Hey all - I've built my last two computers using prior computer build threads here on PA and I have recently been tasked with teaching a class on how to identify parts in a computer in a seven minute presentation.
Here is the deal though, the class I am going to teach this to does not exactly have a lot of experience with computers and I was thinking about giving an analogy to each of the major computer parts to help them understand what they do. I was looking at using the human body as an analogy and here is what I came up with so far....
Case: This can be referred to as your skin. Keeps everything inside as safe as can be
Power Supply: Heartbeat of your computer. Without a heartbeat, you can’t survive. Everything runs off
of your power supply
Motherboard: The central nervous system of the computer. Everything in your computer is connected
To this and the individual parts communicate with each other through the motherboard
Processor: ??
Video Card: Your muscles - how strong and how much strain your computer can take
Memory: ??
Hard-drive: Memory portion of your brain - how much memory or data you can store
CD-Rom: ??
The processor memory and video card have me stumped a bit, any suggestions? Or other good analogies which would help explain each of the parts?
Posts
Memory - your short term memory
HDD - your long term memory
I/O - your senses.
case: skull
processor: prefrontal cortex (where our actual thinking and reasoning and the like happens)
motherboard: frontal lobe (basically organizes information for the prefrontal cortex to sort)
video card: occipital lobe (processes and makes sense of visual data)
sound card: temporal lobe (auditory processing)
power supply: carotid arteries
etc.
Wouldn't that only work if they, er, remember how the brain works? I mean, you're adding a redundant level of explanation yourself:
sound card: temporal lobe (auditory processing) == A = B = C == A = C == sound card: auditory processing.
cd rom is a bit too specific for mouth. And really as with how it functions, it may act like a mouth, but really because it's a means of taking in information, it's closer to being the eyes of the system
it'll handle all the autonomic base functions you don't see going on
whereas the processor is your central nervous system or "brain" all major tasking and intelligence comes from here.
ram is short term memory
hard drive is long term memory
video card is eyes, processes visual information
cd drive is ears, takes in information to be processed by the brain and stored in long or short term memory
power supply is stomach. it takes energy from outside the system (ac/food) and converts it something the system can use (dc/chemical energy)
case is skeleton, defines the form and shape of the system. holds it together, protects the vitals
alternately, to tone down the anatomy side of things, you could refer to the mobo as "internal organs" here are your liver, kidney, intestines, they all are vital to your survival, and connect your various systems together, but all function on a much lower level than the rest of your body.
I think we have a winner.
What does that make the networking card?
in what way does the cd dvd rom drive imbibe sustenance?
the mouth analogy relies purely on visual comparison which makes for a weak analogy.
If a cd rom is a book, the internet would be mass media, with the network card being a tv...