Computer Science 9608 Resources By Muneeb Khalid

Chapter 3

Hardware

PROM
 A Programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM) is a type of ROM chip that can be
altered once.
 A PROM is made up of a matrix of fuses.
 Programming a PROM requires the use of a PROM writer which uses an electric
current to alter specific cells by ‘burning’ fuses in the matrix.
 Due to the method of programming, a PROM can only be written to once.
 They are often used in mobile phones and in RFID tags.
EPROM
 An erasable programmable read-only memory is different to a PROM because they
use floating gate transistors and capacitors rather than fuses.
 Ultra violet (VU) light is used to program an EPROM through a quartz window.
 They are used in application which is under development, such as programming of
new games consoles.

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 Computer Science 9608 Resources By Muneeb Khalid

Lahore Grammar School | Roots Millennium | The City School | HND Computing TMUC
 Computer Science 9608 Resources By Muneeb Khalid
Stept how to read data from hard disk drives
1. The application program executes a statement to read a file.
2. Application program passes file read request to the operating system.
3. The operating system begins to spin the hard disk, if it is not currently spinning.
4. In the relevant directory file, the operating system looks up the track and sector where the
file begins.
5. The head moves to the correct track.
6. The hard disk drive waits for the correct sector to arrive under the head.
7. The head reads the first cluster of sectors from disk and writes data into the disk buffer.
8. While the file continues, the head reads successive clusters of sectors from the disk and
writes data into the disk buffer.
9. When the hard disk drive has read the file, it generates an interrupt.
10. The operating system transfers the contents of the disk buffer to the application
program’s data memory.

Basic internal operation of Hard Disk Drive.

1. The hard disk has one or more platters made of aluminum or glass
2. Each surface of the platter/disk is ferrous-oxide which is capable of being magnetized
3. The platters/disks are mounted on a central spindle
4. The disks are rotated at high-speed
5. Each surface of the disk has a read/write head mounted on an arm positioned just above
the surface.
6. Electronic circuits control the movement of the arm and hence the heads
7. The surface of the platter/disk is divided into concentric tracks and sectors
8. One track in one sector is the basic unit of storage called a block
9. The data is encoded as a magnetic pattern for each block
10. When writing to disk, a variation in the current in the head produces a variation in
magnetic field on the disk
11.When reading from disk, a variation in magnetic field produces a variation in current
through the head.

Internal Operation of Touch Screen.

Resistive:
1. Resistive (screen) consists of two charged plates upper layer of polyester (a form of
plastic) and a bottom layer of glass.
2. When the top polyester layer is touched, the top layer and bottom layer complete a
circuit
3. Completing the circuit
4. Point of contact registered
5. Coordinates used to calculate the position

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 Computer Science 9608 Resources By Muneeb Khalid
Benefits:
i. Relatively inexpensive technology.
ii. Possible to use bare fingers, gloves fingers or stylus to carry out an input operation
Drawbacks:
i. Screen visibility is poor in strong sunlight.
ii. Does not permit multi-touch capability
iii. Screen durability is only fair.
iv. It is vulnerable to scratches and the screen wears out through time.

Capacitive:
1. Made up of many layers of glass that act like a capacitor creating electric fields
between the glass plates in layers
2. Capacitive (screen) made from materials that store electric charge
3. When touched charge transferred to the finger
4. Sensors at the (screen) corners detect the change
5. Point of contact registered
6. Coordinates used to calculate the position
Benefits:
i. Medium cost technology
ii. Screen visibility is good even in strong sunlight
iii. Permits multi touch capability
iv. Screen is very durable; it takes a major impact to break the glass
Drawbacks
i. Only allows use of bare fingers as the form of input.
ii. Although the latest screens permit the use of special stylus to be used.

Laser Printers
1. Data from the document is sent to a printer driver
2. Printer driver ensures that the data is in a form that the chosen printer can
understand
3. Check is made by the printer driver to ensure that the chosen printer is available to
print (is it busy? Is it off-line? Is it out of ink and so on)
4. Data is sent to the printer and stored in a temporary memory known as a printer
buffer.
5. Printing drum given a positive charge. As the drum rotates, a laser beam scans
across it removing the positive charge in certain areas, leaving negatively charged
areas which exactly the text/images of the page to be printed.
6. Drum is coated with positively charged toner (powdered ink). Since the toner is
positively charged, it only sticks to the negatively charged parts of the drum.
7. Negatively charged sheet of paper is rolled over the drum
8. Toner on the drum sticks to the paper to produce an exact copy of the page sent to
the printer.
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 Computer Science 9608 Resources By Muneeb Khalid
9. To prevent the paper sticking to the drum, the electric charge on the paper is
removed after one rotation of the drum.
10.The paper goes through fuser (a set of heated rollers), where the heat melts the ink
so that it fixes permanently to the paper.
11.A discharge lamp removes all the electric charge from the drum so it is ready to
print the next page.
Inkjet Printers
1. Data from the document is sent to a printer driver.
2. Printer driver ensures that the data is in a format that the chosen printer can
understand.
3. Check is made by the printer driver to ensure that the chosen printer is available to
print.
4. Data is sent to the printer and stored in a temporary memory known as a printer
buffer.
5. A sheet of paper is fed onto the main body of the printer. A sensor detects whether
paper is available in the paper feed tray if it is out of paper, an error message is sent
back to the computer.
6. As the sheet of paper is fed through the printer, the print head moves from side to
side across the paper printing the text or image. The four ink colors are sprayed in
their exact amounts to produce the desired final color.
7. At the end of each full pass of the print head, the paper is a advanced very slightly
to allow the next line to be printed. This continues until the while page has been
printed.
8. If there is more data in the printer buffer, then the while process from stage 5 is
repeated until the buffer is empty.
9. Once the printer buffer is empty, the printer sends an interrupt to the printer
processor in the computer, which is a request for more data to be sent to the printer.
The process continues until the whole of the document has been printed.

10.Thermal Bubble:
i. Tiny resistors create localized heat which makes the ink vaporize.
ii. This causes the ink to form a tiny bubble.
iii. As the bubble expands some of the ink is ejected from the print head on the papers.
iv. When the bubble collapses, a small vacuum is created which allows fresh ink to be
drawn into print head.
v. This continues until the printing cycle is completed.
11.Piezoelectric
i. A crystal is located at the back of the ink reservoir for each nozzle.
ii. The crystal is given a tiny electric charge which makes it vibrate.
iii. This vibration forces ink to be ejected onto the paper and the same time more ink is
drawn in for further printing.

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 Computer Science 9608 Resources By Muneeb Khalid
Working of Microphone
1. When a sound is created, it causes the air to vibrate.
2. When a diaphragm in the microphone picks up the air vibrations, the diaphragm
also begins to vibrate.
3. A copper coil is wrapped around a permanent magnet and the coil is connected to
the diaphragm using a cone. As the diaphragm vibrates, the cone moves in and out
causing the copper coil to move backwards and forwards.
4. This forwards and backwards motion causes the magnetic field around the
permanent magnet to be disturbed, including an electric current.
5. The electric current it then either amplified or sent to a recording device. The
electric current in analogue in nature.
6. The sound wave is then converted into digital form using ADC(Analogues to digital
converter).

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