Computer Hardware Components

Topics
• Input
• Processing
• Storage
• Output
• Cabling devices
 Computer System
• A system generally is an organized collection of parts
(or subsystems) that are highly integrated to
accomplish an overall goal.
• A computer system has three main components; the
hardware, software and Liveware.
• The hardware components are the physical items,
the software components are the programs that
instructs the hardware components to perform a
particular task and the Liveware is the user of
the computer without which the computer cannot
function
 User

Software

Hardware
 Computer Hardware Components

Computer hardware is the physical,

tangible parts of a computer.
It includes the keyboard, monitor, disks
wires and chips.
These can be put into five categories
namely input, processing, storage, output
and cabling devices as illustrated in the
figure below
 Computer Hardware Structure

CPU
Control Unit
unit

Input Output
Input unit Arithmetic-logical Output
Bus bus
unit unit

Data bus

Memory Main
memory
Secondary
storage
 Input devices
• Input devices are used to input data. They are further
classified as keying, pointing, scanning speech recognition
and other input devices.
i. Keying Devices
• Apart from keypad (a miniature keyboard used by small
computers like calculators, palm notes, mobile phone, etc)
and numeric keypad (used specifically for numbers 0-9 and
mathematical operations) and the keyboard.
ii. Pointing Devices
• Pointing devices are devices that input data by controlling a
pointer on the screen. They include the trackball (used in
laptops), joystick (commonly in video games), light pen(find
use in palmtops) and the mouse (commonly used)
 The Mouse
The mouse comes with either two or three buttons with a long data cable as
shown in the figure
Gentle movement of the mouse over the mouse pad rolls the roller beneath
the mouse causing a corresponding movement of the mouse pointer to the
desired location on the screen. You will come across the following
terminologies when using the mouse
Left button
Data cable

Roller

Centre button

Right button

i.Point: move the mouse pointer to the desired location.

ii.Click: press and quickly release the left mouse button. A click often selects
an item on the screen or opens a program.
iii.Double click: two quick successive clicks. It is used as shortcuts to open
a document.
iv.Drag: click and hold while moving the pointer to a desired location
v.Drop: release the mouse button after dragging.
vi.Right-click: press and release the right mouse button. Used as short cuts
 Input devices
iii. Scanners
Scanners devices that read data in the form of text,
drawings, images and pictures into digital form to be
processed and be manipulated by a computer. These
include optical (mark-end character recognition,
imaging systems and bar-code readers) and magnetic
scanners (magnetic ink character recognition-cheques
and magnetic stripe recognition-ATMs and credit cards)
 iv. Voice input. Data in the form of spoken words are
input into the computer using a microphone.
v. Other Input Devices include touch screen, digitizers
and digital cameras
 Central Processing Unit (CPU)
The CPU is the brain of the computer where all the computer
processing and operations take place. There are three main
parts
i. Control Unit (CU) controls the operations of the CPU by
directing all the activities in the CPU.
ii. Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU) does all the arithmetic and
logic operations such as calculations and comparisons. ALU
has temporary locations called registers that hold data just
before processing and results after processing. They include
storage, accumulators, instructor and address registers.
iii. Memory: Though not exactly part of the CPU, it stores all
programs and files that are currently in use by the CPU. It
consists of two types; ROM and RAM
 Memory
Read Only Memory (ROM) is the permanent memory written by
the manufacturer and can only be read but not written by the
computer. It contains the programs that start the computer
Examples are MROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, Flash
Random Access Memory (RAM) also referred to as the main
memory holds data for processing, instructions for processing
data and processed data temporarily (volatile data-data that
get lost when the computer is turned off hence need to save
it elsewhere). There are two types of RAM:
– Static RAM (SRAM) that is fast and holds data as long as there is
power and
– Dynamic RAM (DRAM) that holds power temporary even when
power is off but relatively slow
 Special Purpose Memories
These are memories that increase the overall
performance of the CPU. They include buffers, registers
and cache.
• Buffers are inbuilt to the CPU and the other input/out
devices to provide temporary storage space for input
and output data to free the CPU for other processes.
• Registers are high-speed areas inside the CPU that store
data serially temporarily just before and after
processing.
• Cache memory is used in high speed processors to store
copies of frequently used instructions for the CPU to
access them there, instead of accessing the programs
from the slow DRAM or Hard disk.
 Out put Devices
• The output devices receive processed data from the CPU and
produce them using suitable devices. The devices can be a
printer (produce hard copy) or a monitor (soft copy)
– Soft copy
i. Visual Display Unit (VDU)/Monitor
• Also called video display unit, monitors display interpreted
instructions input into the keyboard.
• Colour and screen resolution (picture clarity) depends on adapter
card plugged on the expansion slot
• Example of cards include Monochrome display adapter (MDA),
Hercules graphics card (HGC), colour graphic adapter (CGA) and
super video graphics adapter (SVGA)
• Most monitors are cathode ray tubes (CRTs) though flat panel
displays e.g. liquid crystal display (LCD), gas plasma and thin film
transistor (TFT) are gaining recognition in the present market.
 Soft Copy Devices
ii. Sound. Sound out put come in the form
background computer processing, warning, music,
video, or interactive communication with the
computer through either and inbuilt or external
speakers.
iii. Light Emitting Diodes (LED). Diodes emit different
light colours to pass a message to the user. Some
examples include when the computer is busy saving a
document to a disk, background music is on, caps lock
on and a red for warning the user.
 Hard Copy Devices
i. Printers
• Printers produce a hard copy. The information is printed on
paper and can be used when the device is off. It is also
called a printout
(a). Impact Printers
• Use ribbon just like the typewriter. Examples include dot
matrix and daisy wheel printers
Dot-matrix printers
• Use metal pins to strike an inked ribbon to make dots on a
piece of paper. One can see the dots that make up the
letters or images. It has the lowest print quality of all of the
printers. It is rarely used today because of the poor print
quality, but still used in business to print multi-part forms.
 (b) Non-Impact printers
• Use cartridges to map data onto papers. They include inkjets, laser,
and thermal printers
Ink jet printers (non-impact printer)
• Use drops of magnetic ink to produce dots on a page to produce text
or images. The print quality is almost the same as a laser printer's.
The only Problem is with the ink; it is very expensive. The ink is water
soluble and will run if the paper gets wet. For producing color
documents, it has the highest quality at a reasonable price.
Laser printers (non-impact printer)
• How the laser printer produces an image:
• A laser or LEDs make dots on a light sensitive drum. Toner (very tiny
particles of plastic) stick to the drum where the dots are made. Paper
is pressed against the drum and the toner is placed on the paper. The
paper is heated and the toner melts into the paper. Produces the
highest quality printouts. Printout is permanent, Color laser printers
are still fairly expensive
ii. Plotters are used to produce big charts, pictures and drawings.
 Storage (Auxiliary) Devices/Secondary
Memory
• Are used to store information that is not immediately needed by the
CPU.
• Storage media such as magnetic tapes (absolute), punched cards
(also absolute), magnetic disk (e.g. floppy (drive A:), jazz and zip
disks), optical disk (e.g. Compact disk-CD, Digital versatile disks-
DVDs), come with separate disk drives are referred to as removable
media.
• The hard disk (drive C:) is embedded in its drive thus referred to as
non-removable media.
• CDs can store large volume (GB, MB) of data hence good in storing
music, video clips or software. They are CD-ROM (read only), CD-R
(recordable) or CD-RW (re-writeable).
• CD-ROMs and CD-Rs are called WORM (write once read many)
• Flash disks that can hold up to or more than 2GB of data are small,
portable and use laser technology to store data
 Cabling Devices
Cabling devices are the physical connections of the computer parts
and its peripherals. The computer linkage is to transfer either
power through power cables or transfer information (data cables)
i. Power Cables
This refers to the cables that power the computer devices and
drives. They come in differences size depending on the connecting
device. Flash disks for instance need less power than hard disk
drive, hence its power cable is thinner.
ii. Data Cables
Or sometimes referred to as interface cables are cables that
transmit data.
(a). Ports A port is a socket usually at the back of the system unit
that is used to con connect data cable between peripherals and the
expansion slots on the motherboard.
 (a) Ports
• Serial Ports transmit data bit by bit over relatively longer cables,
therefore are slow but are reliable. Used by communication
devices hence labeled COM1, mouse and sometimes printers.
• Parallel Ports transmit a number (e.g 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc) of
data bits simultaneously faster over short distances. They are
used by removable storage devices e.g. a CD and printers.
• Universal Serial Bus (USB) serial but set to replace both parallel
and serial ports. Used for wide range of peripherals and transmit
data at exceptionally high speed.
• Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) transmits data in
parallel but faster that parallel ports. It can be connected up to
eight peripherals in what is referred to as daisy chain.
• Other ports include game ports (allow game playing devices like
joystick), video adapter (for external monitors), and infrared
ports (wireless connection to devices)
 (b) Expansion Slots and Cards
• Expansion slots are sockets on the motherboard where expansion cards
(add-ons/add on boards-circuit boards that provide more memory or
control peripheral devices) are plugged into in microcomputers that have
open architecture (computers that can easily be opened, and users add
and upgrade on new devices) design.
• Example of such cards are memory cards for memory modules, video
adapter cards to adapt different colour display on the monitor, graphics
accelerator cards
• Examples of expansion slots include ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
designed for 16-bit data bus, PCI (Peripheral Computer Interconnect) that
has 32-bit data bus, AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) for 64-bit data bus
PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association)
also referred to as PC cards are small memory cards used in personal
computers, USB (Universal Serial Bus) both a bus and a port that can
work without the installation of adapter cards.
• Other add-ons include modems, fax, sound, video capture, networking,
television, and coprocessor chip.
 (c) Buses
Bus line or simply bus is a hardware pathway of a number of
parallel wires through which bits/data is transmitted within
the processor or from the processor to computer peripherals.
Just like lanes in highways, buses come as 8-bit (cable that
allows 8 instructions/bits simultaneously), 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-
bit, 128-bit or 256-bit and so forth.
External bus moves data between the I/O devices and the
motherboard: they include
• Control lines indicate the direction of information flow and
coordinate the timing of events as well,
• address lines specify the location of data in memory or
device and
• Data lines are used to transmit data. There are further
three types of data lines:
 (c) Buses
• Internal bus moves data around the processor
(between CU, CPU and registers),
• expansion bus move data between expansion slots
and CPU via the RAM and
• local bus transmit data between expansion slots
and the CPU directly, without passing over the RAM.
• USB bus is referred to as plug and play (PnP)(once
plugged in, it is configured automatically). It is also
hot plugging (can plug in a device without re-
starting a computer). USB is therefore faster and
reliable.