Floppy Disks

By far the most common storage device used with microcomputers is the floppy disk, or the diskette. A floppy disk looks like a 45-rpm phonograph record in a sealed black protective jacket. The jacket has a couple of small openings (in addition to the large spindle hole in the center) that permit the storage unit to “read” the contents of the disk. A disk is much thinner than a record – in fact, thin enough to be flexible, or “floppy”. The disk is made of silver metallized polyester, a kind of plastic, and is magnetically coated rather than grooved the way records are.

A floppy disk usually allows random access. You will remember that the letters RAM stand for “random-access memory”. Just as RAM offers random access to stored data, a floppy disk allows direct access to any data stored on it. Unlike sequential access, random access does not require you to go through everything previously stored.

Floppy disks come in three sizes. Many microcomputers use disks that are 5 inches in diameter. Others are an 8-inch diskette. And some newer equipment uses 3-inch disks.

In order to load the data on a disk into RAM, you need to insert the disk into a disk drive. A disk drive may be built into the computer, or it may be separate from it. The disk drive spins the floppy disk at a high speed. A “head” located inside the disk drive does one of two things. It either “reads” information already recorded or it “writes” new data onto the disk. Because the head performs both of these functions, it is often called a read/write head.

Single disk drives, dual disk drives, and even multiple disk drives are available. One advantage of having more that one disk drive is the increase in storage capacity. You can work with more information at the same time. Another advantage is convenience: you have to do far less inserting and removing of disks than with a single disk drive.

Список рекомендованої літератури

1. Агабекян И.П., Коваленко П.И. Английский для инженеров. – Ростов н/Д: «Феникс», 2002

2. Баракова М.Я., Мкртчян Г.А. Гибкие автоматизированные производства. Пособие по обучению чтению на английском языке: Учебное пособие/Под ред. М.Б.Генералова. – М.: Высшая школа, 1990

3. Коваленко А.Я. Навчальний посібник для шкіл з поглибл. вивч. англ. мови, профільних класів та загальноосвітніх закладів технічного спрямування. – Тернопіль: Видавництво Карп'юка, 2004

4. Лисиця Н.М. та ін. Самостійне читання з англійської мови. – Х.: Основа, 1992

5. www.wikipedia.org

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