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Explaining computers to extremely computer illiterate people...

I

Ikonomi

Diamond Member
I was trying to explain to my friend's father the concepts of RAM and hard drives and the difference between the two. This was after my friend had confused him by telling him a "gig" was like a dollar and he had four 25 cent pieces of RAM in his computer, and then saying he wanted a 200 gig hard drive.

You can imagine the confusion.

The way I explained it was that the memory of a computer is like a desk, and the more memory you have, the bigger your desk is, and the more work space you have on it. So, with more memory, you can do more things at once. I told him that the hard drive was like a file cabinet out of which you took work to do on the desk. When you're not working, the hard drive stores all your files so that you can pull them up whenever.

And he seemed to understand.

I hate simplifying things like that, though, because I find that most people can understand what goes on without those analogies. But my friend's dad is from another generation, and computers are really foreign to him, so that's the best I could come up with. I think it worked out pretty well.
 
Ya I know a chesey one like that. I was in a mac class once (EEEEEK!!!!) and my teacher told me this one about the hard drive being a bucket and the ram is a cup you use to scoop water out of the bucket. Like I said, cheeesy.

-Xionide
 
This is how it was explained to us at school.


Think of data being your food. The CPU is your desk, where you work. On your desk you have room for a very small amount of food, but it's really easy/quick to get to. This is cache.

The kitchen is like RAM. It can hold a lot more food than your desk, and is reasonably quick to get to, it's in another room in your house. But it takes a longer to get there and back than from your desk.

A store is like a hard drive. It can hold LOADS of food, much more than you could ever have in your house, but it's a long way away, therefore it's not that quick to get food from.



That seemed to help everyone get a grasp of it 🙂


Confused
 
just tell them the hamster refuses connections because their internet sucks. the faster the hamster spins the wheel, the faster the content comes.
 
Originally posted by: Sid59
just tell them the hamster refuses connections because their internet sucks. the faster the hamster spins the wheel, the faster the content comes.
Click to expand...

Damn, Comcast must have some fast hamsters.
 
Your desk analogy is a good one- particularly for someone of a generation or two back. I've seen the food one too but it was better for somebody who already knew the basics- otherwise the poor bloke is going to be wondering about food groups and miss the point of the analogy.
 
another analogy of memory hierarchy:

imagine u being in a library..

you are working on a desk, and can open only a couple of books at the same time on that desk

that desk is the RAM, it can only open so many books at the same time

your hands (eyes) is the cache, you can only look at 1 book at a time..

the library shelfs are the hard drives... it has lots and lots of books, but to access the book, you need to search the index, and then find the book (which takes time)

since your desk is full, you have to swap out the books (RAM miss and replacement), and you have to keep swapping the book you are reading (cache miss and replacement)
 
Originally posted by: Ikonomi
I was trying to explain to my friend's father the concepts of RAM and hard drives and the difference between the two. This was after my friend had confused him by telling him a "gig" was like a dollar and he had four 25 cent pieces of RAM in his computer, and then saying he wanted a 200 gig hard drive.

You can imagine the confusion.

The way I explained it was that the memory of a computer is like a desk, and the more memory you have, the bigger your desk is, and the more work space you have on it. So, with more memory, you can do more things at once. I told him that the hard drive was like a file cabinet out of which you took work to do on the desk. When you're not working, the hard drive stores all your files so that you can pull them up whenever.

And he seemed to understand.

I hate simplifying things like that, though, because I find that most people can understand what goes on without those analogies. But my friend's dad is from another generation, and computers are really foreign to him, so that's the best I could come up with. I think it worked out pretty well.
Click to expand...

those are really good analogies.
 
I just tell them that little magic faeries and gnomes live inside and they use their magical powers to change the state of things.
 
Originally posted by: DWW
I just tell them that little magic faeries and gnomes live inside and they use their magical powers to change the state of things.
Click to expand...


I know for a fact that is not true anymore.
 
To hell with analogies, if people can't understand the concepts without a sugar coating, tough :evil: Yes, I'm an angry nerd 😉
 
Originally posted by: Confused
This is how it was explained to us at school.


Think of data being your food. The CPU is your desk, where you work. On your desk you have room for a very small amount of food, but it's really easy/quick to get to. This is cache.

The kitchen is like RAM. It can hold a lot more food than your desk, and is reasonably quick to get to, it's in another room in your house. But it takes a longer to get there and back than from your desk.

A store is like a hard drive. It can hold LOADS of food, much more than you could ever have in your house, but it's a long way away, therefore it's not that quick to get food from.



That seemed to help everyone get a grasp of it 🙂


Confused
Click to expand...

IB your overweight... :kekeke: j/k Good analogie.
 
I usually just go with:

"Nevermind, you won't understand anyway."

I get so sick of explaining the same thing over and over to people who in the end, have no clue what i just said anyway.
 
Originally posted by: Confused
This is how it was explained to us at school.


Think of data being your food. The CPU is your desk, where you work. On your desk you have room for a very small amount of food, but it's really easy/quick to get to. This is cache.

The kitchen is like RAM. It can hold a lot more food than your desk, and is reasonably quick to get to, it's in another room in your house. But it takes a longer to get there and back than from your desk.

A store is like a hard drive. It can hold LOADS of food, much more than you could ever have in your house, but it's a long way away, therefore it's not that quick to get food from.



That seemed to help everyone get a grasp of it 🙂


Confused
Click to expand...

Nice explanation. I wish that were how it was explained at my school. Professor dang well failed everyone because his explanations were so confusiong.
 
Jiminy Christmas, too many analogies. How about RAM is high-speed short-term memory, and hard disk is low-speed long-term storage. I think with a little bit of explaining, any moderately intelligent person could understand the benefits and reasons for having both, no matter how computer illiterate they are.

I'm with Cattlegod though, I hate it when people ask for help with computers.
 
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