Parallel ATA

Parallel ATA (PATA), originally ATA, is an interface standard for the connection of storage
devices such as hard disks, solid-state drives, floppy drives, and Optical disc drives in computers.
The standard is maintained by X3/INCITS committee. It uses the underlying AT Attachment
(ATA) and AT Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) standards.

The Parallel ATA standard is the result of a long history of incremental technical development,
which began with the original AT Attachment interface, developed for use in early PC AT
equipment. The ATA interface itself evolved in several stages from Western Digital's original
Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) interface. As a result, many near-synonyms for ATA/ATAPI
and its previous incarnations are still in common informal use. After the introduction of Serial
ATA in 2003, the original ATA was retroactively renamed Parallel ATA.

Parallel ATA cables have a maximum allowable length of only 18 in (457 mm). Because of this
length limit the technology normally appears as an internal computer storage interface. For many
years ATA provided the most common and the least expensive interface for this application. It
has since been largely been replaced by Serial ATA (SATA) in new systems.

Floppy Disk Drive

A floppy disk drive is a hardware device that reads one of the first
types of portable data storage media -- floppy diskettes, also
known as floppy disks. Over the years, like many other aspects of
personal computing, these disks got smaller and smaller, but
increased their capacity. As they changed, the floppy disk drive
also changed. But as newer storage technologies are developed
and the floppy disk becomes increasingly outdated, the drives that
read them are becoming increasingly rare as well.
Optical Disc Drive
In computing, an optical disc drive (ODD) is a disk drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic
waves near the light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical
discs. Some drives can only read from discs, but recent drives are commonly both readers and
recorders. Recorders are sometimes called burners or writers. Compact discs, DVDs, and Blu-
ray discs are common types of optical media which can be read and recorded by such drives.

Optical disc drives are an integral part of stand-alone consumer appliances such as CD players,
DVD players and DVD recorders. They are also very commonly used in computers to read
software and consumer media distributed in disc form, and to record discs for archival and data
exchange. Optical drives—along with flash memory—have mostly displaced floppy disk drives
and magnetic tape drives for this purpose because of the low cost of optical media and the near-
ubiquity of optical drives in computers and consumer entertainment hardware.

Disc recording is generally restricted to small-scale backup and distribution, being slower and
more materially expensive per unit than the moulding process used to mass-manufacture pressed
discs.
Motherboard
In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board (PCB) in many modern
computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, while providing connectors
for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the main board,
system board, or, on Apple computers, the logic board.[1] It is also sometimes casually shortened
to mobo.

A motherboard, like a backplane, provides the electrical connections by which the other
components of the system communicate, but unlike a backplane, it also connects the central
processing unit and hosts other subsystems and devices.

A typical desktop computer has its microprocessor, main memory, and other essential
components connected to the motherboard. Other components such as external storage,
controllers for video display and sound, and peripheral devices may be attached to the
motherboard as plug-in cards or via cables, although in modern computers it is increasingly
common to integrate some of these peripherals into the motherboard itself.
An important component of a motherboard is the microprocessor's supporting chipset, which
provides the supporting interfaces between the CPU and the various buses and external
components. This chipset determines, to an extent, the features and capabilities of the
motherboard.

Modern motherboards include, at a minimum:

 sockets (or slots) in which one or more microprocessors may be installed

 slots into which the system's main memory is to be installed (typically in the form of
DIMM modules containing DRAM chips)
 a chipset which forms an interface between the CPU's front-side bus, main memory, and
peripheral buses
 non-volatile memory chips (usually Flash ROM in modern motherboards) containing the
system's firmware or BIOS
 a clock generator which produces the system clock signal to synchronize the various
components
 slots for expansion cards (these interface to the system via the buses supported by the
chipset)
 power connectors, which receive electrical power from the computer power supply and
distribute it to the CPU, chipset, main memory, and expansion cards.

The Octek Jaguar V motherboard from 1993. This board has 6 ISA slots but few onboard
peripherals, as evidenced by the lack of external connectors.

Additionally, nearly all motherboards include logic and connectors to support commonly used
input devices, such as PS/2 connectors for a mouse and keyboard. Early personal computers such
as the Apple II or IBM PC included only this minimal peripheral support on the motherboard.
Occasionally video interface hardware was also integrated into the motherboard; for example, on
the Apple II and rarely on IBM-compatible computers such as the IBM PC Jr. Additional
peripherals such as disk controllers and serial ports were provided as expansion cards.

Given the high thermal design power of high-speed computer CPUs and components, modern
motherboards nearly always include heat sinks and mounting points for fans to dissipate excess
heat.
CPU sockets
Main article: CPU socket

A CPU socket or slot is an electrical component that attaches to a printed circuit board (PCB)
and is designed to house a CPU (also called a microprocessor). It is a special type of integrated
circuit socket designed for very high pin counts. A CPU socket provides many functions,
including a physical structure to support the CPU, support for a heat sink, facilitating
replacement (as well as reducing cost), and most importantly, forming an electrical interface both
with the CPU and the PCB. CPU sockets can most often be found in most desktop and server
computers (laptops typically use surface mount CPUs), particularly those based on the Intel x86
architecture on the motherboard. A CPU socket type and motherboard chipset must support the
CPU series and speed.

Hard disk drive

A hard disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile, random access device
for digital data. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven
spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read
from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a
film of air above the platters.

Introduced by IBM in 1956, hard disk drives have fallen in cost

and physical size over the years while dramatically increasing in
capacity. Hard disk drives have been the
dominant device for secondary storage of data in general purpose
computers since the early 1960s. They have maintained this position
because advances in their areal recording density have kept pace with
the requirements for secondary storage. Today's HDDs operate on
high-speed serial interfaces; i.e., serial ATA (SATA) or serial attached
SCSI (SAS).
Floppy Cables
Floppy drive cables look a lot like IDE cables except that they are a little narrower, have only 34
conductors, and have a twist at the end of the cable that attaches to the drives. They may have
from two to five connectors: one to attach to the motherboard, and as many as four drive
connectors.

Why as many as four? Well, prior to the advent of hard

drives, most PC's had two floppy drives (A: and B:), both
of which were connected to a single controller by the
same cable. When the ancient 5.25-inch floppy drives
were replaced by 3.5-inch drives (which have different
connectors), cable manufacturers began including both
types of connectors on floppy drive cables. So the same
cable could have one connector for the motherboard, two
connectors for 5.25-inch drives, and two connectors for
3.5-inch drives. But the total number of floppy drives is still
limited to two; the "wrong" connectors simply go unused.

Since few computers today have two floppy drives (most don't
even have one anymore), and most of us haven't seen a 5.25-
inch drive in years, most floppy cables manufactured in this
century have only two connectors: one end gets attached to a
3.5-inch floppy drive, and the other end gets attached to the motherboard.

CMOS battery
The memory and real-time clock are generally powered by a CR2032 lithium coin cell. These
cells last two to ten years, depending on the type of motherboard, ambient temperature and the
time that the system is powered off, while other common cell types can last significantly longer
or shorter periods, such as the CR2016 which will generally last about 40% as long. Higher
temperatures and longer power-off time will shorten cell life. When replacing the cell, the system
time and CMOS BIOS settings may revert to default values. This may be avoided by replacing
the cell with the power supply master switch on. On ATX motherboards, this will supply 5V
standby power to the motherboard even if it is apparently "switched
off", and keep the CMOS memory energised.

Some computer designs have used non-button cell batteries, such as

the cylindrical "1/2 AA" used in the Power Mac G4 as well as some
older IBM PC compatibles, or a 3-cell NiCd CMOS battery that
looks like a "barrel" (common in Amigas and older IBM PC
compatibles), which serves the same purpose.
Power supply unit (computer)
A power supply unit (PSU) is the component that supplies power to the other components in a
computer. More specifically, a power supply unit is
typically designed to convert general-purpose alternating
current (AC) electric power from the mains (100-127V in
North America, parts of South America, Japan, and
Taiwan; 220-240V in most of the rest of the world) to
usable low-voltage direct current (DC) power for the
internal components of the computer. Some power
supplies have a switch to
change between 230 V and
115 V. Other models have
automatic sensors that
switch input voltage automatically, or are able to accept any
voltage between those limits.

The most common computer power supplies are built to conform

to the ATX form factor. This enables different power supplies to
be interchangeable with different components inside the computer.
ATX power supplies also are designed to turn on and off using a
signal from the motherboard, and provide support for modern
functions such as the standby mode available in many computers. The most recent specification
of the ATX standard PSU as of mid-2008 is version 2.31.

Random-access memory (RAM)

Random-access memory (RAM) is a form of computer data
storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow
stored data to be accessed in any order (that is, at random).
"Random" refers to the idea that any piece of data can be returned
in a constant time, regardless of its physical location and whether it
is related to the previous piece of data.[1]

The word "RAM" is often

associated with volatile types of
memory (such as DRAM
memory modules), where the
information is lost after the power is switched off. Many
other types of memory are RAM as well, including most
types of ROM and a type of flash memory called NOR-Flash.