HackerNet

Basic Components of a Computer

The Main Parts of the computer system are:

• Hardware
• Software
• Data
• User

Hardware

• Physical components of the computer that can be touched.
• The computer comprises several interconnected devices.
• Hardware may be either internal or external
• Internal Hardware refers to the physical components inside a computer such as RAM, Processor, harddrive, Motherboard, SMPS etc.
• External Hardware refers to devices that are connected to the outside of the computer such as a monitor, printer, scanner, mouse, keyboard, speaker etc
• Also known as peripheral devices.

Software

• Set of the instructions that tell the computer what to do.
• Software is also referred as a program.
• Software exists for computer itself to manage and contol its resourses and also for the user to perform a spefic task such as creating a document.

Software Examples:

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Windows Operating System
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator

Data:

• Bits of information or raw collection of facts that by themselves don’t make any sense to the user.
• Computer organize and prevent Data.

Users:

• The person who operates the computer is the user
• Even a completly autonomous computer is dependent on the user for installation of programs

Information Processing Cycle

Steps involved in Processing Data

• Input
• Processing
• Output
• Storage

Computer Gets input by input device like Keyboard, Mouse, and others and processing with help of CPU ( Central processing unit ) and provides output using output devices such as Monitors and Printers, etc., and stores processed data using Harddisk called SSD.