Inside+the+computer

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Building a computer
Watch this video series showing how to build a computer

Investigations
1. Investigate 3 desktop computers:
 * One should be budget (£150 - £449)
 * One should be mid range (£450 - £699)
 * One should be high end (£700+)

What size of processor, memory and backing storage does each PC have?

2. Try and find an advertisement for a computer from the 1980s or 1990s. (a) What was the processor speed? (b) How much memory did the computer have? (c) What size was the hard drive?

3. This investigation should be done in pairs or small groups


 * The average size of an MP3 file is 5MB
 * The average size of a digital photograph is 3MB
 * 1 minute of video (YouTube quality) is 2MB
 * There are 1024 Megabytes in 1 Gigabyte
 * The hard disk drive on Andy's new PC is 250GB in size

(a) Work out how many MB are in 250GB (b) How many music files could the 250GB hard drive hold? (c) How many photographs could the 250GB hard drive hold? (d) How much video (YouTube quality) could the 250GB hard drive hold? (e) Do you think 250GB is a large enough hard drive? Explain your answer.