Discovery Page

There are some things I did not know about computers before I started this assignment. One of them  is how computers store data. Computers store memory in three basic places: the primary storage (which includes the CPU and the Main Memory Unit), secondary storage (Which includes the Mass Storage Devise), and tertiary storage (Which includes removable media drives and removable medium). Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, is technology using component and recording media used to keep digital data. Early computers used delay lines, William tubes, or rotating magnet drums as primary storage. IN 1954, those unreliable ways were replaced by magnetic core memory. Core memory was mostly used until the 197 0 when advances in circuit technology let memory become economically possible. This led to modern random-access memory (RAM). It is small-sized, light, but quite expensive. (The particular types of RAM used for primary storage lose the information when not powered).

Another thing I did not know about computers is how they get viruses. The most common way computers get viruses is by E-mail attachments. People with bad intentions transmit viruses in order to infect computer users. You should always be careful when you open up an E-mail especially from people you don’t know. Some viruses can even trigger themselves by seeing the infected E-mail. This is not common though. So make sure the anti-virus software that you are using is set to monitor your E-mail. Other kinds of viruses will try to duplicate themselves by finding holes in the network to attach themselves to a shared network resource. The most venerable network resources are file folders. It will detect a shared folder and try to duplicate itself in it to infect the computer. A worm is a virus that will just try to duplicate itself. It is possible to stop this by adding a need for permission to access the folder.

The last thing I did not know before I started this webquest is how computers send messages over the internet. Computers send information through the Internet by dividing the data to send into small chunks (“packets”) and transmitting them to the other computer. This all happens without you doing anything. The web browser, email program, etc. all take care of these low level details. When your computer wants to send to another computer, it creates the packet, then places the other computer’s address in the destination address of the packet, places its own address in the source address of the packet, and then sends the packet off, either directly to the destination computer, or to a nearby router that takes responsibility for routing the packet. I have searched the internet for these things and I have rewritten what I have found. However I cannot take credit for figuring these things out by myself.