(When to give credit to other people)
Computer Badge- Hardware
The information on this page is only part of what you need to know for your Computer Badge. Check your Scout Book for the requirments.
HOW TO USE THIS PAGE:
Clicking on a quick link above (ie: CPU) will take you down the page to that item. Click "Top" if you want to jump back to the top of this page.
The information you need to know for your computer badge is below, in the boxes.
If you want to know more about any of the items, click on the "READ MORE ABOUT... " link below some sections. |
What you need to know - CPU
 A CPU - or Central Processing Unit, is a very fast computer chip, containing millions of transistors. It is like the "brain" of a computer he CPU, processes all the information coming in and sends commands out to do things like "print", or "show the image on the monitor" or connect to the Internet. A CPU cannot make decisions like your brain can. It only does what the instructions in the computer programme tell it to.
READ MORE ABOUT CPU
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What you need to know - RAM
RAM - or Random Access Memory -Sometimes called Memory Chips, RAM constantly has information (data) moving in and out of it. It holds parts of your computer's programs and it holds the data you put into it. But it is all temporary! When you turn it off (or if there is a power outage) everything in RAM is lost. So you must always save your data.It One other thing about RAM, or "memory", is that the more memory your computer has the faster it will usually run.
READ MORE ABOUT RAM
If you came back here from Disk Drives, click Disk Drives to go back. |
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What you need to know - ROM
ROM - Read Only Memory, is similar to RAM because it holds data and computer instructions. But a very important difference is that when the power is off, the data in ROM doesn't disappear. "Read Only" means that the computer can "read" the data but it cannot change any of the data on the ROM. Two of the most common examples of ROM are CDs and DVDs! 
READ MORE ABOUT ROM |
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What you need to know - Printer
 Printers...well, they print! Pictures and text. Some can print CD or DVD labels.
READ MORE ABOUT PRINTERS |
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What you need to know - Disk Drive, Flash Drives, Hard Drives, Other Drives
| Disk Drives in general :There are different types of Disk drives.
Disk drives hold disks with data on them. It could be a floppy disk. It could be a Hard Disk which holds the operating system and usually all of your data. It could be a CD or DVD drive.It could even be a disk that is not a disk!
Memory sticks actually have no disks in them but the computer "sees" them as if they were disks. In fact, they are a different kind of memory, called Flash memory. Flash memory acts a lot like RAM by quickly storing and moving data in and out of its memory. But while RAM loses its memory when the power is taken away, Flash Memory keeps the data until you delete it. However, you must be careful about telling the memory stick to "stop" before you unplug it from the computer. If you don't, and the computer is sending (writing) data to the Flash drive, you may lose your data and maybe not be able to use the stick again.
Floppy disks and Hard Disk Drives use magnetic fields to store data.
CD and DVD disks store data in microscopic little "pits" which a laser bounces off, in order to read the data. |
What you need to know - Tape drive
Tape Drives act like Floppy Disks or Hard Drives except they use tape to store (write) and retrieve (read) information, sort of like an old fashioned cassette tape recorder.
READ MORE ABOUT TAPE DRIVES |
(Optional- you do not need this for your badge) If you want to know more about bits and bytes and the size of different hard drive, or you want to explain them to your parents, click Bits and Bytes.
What you need to know -Floppy Disk drive
The floppy disk drive usually isn't available in modern computers, though most computers have a Hard Disk Drive. Floppy drives are small, don't hold that much information, (about 1.44 MB, or Mega-bytes) and use diskettes which have a thin circle of magnetic film inside to record and read data from. If you took the magnetic film out of the plastic casing it is so thin, it's "floppy". |
What you need to know -Hard Disk drive
Hard Disk (sometimes called "HD" or "HDD") Drives are usually about the size of a paperback book and can hold a large amount of data. Most of the time they are inside the computer and you can't see them. The material in a hard disk drive is, well, hard! And it stores much, much more information than a Floppy Disk Drive can. You can also add extra Hard Disks to many computers.
More on Drives |
What you need to know -Optical Disk drive
The third type of Disk Drive is an optical drive. Optical drives use laser lights to "read" data that has been "burned" or pressed into a disk. We know those disks as CDs (Compact Disk) or DVDs . When a computer "reads" data from either a CD or DVD, it shines a laser light into microscopic sized little pits or holes in the disk. The laser light bounces back as a series of pulses that are coded. The computer "reads" those pulses and translates them into sound or video for us.
Sometimes you can "burn" a CD or DVD. If you produce a CD or DVD at home, your computer's CD or DVD "burner" drive has literally burned the microscopic holes into a reflective layer on the disk. When you buy a DVD or CD from a store, almost always the little pits or holes have been pressed into the disk by super-expensive machines in a room called a "clean room".
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More on Optical Drives
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What you need to know - Monitors
Monitors simply let you see what the computer is doing.
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What you need to know - Keyboards
Keyboards: Keyboards have keys, (labeled buttons) which tell a computer which letter or number or symbol you want to use.
MORE ABOUT KEYBOARDS |
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What you need to know - Joystick
A Joystick is a device that usually has a stick pointing up which you move left, right, up and down and all points in between. It is usually the way you control a movement in a video game, even if you use your thumb instead of a stick.
MORE ABOUT JOYSTICKS |
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What you need to know - Mouse
Mouse: A hand held device that sort of looks like a real mouse but lets you control the position of the cursor on the monitor screen.
 They are named that because they kind of look like one of these guys:
MORE ABOUT MICE...MOUSES...Aw, you know! |
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What you need to know - Scanners
A Scanner  is a device that turns printed text, images and pictures or sometimes 3-dimensional objects into a digital image which the computer can then store.The user can also e-mail it, change it with editing software, make it different sizes and shapes. |
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Digital Cameras capture an image on an electronic sensor and store the image in a memory chip. They can do as much as older style film camera and often they can do much more, including recording short bursts of moving video and audio. They record in a digital format that is easily understood by most computers.
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Speakers play sounds from any source in your computer, including DVDs (if you have a DVD ROM deck) CDs, and streaming videos .
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Modem is short for MODulater/DEModulater. What is modulation? Did you ever take a long skipping rope and rapidly wave it up and down so it created waves? Imagine you were "riding" those waves, letting yourself be carried along with them. Those waves were modulations.
Let's say your computer is sending data to another computer. Your modem turns digital information into "analogue" (analog) waves that telephone wires can carry. That is modulation. At the other computer, the modem de-modulates the signal and turns it back into digital information so the other computer can understand it. These computers can go back and forth, yakkity-yak like that for days if you let them!
Modems can also send data over cable TV cables and special wires made for sending computer data.
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What you need to know - Data Projectors
Data Projectors  are often called Video Projectors but they work best at showing computer data. Video signals actually have to be converted into digital signals so the projector can show an image. |
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Scouter Derek
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