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"So you're buying a new computer?"
An Introduction to Computer Hardware
The first thing you should be aware of when buying a computer is that vendors
and computer people don't use English to describe computers. They
use a great deal of jargon that you need to be able to translate into English
if you are to make an informed decision when buying a new computer.
The next thing to know is that any computer you buy will be technologically
obsolete in, at most, two years. What does "technologically obsolete"
mean? It means that two years after you buy a computer, computers
will be better, faster and less expensive.
Technology is evolving so fast that there is no way around this. But
we didn't just say "obsolete" because you don't need to update to the newest
technology day by day to have a computer that serves your
needs.
So what does this all mean? First, that it is nearly impossible to
wait for the right computer to come down in price -- because by then, someone
will tell you that the computer you've been waiting for is
obsolete. And they won't be lying. Second, you can get a
computer that will fulfill all your needs for a reasonable price now.
Of Pentiums and 486s, of SXs, DXs and MHz
The first words out of the mouth of vendors will usually be one, or a
combination of, the words above. They refer to the processor speed
and strength. Thus you'll hear "this is a 486DX, 66 megahertz" or
"it's a 133 megahertz Pentium" or "This one? Oh, well, it's a fantastic deal
for a 286SX/24...." The processor (a.k.a. Central Processing Unit or
CPU) is the part of the computer that does all the work.
For most people, the most important quality of the processor is its speed -
which is related to the its strength. Early computers had 286
processors. 386s replaced those and were top of the line for a while,
until 486s came out. Now the top of the line is the Pentium.
The numbers aren't important to understand (and in fact, often you'll see the
whole number which looks like 80286, 80386, etc. -- usually we just chop off
the 80). Just know that you don 't want a 286,
a 386, or a 486. You need to get a Pentium.
DX/SX refers to whether the computer had a math coprocessor
that allowed the computer to do certain things more
efficiently. SX machines are no longer available.
Pentiums do not use the DX/SX lingo. Due
to better technology, the coprocessor is integrated into the
the CPU.
Megahertz (MHz) is the label for speed. Again,
understanding isn't as important as just knowing that the
bigger the numbers, the better. You will be
upset by how slow a 300MHz system is, and amazed by how
fast an 800MHz system is.
To wrap it all up with some examples: a PII 500MHz means
that the processor is a Pentium 2 and it runs at 500MHz
(which is somewhat fast). The XXXMHz Pentium 3
(PIII) is a very fast top of the line machine.
And the 486/133 is a 486 processor (i.e. not good)
and it runs at 133MHz (i.e. slow) -- which means that you
shouldn't pay anything for it.
RAM - Random Access Memory
Likely to be the next words out of our friendly vendor's
mouth are the words "It's got ____ megs of RAM."
What the vendor is referring to is memory. A
quick lesson on memory is helpful here:
Basically, there are only two kinds of memory: RAM and the
hard drive. Imagine RAM as your desktop that
you work on, and the hard drive as your file cabinet
across the room. RAM lets your computer handle
chunks of information and work with them. More
RAM means the computer can handle more work and data at
once. Less RAM means the computer has to do
large tasks in small chunks, which slows everything
down. Imagine you have a very small desk, and
you want to build a huge model ship. Since your
desk isn't big enough to hold all the parts and the
in-progress construction, you'll have to work on one part
of the model, then take it off your desk to work on another
part. Thus it'll slow you down. Now
imagine that you went out and got a huge desk that holds
the entire model, and all the parts, and all your
tools. Now you can work much faster, being able
to see everything, and having everything at your fingertips.
The small desk is to a small amount of RAM (and I'll
explain later what's a lot and what's not), and the big
desk is analogous to like a lot of RAM.
Now imagine that you like to keep all your finished models,
all your new models, pictures of all your models, and model
magazines. You'll keep them in the file cabinet.
If you have a big cabinet, you can store a lot of
your model things. If not, you have to throw
stuff out. This file cabinet represents your
hard drive. It stores everything your computer
contains. Once it's full, you must either throw
some things out (by deleting them from the hard drive) or
get a new hard drive.
Take one last thing from this analogy. Having a
big cabinet does not help you if your desk is too small.
Similarly, once your cabinet is full, it's full
regardless of how big your desk is. Same goes
for RAM and the hard drive. The biggest hard
drive in the world won't substitute for having a small
amount of RAM, and all the RAM in the world won't help a
full hard drive.
So, our friendly vendor said "It's got ____ megs of RAM".
When she says "megs" what she means is megabytes
(which is abreviated MBs). Here again, the key
is the size of the number -- 256 is barely passing,
512 is better, and more than that is awesome if you can
afford it. When you buy software, most likely
it will tell you how much RAM it requires to run (check
the side of or the bottom of the box). If you
don't have enough, you can't run the program. If
the program asks for 512 and you have 256, you're out of
luck. And if you have just enough to run a
program, you will notice it runs much slower than if you
have twice as much (remember the desk analogy).
The moral here is that there is no cure for a lack
of RAM other than more RAM. The nice thing is
that you can add RAM to your computer at a later date.
Unlike hard drives, you can just plug in more RAM
(most computers will have a maximum limit to the RAM they
can have). RAM is cheap, so try to get as much
as you can afford in the beginning.
Hard drives are simple: bigger is better. The
relevant term here is GBs. One MB is one million
bytes and one GB is one billion. So what's a
lot and what's not? Less than 9GBs is not a
lot of space. A good word processor may take up
15-20MBs. If you use a lot of graphics three
elaborate pictures may take up 1 MB. It adds up
fast. Now 9GB is common, and 36GB is getting to
be standard. More than 9 GBs should take care
of the average user.
CD ROM and other Drives
CD ROMs are standard. You'll be hard pressed to
find a new computer without one. If you do, you
should factor in the cost of buying a CD ROM into the
purchase price because software products are released on
CDs now. The question is speed. CD
ROMs are measured in multiples -- 2x, 4x, etc. As
you can probably guess, the key is the size of the number.
Don't get anything less than 16x -- too slow.
You're not hurting yourself by getting a
16x, but if you can afford get a faster one then buy it.
Currently, there are only two or three other drives you may
hear about (drives are the devices that you insert
diskettes of different varieties into). The
first is 3-1/2" floppy. This is for the little
square diskettes, and is standard on all computers, and some
software is still released in that format. The
next is called a tape-drive. This is specifically
for backing-up your entire hard drive (which means saving
the entire contents of the hard drive to a special tape).
It is a good idea to back up your critical data
files. While most PCs now come with a restore
disk, you will still need to reconfigure your system to
fit your needs.
The latest drives are zip-drives, DAT tape drives, and
drives for disks that can hold 100 MBs of information.
None of these will be standard for some time because
companies are still fighting to develop a standard format.
It probably won't matter until after you graduate
from law school, at which time something new will be
standard.
Modem and Ethernet Card
The modem is a big feature because of the Internet.
If you want in on the Internet, you need a modem.
Modems are used to connect your computer to another
computer for the purpose of transfering data. The
faster your modem, the faster this happens.
Modems are referred to by numbers that represent speed
(more or less; don't worry about the technical aspect of
what the numbers mean). The early ones were 1200
bps (bits per second). Later came 2400, 9600,
14,400 (or 14.4 pronounced "fourteen four"), and 28,800
(or 28.8 pronounced "twenty-eight eight"). You
now can purcahse 56,000 bps (pronounced 56K), cable, or DSL
(Digital Subscriber Line) modems. Faster is
better. The interesting thing about modems is
that no matter how fast your modem, if you connect to a
computer with a slower modem, the session will run as fast
as the slowest of the two modems, e.g. if you have a 56K
and connect to a computer which has a 28.8, the session
will run like both computers have 28.8. 56K is
now the standard, although there are a lot of 28.8s.
You may also have the choice between an external or
internal modem. This is not really a big issue
for you. If you want to save desk space, go
internal. If you like to see the gadget and the
status lights, get an external. There won't be
a loss in performance between the two. External
modem usually cost a bit more than an internal modem.
Whereas a modem tells your computer how to talk to another
computer over a phone line, an ethernet card tells your
computer how to act like a computer on a network.
At Kent, you need a modem to access your email and
some other Kentnet services. An ethernet card
would allow you to bring a laptop into the school, plug it
into the network and act just like one of the desktop
computers already in the school. Complicated?
Well, the long and the short of it is you don't need
an ethernet card unless you really really want to use your
own laptop and access the Kent network while you work in
the school. Then it's a matter of whether that
use is worth the money.
Monitor and other devices
Monitors are interesting creatures because they come with
their own world of designations, letter combinations that
follow the name, and other confusing information.
What do you want? First, color, of course.
SVGA might as well mean "pretty colors"!
VGA will also do the trick, by not as nicely as
SVGA. CGA means "very, very old".
Bigger will cost you more money and more space.
A 15" monitor is standard and sufficient for most law
school students.
The other big "bells and whistles " add-on is multimedia
which is a general term used to refer to a lot of things:
mainly sound, but also gadgets that let you take pictures,
record video movies, record and edit sounds, and all kinds
of other stuff. But the thing that is likely to
come with a computer, and something you should look for to
add a little fun to the computer, is the sound card.
16-bit sound cards are available. These
allow your computer to make some pretty amazing noises,
and also allow nice quality playing of music CDs, etc.
The 32-bit sound cards are higher quality.
Most users will not notice the difference between 16
and a 32 bit card. If you plan on doing
anything musical with your computer, consider the 32 bit.
Printers
It's hard to sum up the printer world, but we can at least
direct you about a few things. First, they are
much't cheaper than a few years ago. In addition,
they are starting to take on double and triple duties -
e.g. they now make printers that can also do photocopying,
faxing and scanning. Next, you can choose
between color or black and white. Color slows
printers down, and the majority of people don't need it.
The cartridges are going to cost you more and
will probably run out faster too. Unless you
know you're going to do a lot in color, black and white
should be enough.
One of the key factors is speed. When you're
down to the last minute before your paper is due, you don't
want to be printing on a printer that can only print one
page every two minutes - particularly when your papers are
30 to 40 pages long. Look for at least four
pages per minute.
Laser or inkjet? Probably the most impact this
decision will have is on price. Inkjet printers
print a fine quality - probably not very noticeable when
compared to laser printers. But the prices will
be quite different. You'd be well served by
viewing your printer decision as having a bit more
permanence than the computer itself -- i.e. think a bit
more long-term as printers tend to last a long time.
Cost. Inkjets can be purchased as low as $100.00,
and laser printers will probably run around $500 and up.
Expansion bays, slots, ports and towers
Just a quick note on this. If you ever wanted to
add one of the cool new drives, or just a tape drive, your
computer needs to have an open drive bay. Most
computers should come with extra drive bays (i.e. ones with
nothing in them); don't settle for just one. Two
should be very common. There are also expansion
slots. These are places to put expansion cards.
Some things that require expansion cards are new
drive types, multimedia gadgets, etc. Again,
computers are sure to have at least one, likely two. Try to get three, but
don't pay too much to do so. Ports are places to plug things into
the back of your computer. There are parallel, serial, ps2, and so
on. Whatever you are likely to need, the computer will have it.
It's doubtful you will find a computer with too few ports. At the
end of this, we'll list some things, but you won't have to pay out the ear for
them.
And finally there are towers. This is actually a computer style.
If you've seen a computer that stands vertically on the floor (and you don't
have to put disks in sideways), that's a tower (or mini-tower, which is the
more common style now). The nice thing about these types of
computers is that they have ample room for additional drives and accessories
(i.e. ample bays and slots). Your garden-variety desktop model may
have the space, but often they are limited to what they can offer.
If you make sure you get the other things mentioned above, then style is just
a matter of taste.
Software
This is the free stuff (or less expensive stuff). Since everyone is
trying to win the market, likely you'll be offered a lot of basic software.
Trust that what you need to run the computer will be there. And you
can count on it being pretty much the same from one vendor to the next, so
there's not much to worry about. Plus, at Kent you'll get most of
the software you need to do your school work, with the exception of word
processing software - although you will be able to use certain word processors
on Kentnet, you'll probably want one for your own computer, and that's
something you must buy yourself. Just see if anyone offers stuff
you particularly like, then maybe try to haggle to get it thrown in.
Support and Warrantees
Although this is listed last, it is one of the most important elements.
Ask, and consider the support package/plan that comes with the computer.
You will have problems with your computer (remember Murphy's Law...), and a
good support plan will be ready to help you. Last I checked, Dell
still offers around the clock service, and guarantees fast responses.
Others have undertaken similar plans. Also look for warrantees, and
widely available places to have the computer fixed. If you have a
lot of problems, a good vendor may even replace the computer. Pay
close attention to this aspect when considering computers -- it may be the best
investment of your money.
Odds and Ends
You will see a couple things that may not make sense, and we'll try to give
you a rough idea of what's going on. When you see the word cache
vendors are talking about a device that will speed up the way programs run on
your computer. The cache is a pocket of memory (it may be listed as
256K or 512K; this is not part of your RAM or hard drive) that keeps the most
recent things you've been using on your computer (e.g. a document).
That way, when you want that thing again (let's say you worked on a different
document, and want to work on the first one again), it's right at the computer's
fingertips for fast retrieval. Don't scrimp on other things to get
this feature.
Video memory (a.k.a. VRAM which stands for video RAM)is yet another memory
device (likely to be around 1 to 4MBs; this is not part of your computer's RAM
or hard drive) that is used specifically to help your monitor and to speed up
the use of graphic images. Again, don't scrimp on other things to
get this.
We hope this helps your shopping. As always, if you have any
questions, call the CLC (312-906-5300), or email
HELPDESK.
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