What's Inside My Computer?

DRAFT

What's In My Computer?

Imagine a very large corporation or research university. Think of all the functions which go on inside the various offices of that organization and how those functions are accomplished.

There are the usual and quite mundane tasks to be accomplished... answering phones, typing letters, maintaining budget information, and so forth. But in addition, other more esoteric tasks are involved. Such things as data storage, retrieval and manipulation; publications and graphics preparation; publicity and advertising; research and inventory control.

To look further into the various components, let's look at the items of equipment which might be associated with this kind of institution. Well, the obvious: phones, typewriters, calculators, copy machines are easy enough to tick off... but beyond that, such things as slide/movie projectors, tape recorders, light tables, image digitizers, magnifiers, high speed printers, fax machines, photographic equipment and darkrooms, and, of course, the reference materials and specialized utilities to allow efficient functioning of the above.

As you can see, a great many different capabilities are drawn-upon to realize the operations of such a large and diverse institution... costing a great deal of money and employing a great many people.

But just imagine being able to compress an entire major research university and all of its resources and capabilities into a single office area... no, better yet, into a single small package ... say ten inches wide, sixteen inches deep, and sixteen inches tall! Yeah, right!

That's close!

Well... it's been done, and you probably have it right at your fingertips already! The modern Personal Computer is exactly that, especially with internet access.

Sometimes the difficulty in appreciating this fact is not understanding the way your computer is organized to accomplish this incredible range of tasks. To carry the analogy further, let's look at the basic structure and function of your computer.

First, we have to understand that the equipment mentioned above (typewriters, copiers, telephones, etc.) are tools which are designed for the accomplishment of a specific task, or function. As long as we can accomplish the desired task, we don't really need all of the different pieces of equipment. The computer is a very goals-oriented machine... it cares very little about equipment... it cares very much about completion of tasks. If, by encapsulating each of the small steps taken along the way by physical equipment into a series of electronic codes which can ultimately realize the same result, we can cut space requirements to just about nothing. If we do this for each of the particular kinds of output tasks found in our university, we can do away not only with a great deal of equipment, but the buildings to house them as well.

So how does this translate to our computer? Well, the computer is essentially a place to store information. Some of that information is the code equivalents for all of those big bulky items of research and office equipment. Some of the information is the raw material used by those items of equipment -- paper, pens and pencils, film, paper clips, file folders, etc. -- and some of the information represents the huge numbers of filing cabinets in which we store all of those old letters, invoices, reports, mailing lists, budget sheets, etc. as well as the pages we are currently working on and our 'pending action' materials.

In order to accomplish a given task, we make certain choices. To revise a letter, for example, we first determine which piece of office equipment is involved (typewriter) ... we then locate the particular letter we intend to revise (look in one of the file cabinets)... then we read through the letter and begin to make the necessary changes. Much the same process is involved with accomplishing this task on your personal computer. To revise a letter we determine the "PROGRAM" to accomplish the task ... in this case we want to locate the "typewriter" which... as you probably recognize, is a word processing program of some sort. Or, since we will be working with text, in the absence of a full-fledged typewriter, maybe we're dealing with sort of the electronic equivalent of a yellow pad and pencil -- a "text editor."

Perhaps we need to insert a table into our revised letter. In this case, we're not going to be dealing strictly with 'text'... it's sort of like a combination of text and graphics... and the typewriter really isn't the best piece of equipment to use for that. It would really be ideal if we had a graphics plotter in our office which handles numbers and presents them as nice graphically sensitive packages. Well, in fact, we do! It's called a spreadsheet program which can store information in several modes, much like a Rolodex, for example, or a simple list, or a chart.

As you note, there is a full range of capabilities available within your pc... and even more, much like any office where you might ask more than one person to do your photocopying, for example, you find that there may be several "people" who can accomplish the same task on your pc. As has already been pointed out, a text editor or a word-processor or a desktop publishing program may be used to manipulate text.

Graphics may take several forms also: drawings or photographs, for example. In this case photo-editing programs may work with your photos and even some forms of drawings. Drawing (often called "Paint") programs will allow you to edit or create drawings and, in some cases, combine text, photos, and drawings in a single final image. It's not uncommon for a modern PC to have several such programs available... in the event you have four of them, let's call them, for example, Linda, Tom, Jim, and Gloria.... Linda is really good at doing certain kinds of text overlays while Jim does a better job of resizing photographs. Tom and Gloria likewise may have favorite tasks and abilities to which you assign them on a regular basis.

If you are to make efficient use of your PC, you can see that you have to know what equipment you have, where it is located, and who is available to operate it. These 'employees' must, in turn, know where to find the basic drawings or documents or charts or lists with which they are expected to work. These are the items located in your traditional filing cabinets, drawers, and folders.

Thus your task, as the PC operator, is simply to tell Tom to get the advertising brochure from the filing cabinet (cabinet 325, drawer 4, folder Q, subfolder 3, page 7), resize it to 5 1/4 inches by 7 1/2 inches, change it's resolution for the printer to 360 dots per inch, and add two more lines of text. Once he has finished that task he needs to send it over to Lorraine in the printing department and have her generate 6 copies FPO and 2 copies as FO. Your job is simply to make sure that Tom and Lorraine understand their instructions.

Complex in the sense that your employees understand only one simple instruction at a time ... (but they have good memories...) and that you have to be VERY specific when it comes to wording your instructions. Beyond that they are highly motivated, highly loyal, very healthy, and incredibly accurate! That's all there is to it ... oh, don't forget to pick up your two finals and 6 "for position only" copies from the printer's output table.

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