Talk:Computer Hardware

鼠 says: there's nothing in here about ribbon cables.....

The assumption that a Computer == IA32 PC is a bit strange. Maybe generalize it a bit? Or else a general description of a Von Neumann computer architecture and then other sections which show how this is implemented in different designs?

Please note also that you can make computers which are radically different from the Von Neumann architecture. Thinking Machines Connection Machine comes to mind. At least point out what you mean with computer in this book.

Duplicating Wikipedia information?
I've checked in a few updates to this book recently but it strikes me that a lot of this information is already in the Wikipedia. Are there any policies on pulling stuff in from Wikipedia? Obviously it's OK licensing-wise but could make maintenance somewhat tricky, since there'll be two copies of the information... Any thoughts / suggestions?

Target audience ?
Are we simply describing what all these components *do*, for the target audience of people who considering buying system A vs. system B and need help decoding the specifications ?

Or are we going to go on and describe how to install/replace these components, for the target audience of people who are considering upgrading their computer, and perhaps building an entire system from scratch ?

-- DavidCary 21:08, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Suggestion
Hi,

I've a suggestion on how to improve this page. I remember my computer hardware course at EPFL 5 years ago. Although the material was a bit old (678k oriented), the general layout was very good, beginning by a very general description speaking about CPU, Memory, IO and their connecting buses. I suggest doing something like this for this page. The IA32 oriented part could be a section.

Another question not really connected to this, but is there any kind of support for vector graphic in wikipedia's based wikis? It would be cool to be able to put svg graphics for schematic. It would also be cool to have a standard graphic line.

Steph

--Nct 09:03, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, SVG is supported. See XML - Managing Data Exchange/SVG for lots of examples of svg images on a wikibook page. --DavidCary (talk) 02:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Updated Connectors
220.101.28.25 (talk) 13:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * 'Internal Connectors' relating to SATA drive data and power cables
 * Motherboard power connectors ie ATX +12v, PCIE connectors etc.

RAM
This info. "RAM is needed because hard drives are too slow to operate with the speed of a microprocessor." Does not seem correct. RAM is required to hold programs and data for the CPU to access it. HDD is for 'permanent' storage, not for working with data or executing programs.

The data in the RAM is being constantly changed, such as screen displays. I don't see how it would be possible to operate directly from the hard drive. It would NEVER be fast enough as the data has to go though several(?) interfaces & cables.

Remember a HDD is a mechanical device. CPU are running at billions of operations per second. Even a Solid State (Flash RAM) Hard Drive possibly couldn't keep up. AND Flash RAM has a limited number of Read/ Write cyles. (Less than a HDD?)

You can run a computer without a HDD. But NOT without RAM. Person who wrote this may be being confused by use of HDD for virtual 'memory'? 220.101.28.25 (talk) 14:20, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Book merge
I plan to merge this book with sections of How_To_Assemble_A_Desktop_PC. This book does not have any relevance anymore, its purpose taken over by the other book.--Leaderboard 18:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Quick glance - I don't see anything that stands out as needing to be merged. Only thing that isn't in the other book is AGP, PCI, ISA cards, and that would likely be plopped in the archive section (or under a new appendix.) The appendix A also appears to have all relevant stuff in the other book, or otherwise be placed into a legacy section too. I think it's safe to do a redirect. --69.165.153.247 (discuss) 19:42, 5 October 2019 (UTC)