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Hardware

A computer's hardware components are the parts you can touch. Computer hardware is the physical part of the computer. The smallest hardware component that can still perform computations is the computer chip. A computer chip is composed of semi-conductors and tiny wires laid out on top of thin wafers of silicon. Layers of wire and semi-conductors sandwiched between layers of silicon comprise a computer chip. The semi-conductors can be configured to represent either a 0 or a 1 when electricity is supplied to them. The configuration of most computer chips cannot be changed once they are built and most kinds of hardware are thus said to be 'hard-wired'.

Examples of computer hardware would include:

  • Mainboard
  • Basic Input Output System (BIOS)
  • Central Processing Unit (CPU)
  • Memory (RAM)
  • Video Processor
  • Sound Processor
  • Hard Drives
  • Floppy Disks
  • Disk Drives
  • CD-ROMs
  • DVD-ROMs
  • Adapter Cards

 

Primary Components

Chassis Components

PERIPHERALS