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Circuits & Switches. Electricity. Formed when an excess of positive or negative particles that are parts of atoms attempts to balance itself= electrical charge If the electric charge has a complete pathway, the charge flows The flow is called the electrical current
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Electricity • Formed when an excess of positive or negative particles that are parts of atoms attempts to balance itself=electrical charge • If the electric charge has a complete pathway, the charge flows • The flow is called the electrical current • The complete pathway is called an electrical circuit • Circuits carry the electricity need to do a defined task • The task is referred to as the electrical load
Recap Electrical charge – potential of electrons or protons to attract each other Electrical current – the movement of electrons from one atom to another Electrical load – any component or circuit that consumes power delivered to it by a power source Switch – any device that allows the flow of electricity in a circuit when turned on -either completes the circuit or pathway (turned on) or breaks it (turned off)
Creating a Circuit You need 4 essential components • Conducting path • Electrical load • Power source • Switch
Circuits • In our homes some circuits are designed to carry electricity through light bulbs to light a room • In a computer, circuits carry information during input, storage, processing and output
Digital Information • Computers use integrated circuits (chips) that include many transistors that acts as switches • Transistors are either ON or OFF • Electricity is either flowing through the transistor or it isn’t, thus a circuit is either OPEN or CLOSED • Something that can have only two states is called binary
Binary • Binary number system represents two states 0 and 1 • There are no 0s and 1s inside the computer • Instead 0s and 1s represent the state of a transistor switch/circuit • 0 = OFF • 1 = ON • The computer industry uses an 8-bit code representing letters and other symbols
Binary (cont’d) • Each letter is given a numerical value that is converted into binary form • Common code used on desktop computers is the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) • This standard uses an 8-bit code used to represent the characters used in written communication