Basic Parts of a Computer
Hardware
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Central Processing Unit(CPU) – this is what executes the binary code on your computer. It gets its information from the RAM and then sends instructions to the other parts of your computer such as the graphics card, network card, or the hard drive. The CPU can store data on it using something called registers. Long story short this is actually how most instructions are evaluated. They are moved to the register and then the CPU directly performs operations on them.
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Motherboard – this is the main hub of your computer. Without it nothing would ever turn on in the first place because it houses the BIOS. All devices generally connect to this board in one form or another.
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Hard Drive – most people boot from their hard drive so this is a necessary device. It holds your computers Operating System and all files you have.
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Monitor – this displays the computers visual output.
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Speakers – this synthesizes the computers audio output.
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Keyboard – characters input by the user through this device.
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Mouse – freehand movement is read through this device.
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Monitor – this displays the computers visual output.
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USB Ports – this allows devices using the USB specification to connect to your computer.
Software
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Basic Input Output System(BIOS) – The BIOS is the first piece of software to run when your computer is turned on. Once the BIOS chip receives power it runs POST which “Power on Self Test” to make sure all devices are receiving power. Then depending on your settings it looks for a boot sector on either a floppy disk, CD, USB device, or hard drive. Without the BIOS your computer is interoperable.
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Boot Loader – most people do not know this exists on their computer. That black screen you see right after BIOS but before you see the windows logo load is the bootloader. Basically this exists because the BIOS can only load 512 bytes which is how large a boot sector is. A kernel is much larger than this so a boot loader’s only job is to load the kernel. Boot Loaders can be designed so that you can do something called dual-boot but that will be explained in a different section. A popular open source boot loader is GRUB.
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Operating System – Your operating system is most likely either Windows, some form of Mac, or Linux. The operating system is what provides all the graphical features you see and ability to run programs, access the internet, and play music. Without it your computer would turn on, but not do anything useful.
admin | 
July 26, 2009 1:50 pm
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