Computer Systems And Forex Trading

The PCI Express standard was created to replace both AGP and PCI slots, with PCI Express 16x and PCI 1x respectively for most implementations. The current implementation of PCI Express allows up to PCI Express 32x.
The reason for the change is that the older PCI cards don't transfer data quickly enough to keep up with modern day gaming, autocad and video editing software.
Think of it this way, there is a tap that is two inches in diameter, but a drain that is only one inch in diameter. The water doesn't drain quickly enough and eventually the sink overflows. Just like a PCI video card.

Most graphic cards produced from about 1998-2004 were AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) cards. They are placed in a certain slot on the mainboard with an extra high data transfer rate. The interface was invented to keep the graphics card away from the PCI bus, which was starting to become too constrained for modern graphics cards.
Every graphic card carries a graphic chip (GPU) and very fast DDR RAM for textures and 3D data. Their data buses have 1X, 2X, 4X, and 8X speeds. The bus is 32-bit, much like PCI.
AGP slots are slightly shorter than PCI slots and often brown in color. A similar type of slot called AGP Pro is longer and has extra power leads to accommodate modern video cards. It didn't really catch on in the mainstream market, and graphics card makers preferred to add an extra power connector to supply the power they needed.

The PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus is the most popular internal interconnect for personal computers. They are usually white in color.
The specification features:
Plug and play configuration (through standardised means for interacting with configuration software)
Standardised electrical connections
Common PCI implementations in desktop PCs feature:
32-bit addressing
33-MHz bus clock
High-end implementations may also feature:
64-bit addressing
"Hot plugging" (the ability to add / remove PCI devices from a running machine)
66-MHz bus clock
(all of these are characteristic of PCI-X)
There have been many revisions and evolutions of the PCI specification over the years. Recently, PCI-X has sought to extend the aging architecture for the needs of modern server-class machines, avoiding some of the performance bottlenecks of previous revisions. The new PCI Express specification seems likely to succeed PCI in all classes of personal computer within the next few years.

A keyboard is an input device which is connected to a computer and used to type instructions or information into the computer. Typically, a keyboard has about 100 or so keys.
Keyboards differ between languages. Most English-speaking people use what is called a QWERTY layout. This refers to the order of the top row of keys. Some foreign languages (i. e. German) use QWERTZ, where the Z and Y are switched.
Many laptop computers do not include a number pad. (There is sometimes a function on the keyboard to enable a numpad-like mode.)
Modern keyboards sometimes have extra controls such as volume, and keys that can be programmed to bring up programs of the user's choice.

A user interface device that can enable different kinds of control than a keyboard, particularly in GUIs. It was developed at the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) and adopted and made popular with theApple Mac. Today, nearly all modern operating systems can use a mouse. Most mice (sometimes the plural is 'mouses' to prevent confusion with the rodent) are made from plastic, and may use a ball to track movement, an LED light, or a laser. Today you can get a wireless mouse that allows you to easily give a presentation with out being tied to a desk. These mouses are usauly LED or Laser based tracking.

DVD-ROM drive
Digital Video/Versatile Disk Read Only Memory (DVD-ROM)
This optical drive works on a similar principle to the CD-ROM, with a laser being used to read data stored in pits on the surface of a reflective disk. DVDs are read using a shorter wavelength of light (a red laser, rather than an infra-red one). In addition to having a greater data-density, DVDs may be double sided and may be "dual layer".

DVD-RW drive
DVD's hold about 4.7 gigabytes and dual-layer disks hold 8.4 gigabytes (dual layer equipment and disks are now becoming more affordable)

CD-ROM drive
Compact Disc Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) is a standard format for storing a variety of data. A CD-ROM holds about 700 MB of data. The media resembles a small, somewhat flexible plastic disc. Any scratch or abrasion on the data side of the disc can lead to it being unreadable.

CD-RW drive
Compact disc Read/Write drives support the creation of CD-R and CD-RW discs, and also function as CD-ROM drives. These drives use low-powered lasers to 'burn' data into the active layer of the disc.
CD-R (Compact disc recordable) discs are 'write once' - once they have been written to, the data cannot be erased or changed. However, multisessions can be created and more data can be added.
CD-RW (Compact disc rewritable) discs can be rewritten or erased multiple times. This is a two-pass process so they typically take twice as long as CD-R discs to produce.
CD-RW drives will typically have three speed ratings - one for reading discs, one for writing CD-R discs and another for writing CD-RW discs. Speed ratings vary from 1x to 52x, where 1x means that a CD is written/read in 'real time' - a 52 minute audio CD would take about 52 minutes to create at 1x speed, and about 1 minute at 52x speed.
The data can be written to the disc in a variety of formats to create an audio CD, a data CD, a video CD or a photo CD. The audio CDs should play on most standard audio CD equipment and the video and photo CDs will play on many consumer DVD players.
Many CD writers (also known as 'burners') are now combination drives which also function as DVD-ROM drives.
Most DVD-RW drives also have CD-RW capabilities.

8" Floppy Disk: In the late 1960s IBM invented the 8-inch floppy disk. This was the first floppy disk design. Used in the 1970s and as a read-only disk it had storage-write restrictions to the people it was distributed to. However, later on a read-write format came about. In today's modern society it is rare to find a computer that uses the 8-inch floppy disk.
5.25" Floppy Disk: This disk was introduced some time later, and was used extensively in the 1980s.
3.5" Floppy Disk: This is the one the oldest and more commonly used storage media listed here. Floppy disks hold from 400KB up to 1.44 MB. 720K(low-density) and 1.44 MB(high-density) with a 3.5" disc are usually the average type found. Floppy disks have largely been superseded by flash drives as a transfer medium, but are still widely used as backup storage.

A printer makes marks on paper. It can print images and text.
The most common types of printers today are
Laser printer: Prints very crisp text, but cheaper models can only print in black and white. Good for places like offices where high printing speed is needed.
Color inkjet printer: Prints photos and other images in color (using 4 colors of ink : cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), but the text they print is often not as crisp as a laser printer.
The average printer of the early 1990s would connect to a computer through its parallel port. To connect it to the computer via parallel port, one would have to screw it into the port. Today many printers are connected through USB. This is because it is easier to connect and remove through a simple plug and play system. It also allows for faster transfer speeds than parallel.

A scanner is a device for digitizing paper documents into images that may be manipulated by a computer. The two main classes of scanner are
hand-held scanners (in which the user manually drags a small scanning head over the document), and flat-bed scanners (which are designed to accommodate a whole sheet of paper, which is then examined by a motorised scanning head).
If the original document contained text, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software may be used to reconstruct the text of the document from the scanned images.

A contraction of "Modulator - demodulator", a modem allows a computer to communicate over an analogue medium (most commonly a telephone line). The modem encodes digital signals from the computer as analogue signals suitable for transmission (modulation) and decodes digital data from a modulated analogue signal (demodulation). Using modems two computers may communicate over a telephone line, with the data passed between them being represented as sound.
Modems are usually involved with dial-up internet services. As broadband catches on, they are falling into disuse. However, the devices used to connect to broadband connections are also called modems, specifically DSL Modems or Cable Modems.

Most modern computers have an "ATX form factor" case in which ATX-compatible power supplies, Mainboards and Drives can be mounted.
The Mini-ITX is much different in important ways unlike its relatives the Micro-ATX and the Flex-ATX. The mainboard size can be up to 170mm x 170 mm which is smaller than the Flex and Micro-ATX can be. Usually at less than 100 watts, the Mini-ITX PSU is energy efficient. The Mini-ITX is also backward-compatible with the Flex/Micro-ATX models.
During the 1980's and 1990's almost all cases were beige, even Apple's Macintosh line. A few rare exceptions to this were black. Only recently have computer case designers realized that there was a worthwhile market for other colors and designs. This has led to all sorts of modifications to the basic design of a computer case. Now it is easy to find cases with transparent windows and glowing lights illuminating their insides.

Flash memory
Some common types of Flash memory cards are CompactFlash, Secure Digital (SD), and xD. There are other formats which have fallen into deprecation, such as Smartmedia and MultiMediaCard (MMC).
Flash memory is faster than magnetic media and much more rugged. The only reason Flash hasn't replaced hard drives is that Flash memory is much more expensive per gigabyte than hard drives.

USB Flash drive
Memory sticks or Flash drives are solid-state NAND flash chips packaged to provide additional memory storage. These drives are quickly replacing floppy disks as a means of transferring data from one PC to another in the absence of a network.

Includes computer monitors and other display devices. CRTs and LCDs are common. LCDs are a more recent development, and are gradually replacing CRTs as they become more affordable. LCD's in addition to being lighter also use less energy and generate less heat.

All computers have some sort of power supply. This converts the supply voltage (AC 110 or 220V) to different voltages such as DC 5V, 12V and 3.3V. These are needed inside the computer system by nearly every component inside the computer.
There will be a bunch of connectors coming off of the supply, called Molex connectors. They come in varying sizes, meant for different applications, such as the motherboard (usually the largest of the connectors), the hard and optical drives (a bunch of medium-sized connectors), as well as the floppy drive (a relatively small connector, also saw usage among videocards in 2004). As newer standards come out, the types of connectors have changed. Many power supplies now come with power connectors for Serial ATA hard drives. These are smaller and are "hot-swappable", meaning they can be removed and plugged in again without fear of data loss or electrical problems.
The power supply also has an exhaust fan that is responsible for cooling the power supply, as well as providing a hot air exhaust for the entire case. Some power supplies have two fans to promote this effect.
It is important to buy a power supply that can accommodate all of the components involved. Some may argue that it is the most important part of a computer, and therefore it is worth spending the money to get a decent one.

Random Access Memory (RAM) is a memory that the microprocessor uses to store data during processing. This memory is volatile (loses its contents at power-down). When a software application is launched, the executable program is loaded from hard drive to the RAM. The microprocessor supplies address into the RAM to read instructions and data from it. RAM is needed because hard drives are too slow to operate with the speed of a microprocessor.
Some of the types of RAM are SDRAM, DDR RAM, Rambus RAM, SIMM, DIMM.

A hard drive consists of one or more magnetic platters or disks and a read arm with two electromagnetic coils for each disk. Each hard disk is divided into many sectors, each containing a certain amount of data. As of now, it is the cheapest and most common way to store a lot of data in a small space.

This is one of the computer hardware that determines the speed of the whole system. The other determining hardware are the RAM and Hard Disk Drive. Single Core CPUs are almost obsolete and are much slower compared to their Dual Core / Quad Core counterparts.

Usually a numeric figure is stated and that is the clock frequency, commonly known as the speed of the CPU. Usually the higher the clock frequency, the faster your data can be processed.

This is the biggest piece of hardware in the system. This is where various other essential components connect onto it, such as CPU, Ram, Hard Disk drive, etc, to it. Modern mid-range mainboard usually comes with add-on component such LAN port, sound card and graphics card.

As other hardware connects to the mainboard, it is important to ensure that the mainboard purchased is of high caliber and has at least the add-on component as stated in the paragraph above.

Does the technical name of different component of a computer, such as RAM, processor, scares you off?

In this blog, we will be covering most of the hardware in regardless of the form size.

Such as:

Mainboard
CPU
RAM
Hard Disk Drive
Graphic Card
Power Supply / Casing
Keyboard / Mouse
Monitor
Optical Devices

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