Personal Computers: An Age of Information
Personal computers have revolutionized the way we gather, interpret, share, and store information on a daily basis -- It's almost hard to imagine a life without them. In order to understand personal computers, we first must understand their components. Personal computers are made up of a display, CPU, RAM, keyboard, and a hard drive, motherboard, among others. The display is the central information visual that illustrates the media or data at hand. The CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the "brain" of a computer. According to the course lecture, it "processes the software instructions, which are stored in memory as digital data". RAM, or Random Access Memory, temporarily stores the necessary data and manages the demand on the CPU and is made of integrated circuit chips on silicon. RAM allows for fast information access, but it can be volatile and lead to crashes if overloaded. It is rapidly overwritten with new information as the opera