Computer Measurement Units - Hertz, Bits & Bytes

CPU (Central Processing Unit)

Talking about the heart of the computer we have to know how fast its “heartbits” are J. In this case we measure the speed of the computer in hertz. 1 hertz or Hz is one cycle per second. In one cycle we can actually execute one single command.

Let me put a big parenthesis here and say few words about how the computer works. Even though we can read and see everything in human readable format, a computer system understands the binary system only. The binary system consists of two values only, which are 0’s and 1’s. If we were to show that in a graphical way then it would be seen like the graph bellow:

Common Input / Output ports - Computer Port

In this section we will identify few common computer ports.

What is a computer port? A computer port is a hardware interface that is used to connect a device to the computer.

• The first and most commonly used port, everyone should be aware of it's the USB port.It is one of the most common computer ports and looks like this one (see picture on the right USB - Common Computer Port). USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. USB was designed to standardize the connection of computer peripherals, such as keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, digital cameras, mobile phones, smart phones, network devices and many more. In addition to communication, USB can supply electric power. Supplying electric power to devices does not only allow us to connect peripherals to send and receive data but to charge the device us well or to provide the electric power needed to operate the device without the need to provide external power.

Input, Output & Storage Devices Quiz

The following quiz will help you revise and see what you remember from the article

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A computer network is two or more computers connected together using a wire. Computers on a computer network can be linked together using other means, such as: Wi-Fi or fiber optic. A computer that is connected to the network is called "workstation" or "online". A computer that is not connected to a network is called "standalone" or "offline".

What’s so special about computer networks? They can share devices, files and many more. All of which you can read on How to identify a computer network, its advantages and disadvantages.

Computer networks are derived into two main networks. Those are LAN and WAN. LAN stands for Local Area Network and WAN stands for Wide Area Network. Then from LAN we have WLAN. W stands for Wireless so that makes it Wireless Local Area Network. Let us see in more detail these two main categories.

LAN

LAN: the letters LAN stand for Local Area Network. When the computers are fairly close to one another. An example would be a computer class. Another example would be an office in a building that has two or more computers connected together. There are no restrictions on the size of the local area network. Basically you cannot say that a network less than 300 meters is called LAN whereas a longer network is called WAN. No you can’t say that. Another example could be that two buildings 100 apart one from the other are connected together, obviously belong to the same organization, do form a Local Area Network.

This is an example of a Local Area Network implemented within a building. There are three floors on the building. The first floor, second floor and third floor are all connected together, meaning the computers on each floor are all connected with one another.

Figure 1 – LAN – Local Area Network