KS3 Computing/Hardware/Storage

Why do we need storage?

What do we need to store?

=Computer Storage= This chapter is concerned with the role of memory in the modern computer.

Pre-Homework
Get hold of a shared web page unique to your class. EG set up at [|Pinterest] (account needed). On that page, produce a list of things related to school that you need to store. - Extension: Categorize your list into how you store things.

Class Discussion
In class, share and discuss your lists

Description of store from the ICT (user) point of view.

Finding Out Activity
If we agree that a computer can store all sorts of things - how does it do it? This was the problem that faced the first pioneers of computing. By chance someone observed that Looms, from the fabric industry, were controlled using data storage on cards with holes punched in them. This allowed the pattern to be loaded into a loom line by line as the material was produced. Babbage's design used punched cards to set mechanical switches to store a series of instructions and numbers, allowing his design to perform a basic set of maths (add, subtract, etc.).

His second machine, the Analytical Engine used 1000 banks of levers able to store a 40 digit number each and filled a room. This huge machine could store less information than would be needed to display the text in this chapter of this book.... but the problem of scale was soon to change.

Class Activities
The following is a list of tried and tested classroom activities.

LMC Kinaesthetic
Be A computer!

LMC App
The LMC app shows how a computer uses the fetch - decode - execute cycle to pull instructions and data from memory.

Electronic Store of Data
Electronics has revolutionised the mass storage of data, as the switches used are so small - in some cases just a few atoms in size. The rate of progress of miniaturisation is known as Moore's law But how are switches used to store data, e.g. a picture - how does that happen? Read the chapter on Data Representation to find out.