There are two sides to computers that everyone must know if they ever plan on interacting with them or are planning on never interacting with them. They are hardware and software.
Hardware
This refers to the physical part of the computer. Its what you can see, feel, smell and through at people that are annoying you(not recommended). This term covers both external and internal components of a computer whether it be a keyboard, mouse, monitor, motherboard, stick of RAM, CPU or a hard drive it all falls under hardware.
Software
This is basically anything that can be electronically stored onto your computer. Software is not tangible so you can't smash it into peoples faces when they make you angry. Things that fall into this category are programs, data, the operating system and viruses.
Right, now that we've gone through that, lets look at things with a little more depth.
There several hardware components that can be found in a modern pc, a lot of which stay hidden in casing. These are the ones am gonna cover first.
The Motherboard: This is the central part of a computer. It is a printed circuit board that all the other components connect to. Its somewhat like the heart of the computer and provides a way in which all the different components can interact with one another.
The CPU: or central processing unit is pretty much were most of the magic happens and most of the calculations that your computer has to do will usually happen here.
Memory: Often referred to as R.A.M is primary storage. Memory is volatile, this means that once there you shut of your pc anything that was stored in it is lost. Memory is used to keep the information that is currently being used by your computer since the CPU cant work with information directly from the hard drive. So any files or programs you open must first loaded into the memory for you to use them.
The GPU: This is the Graphics Processing Unit. A part that most people won't be particularly interested in but is very important to anyone who wants to do anything graphics intensive with their PC. The GPU can be found in several places depending on type. Integrated GPUs may come either as a chip on the motherboard or on the die of a CPU. They can also be found on Dedicated video/graphics cards. Most computers these days come with an integrated GPUs which will satisfy the needs of most, but are far less capable than those that can be found on a dedicated graphics card.
Hard Drive: This is your computers secondary storage. This storage is non-volatile so anything that is stored on it will stay there when you turn off your computer.
PSU: The Power Supply Unit. This is probably the most underrated part of a computer in terms of importance. Computers require the power they receive to come in as direct current (DC) but the power that comes out the sockets in our houses is alternating current (AC). The PSU deals with this problem as well as ensuring all the components in the computer are getting the power they need. Modern PSUs also come with protection circuits that keep your components safe from certain unwanted situations.
Optical Drive: This is your CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive. Used to load optical discs on your computer for a variety of reasons from watching movies to installing software.
So that's the basics. Am not going to go further into software on this post cause I think it should be in its own post, which i will put up soon.
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