The Motherboard






back motherboard


Components used primarily for processing:


Components used for temporary storage:


Components which allow the CPU to communicate with other devices:

  • Traces, or wires, on the motherboard used for communication
  • Expansion slots to connect expansion cards to the motherboard
  • The system clock which keeps communication in sync

Electrical system:


Programming and setup data stored on the motherboard:

  • CMOS setup chip which holds configuration data

Most of the input and output devices are on the outside of the computer case. These devices communicate with components inside the computer case, either by wireless connection or cables attached to the case at a connection called a port. Most of these computer ports are located at the rear of the computer case, although some computer models do have some ports on the front of the case for easier access.


For wireless connections, a wireless device communicates with the computer using a radio wave or infrared port. the most popular of these devices are the keyboard and the mouse, and the most popular output devices are the monitor and the printer.

The keyboard is the main input device of a computer. Standard keyboards today are called enhanced keyboards and hold 104 keys and come in different shapes and sizes, and there are also ergonomic design's making them more comfortable for the hands and wrists.

matias_osx_keyboard mouse

A mouse is a pointing device and is used to move a pointer on the screen and to make selections. The bottom of the mouse has a rotating ball or an optical sensor which tracks movement and controls the location of the pointer on the screen. the buttons on top of the mouse are used for different purposes for different software. For example windows XP uses the left mouse button to execute commands and the right mouse button to display information about the command.

The monitor and the printer are the two most popular output devices.


The monitor is the visual device which displays the main output of the computer. Hardware manufacturers typically rate a monitor according to the size of the screen (in inches) and by the monitor's resolution, which is the function of the number of dots on the screen used for display.

The printer is a very important device, which produces output on paper, this is usually called a hard copy. the most common printers today are the laser and inkjet printers although there are other types of printers available, like the thermal, solid ink and dot matrix printers.

Hardware refers to the computer's physical components, like the monitor, keyboard, memory chips, motherboard and hard drive. Software is the set of instructions which tells the hardware to accomplish a task, software uses hardware for four basic functions: input, processing, storage and output.Hardware components must communicate with both data and instructions among themselves.


A computer user interacts with the computer in a way that the user and the software understand, like entries made from the keyboard and the mouse.


Although, software must convert those instructions into a form which hardware can understand. All of the communication between hardware and software, or between software and other software is reduced to a yes or no, inside the computer this is represented as two simple states: on and off.

The technology of storing and reading only two states is called binary, and the number system which uses only two digits, 0 and 1, is called the binary number system.

A 1 or 0 in this system is called a bit, or a binary digit. Because of the way the number system is organized, grouping is usually done in groups of eight bits, each group is called a byte.

With a computer, all counting and calculations use the binary number system. Counting in binary goes like this: 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, and so on. all letters and characters are converted to a binary code before being stored on in a computer. An example is the uppercase letter A in binary code is 0100 0001, and the number 25 is 0001 1001.


Recent Entries

Recent Comments

Recommended Money Makers

  • Chitika eMiniMalls
  • WidgetBucks
  • Text Link Ads
  • AuctionAds
  • Amazon Associates