- Image via CrunchBase
There are eight basic parts to a computer:
1. Power supply for providing electricity in a managed and controlled fashion.
2. Heat sink for cooling the processor.
3. Mother board for routing and directing all of the computer functions.
4. Graphics card(s) for translating the computers workings and operations into an interface that can be viewed.
5. External drives like CD-Rom, DVD-Rom, and diskettes or floppy disks for transferring information to the computer or receiving information from the computer onto physical media.
6. Hard drive for storage and operations of data and programs.
7. Memory – There are various kinds if memory offered. You can get as little or as much memory on your computer as you wish. But it’s best to get more memory than you will ever use.
8. Printers, Scanners, Cameras, etc., and all the other peripheral stuff that is seemingly endless in it’s creation.
Today, most of the aspects of our lives have related computerized components. Everything including vacuum cleaners and toasters have microprocessors. A personal computer is a technically advanced tool that is built around a small, thin chunk of plastic (a processor) with LOTS of microscopic electrical pathways etched or burned into a finely layered piece of metal on the surface. This is where the “thinking” is done. It has a big heat sink and a fan (or liquid cooling) connected to it because all of that thinking heats it up.
Personal Computers started back in the 1970s. Most people were surprised when they actually took off. The original thinking of, “We have a typewriter, why would we ever need a computer?” only lasted about four years. A couple years after the original introduction of the computer, Apple Computers came on the scene and the home computer industry started to take-off incredibly. Soon, companies like Commodore, Atari and Texas Instruments were producing their own versions of the personal computer. Then IBM blasted into the market and soon the competition was defined between Apple on one side and IBM with Microsoft software on the other. These two have, from that point on, led the industry.
