maximum amount of data a diskette is able to store varies, depending on the make and model of computer.

Temporary memory will probably be the more important of the two types for your purposes. It resides inside the computer in an area called RAM (Random Access Memory), and is so named because it has no particular pattern to it. This memory is managed by the computer itself—you have no direct control over it—and is used to store bits of information as a program executes.

Let's say, for instance, that your software program lets you enter a sequence of numbers from the keyboard (it could be anything from a phone number list to the amounts on checks you've written). The numbers will undoubtedly be used in a subsequent process, but for the time being they just need to be put somewhere. So the computer places them in RAM. As the numbers are needed, the computer fetches them from the temporary memory and plugs them into the program.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print