Explain the Hardware, Software and Peripheral Components of a Computer System and the Functional Relation Between These Components
Explain the hardware, software and peripheral components of a computer system and the functional relation between these components.
Fig: functions of the operating systems (1)
1- Hardware
Hardware consists of physical equipment of the computer. We distinguish equipment within the Case such as:
Power supply: it is the equipment that receives electricity from a DC current and converts it to a alternative current AC for the needs of the computer. The power supply may depends on the motherboard of the computer because the wattage varies depends on other equipment inside the computer. Fig 3: power supply (4)
The motherboard: it is the main equipment of the computer. On it are stored and connected every other equipment. The motherboard is the central piece of the computer. We have many others components installed on the motherboards such as microprocessor, RAM, controller… Fig 4: the motherboard (5)
Microprocessor: it is the brain of the computer.it means that all the operation on the computer are made by the microprocessor. It is also known as CPU (central processing Unit).it can be measured in megahertz (MHz) or in Gigahertz depending of computer. the performance of the microprocessor is so important that it is essential to any customer to be aware of the number of calculations it can perform before buying a computer [23]. for example, Dell Optiplex 990 works with Intel Core i3 2100 (3.1GHz). Fig 5: microprocessor (6)
RAM: it is Random access memory. its role is to store instructions or data for a possible processing and its storage is temporally.it holds a list of instructions of an information that is currently working.it can be accessed randomly, it means that it does not have to look in the storage device (hard disk) from the start to find a piece of interest [23]. When we switch off the computer any storage within the RAM, will be erased that is why we say the storage is temporally. RAM is the main memory because we can quickly access any files in the
Fig: functions of the operating systems (1)
1- Hardware
Hardware consists of physical equipment of the computer. We distinguish equipment within the Case such as:
Power supply: it is the equipment that receives electricity from a DC current and converts it to a alternative current AC for the needs of the computer. The power supply may depends on the motherboard of the computer because the wattage varies depends on other equipment inside the computer. Fig 3: power supply (4)
The motherboard: it is the main equipment of the computer. On it are stored and connected every other equipment. The motherboard is the central piece of the computer. We have many others components installed on the motherboards such as microprocessor, RAM, controller… Fig 4: the motherboard (5)
Microprocessor: it is the brain of the computer.it means that all the operation on the computer are made by the microprocessor. It is also known as CPU (central processing Unit).it can be measured in megahertz (MHz) or in Gigahertz depending of computer. the performance of the microprocessor is so important that it is essential to any customer to be aware of the number of calculations it can perform before buying a computer [23]. for example, Dell Optiplex 990 works with Intel Core i3 2100 (3.1GHz). Fig 5: microprocessor (6)
RAM: it is Random access memory. its role is to store instructions or data for a possible processing and its storage is temporally.it holds a list of instructions of an information that is currently working.it can be accessed randomly, it means that it does not have to look in the storage device (hard disk) from the start to find a piece of interest [23]. When we switch off the computer any storage within the RAM, will be erased that is why we say the storage is temporally. RAM is the main memory because we can quickly access any files in the
References: 23- Brendan Munnelly, Paul Holden, 2000, ECDL3 the complete coursebook, Prentice Hall, Redacteurs Software Documentation Limited 2000