What is form factor?
ANSWER
Form
factor is the shape and size of the motherboard/system case (Chassis).It is the
physical layout of the motherboard. It has to do with the shape and size of the
motherboards and the power supplies that they use. The various form factors in
use are:
Personal Computer- Extended
Technology (PC-XT):
This form factor was the first type introduced by IBM. It has chips like
interrupt controller and clock generator. It also has socket for placing
processor. Its PC slots are meant for plugging peripheral devices.
AT (Advanced Technology) and Baby AT
(Advanced Technology): AT
form factor was the first small-sized motherboard made by IBM. Before its
invention other IBM computers uses big size motherboard. So the main advantage
of this form factor is the motherboard. It is 12 inches wide. But due to its width, it overlapped to the
drive bays causing disturbances. To solve this problem, the “Baby AT” form
factor was introduced. Now the width of the motherboard was reduced from 12
inches to 8 inches.
Baby AT
form factor was designed to accommodate peripheral devices like video, mouse
and keyboard. They are to be connected to a board plugged in the expansion slot
on the motherboard. Its disadvantage comes with the memory sockets at the front
of the motherboard. So the form factor could not accommodate the combination of
processor, heat sink and fan. Cooling of the whole system was done by the power
supply which is purposely meant to blow out air from the chassis. In order to
maintain better air flow across the CPU and to have more power output, there is
a need for a more advanced Form factor.
ATX (Advanced Technology Extended)
and Micro ATX form factor: This
came with the introduction of a specific location for Mouse, Keyboard and Video
connectors. The expansion cards were placed in a separate riser cards in the
motherboard. It has a single pin connector for power supply and limited
overlapping between drive bays and motherboard. From a signal on the MOBO the
system can be turned on and off. System noise is reduced.
LPX and Mini-LPX: These are non -standard factors used
in low profile computers. The disadvantage is that troubleshooting is very
difficult because of its non -standardization features.
NLX: Designed for low profile computers
and has small size motherboard. It has support for new and fast changing
processor technology.
Serial communication and
parallel communication
Serial communication is a type of data communication
that uses serial ports to transfer one bit of data at a time. Data in serial
communication are divided into bits and are sent sequentially. At getting to
the receiving end, the bits gathered and data is rebuilt. The communication
channel is a physical wire which connects the devices (the sender and receiver)
together. In transferring data over a long distance, serial communication is
required because it is better.
Serial
communication operates in different modes. They are:
Synchronous Mode: This mode is used in conditions
where two computers of the same speed transfer data at a very high speed. The
baud rate selected for this type of communication is dependent on transmission
line and rate of both the sender and the receiver.
The
communication modes under Synchronous mode are:
·
Simplex Communication: This is a unidirectional
communication where the sender is not aware if the receiver is ready for
communication or not. No acknowledgement is sent back. Eg Public announcement
systems like TV and radio.
·
Half Duplex Communication: Here data is sent in both ends but
not simultaneously. Eg walkie-talkie.
·
Full Duplex: Here there is a two-way
communication simultaneously. Eg. Telephone calls.
Asynchronous Communication: This is used for communication
between slow speed device and the computer where synchronization between sender
and receiver is needed before transmission. The sender sends the “start”,
“data” and “stop” bit are sent to trigger, send data and end communication.
Parallel communication is a type of data communication
using 8 wires and parallel ports where transmission of data is made easy. It is
not suitable for long distance. Data is transferred as bytes and it is costly.
It is faster than serial communication.
Advance processor with their
examples
ANSWER
The
advancement in technology has brought about a refinement in the invention of
microprocessors. The advanced processors are 80286 Processor, 80386 processor,
80486 processor and other Pentium processors.
The 80286
is a 16 bit Intel processor. It consists of registers and ALU of 16 bit. The
address bus has a width of 24 bit, operates with +5Vand can access 16MB of
memory. It operates in real and virtual modes. In the real mode, it behaves
like like 8088 and uses 1GB virtual address space in protected mode. It has the
ability of fetching and decoding another instruction while one instruction is
on the run. It also supports virtual memory.
The 80386
is a 32 bit processor that operates both in real and protected modes with 80286
processor in protected mode. It can access 4GB physical address space and has
object code compatible with 8088 and 80286 processors.
The 80486
is a 32 bit processor has a co-processor for 80486 DX inbuilt. It can generate
and check parity and has 8Kb cache memory inbuilt. It has the ability to write
data even when bus is not freed up. It supports emergency bus release and
demand and burst bus cycle. It supports burst cycle and emergency bus
demand/release by an external bus master like co-processor and daughterboard. It
has inbuilt numeric data processor for performing floating point operations. It
also supports write buffers where data are written before CPU bus is freed up.
Pentium
processors is an improvement of 80486 where some new features are introduced.
It has two separate cache memory of 8Kb each to support data and code. Parity
logic is present for both address bus and internal data bus. It also has the U
and V pipelines and each is 32-bit and has 64-bit data bus. There is also a
support for burst cycle.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon