ICT skills important notes

Memory and Storage Devices:

Memory in context to computer system, refers to the location of storage of information. The CPU stores the data in the
memory/storage device that can be used or retrieved whenever required.
Memory can be classified into two types:
1. Primary Memory/Main/Volatile/Auxiliary memory: These are called the main memory. It is the part of the cpu which
stores the data. It has limited capacity of storage of data.
Primary memory is of two types.
i. RAM (Random Access Memory): It holds the information temporarily, during the ongoing operation of a computer. RAM
is volatile memory i.e, when a computer is switched OFF or the power supply is interrupted, all the stored information in
it disappears. RAM can be of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB etc.
The different types of RAM are SRAM, DRAM, EDRAM etc

ii. ROM (Read Only Memory) : It refers to as Non volatile memory. It stores a set of predefined instruction for the internal
operations of a computer. BIOS(Baisc Input/Output System) is stored in ROM
Cache Memory: It is a part of CPU and is used when there is swapping of information
between the primary memory and the ALU.

Units of Storage: A computer stores the information in a form of 0 and 1 are also called binary
digits known as Bit
A group of 4 bits is called a ‘Nibble’. A group of 8 bits is called a ‘Byte’.
Different units of storage of data are given in the pic at right side.
2. Secondary Memory: These refer to the permanent storage of data. During the operation of
 a computer, the currently used data leis in the temporary memory.
It has higher storage capacity than the primary storage. There are various types of secondary storage devices.
Magnetic Disks, Hard disk, Optical disc(CD(Compact disc), DVD(Digital versatile Disc), Blu-ray Disc), Flash memory(Pen/flash
drive, memory stick)

Software: Computer can neither think nor work on its own.

It has to be provided with a set of pre-defined instruction which
are written in a computer language. Such set of instruction are
known as ‘Programs’. And these set of Programs are known as
‘Software’.
Software can be broadly categorized as:
Application software
System software
Utility software