CIS 1200 Lecture 6: Understanding and Accessing Hardware

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Computing and Information Science
• Course: CIS 1200
• Professor: John Saville

Document Summary

System hardware: the brains and heart of a computer. Non-volatile storage devices: hard disk drive, usb flash drives, cd & dvd drives. When the computer is turned off, the data stored to these devices is saved. Cis*1200 de w17: optical media: use a laser to read/write data. >> video: how video is displayed depends on two components: your video card and your monitor. Audio subsystem consists of speakers and a sound card. Two types of speakers: amplified speakers (use external power); unamplified speakers (use internal power) Amplified speakers produce better quality sound, however, usually do not adequately reproduce the bass sounds that make gaming and musical scores sound richer and fuller (requires a subwoofer) Sound cards: attach to the motherboard and enables the computer to produce sounds. Most ship with a basic sound card, most of which are 3d sound cards.