Define Computer Hardware and Software and State their similarities
Define Broadband and Baseband transmission State their similarities
Define CDROM and Floppy Disk State their similarities
Define Microprocessor and ROM State their similarities
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Hardware is the physical or tangible parts of a computer system. This encompasses motherboard, CPU, expansion cards, peripherals such as monitor etc. The hardware is the parts of a computer that carry electrical (or optical etc) signals between the input, output, processor and storage devices. Hardware is generally made by professional manufacturers.
Software is the digital instructions or data that a computer needs to operate. It is the software that supplies the instructions for the hardware to operate. These instructions and data are held on hard disks, floppy disks, CDROM, pen drives etc. Software may be held temporarily in RAM during the operation of a program. Any user may write software. Software can be system software, application software and data.
Similarities and Differences: Software supplies the information required by the hardware for the computer to operate. Both software and hardware are needed for a computer to operate.
b) Broadband uses analogue signaling and is more expensive than baseband. Its strength is its capacity. It can carry a wide variety of traffic on many channels simultaneously using FDM. This technology is more complex than baseband and needs fine-tuning to operate at optimum performance. Broadband systems use
modems at each end of the channel which are more expensive than the digital transceivers of baseband systems.
Baseband uses digital signaling which by its nature uses the entire frequency spectrum of the cable. Each node’s signal is applied directly to the medium. Only one transmission can be handled at any one time. TDM is used in baseband signaling. It is cheaper than broadband and much simpler to implement and get running.
Similarities and Differences: Both can carry several users‟ traffic across one medium. Baseband is cheaper than broadband.
c) CD-ROM is a plastic platter containing concentric circles of information that have been formed into the surface of the disk by a moulding technique. It is written once and cannot be altered. Its capacity is around 650 Mbytes although higher capacities up to 800 MB are available. These disks are commonly used for data or music. The information is stored optically, bits being represented by reflective pits formed on the reflective surface of the disk. CDRW disks are also available that can be written to many times.
Floppy disk is a magnetic disk protected within a plastic sleeve. The information is held in concentric circles known as tracks. It may be read to and written from many times. Its capacity is 1.44 Mb, although 720 K byte disks are still in use. It is commonly used to store small files such as word-processed files. The information is stored magnetically in the form of dots on the disk surface.
Similarities & differences: These are both used for data storage although the data capacity of the floppy disk is much smaller than that of a CDROM. A floppy disk may be written to but a CDROM cannot once it has been created.
d) A CPU is the Central Processing Unit that forms a computer. This microprocessor is a microchip that is at the heart of a microcomputer system. It takes instructions from memory (the program) one at a time and performs the actions specified by the instructions on the data that has been supplied/ defined. Microprocessors are often measured in MHz which refers to the clock speed of the processor. It describes the number of cycles per second that the CPU is capable of performing. It has temporary storage areas known as registers to hold intermediate results.
ROM is Read Only Memory. It is a non-volatile storage space used to store boot commands for a computer. It has much smaller storage area than RAM. It is a microchip held on the motherboard. Its contents cannot easily be altered. It is used at system boot but not once the system is booted.
Similarities and Differences: CPU carries out mathematical and logical operations. ROM stores data for boot purposes. Both are microchips held on the motherboard.
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