The Computer - A High Level Component Overview - Devices And Accessories

By: AgoraBid

When people say "computer" they are often talking about the computer box, monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, and lots of other stuff. To really understand how computers work, you should understand each individual device and what it does.

Computer

In a modern desktop computer, the computer part of the system is the box. It can be viewed as the brain of the system. All the other devices plug into the computer and the computer takes inputs from them and sends outputs to them. The computer does all the processing.

Monitor/Display

The monitor just displays whatever the computer wants it to display. It's what's called an output device, because the computer outputs information to it.

Keyboard/Mouse

The keyboard and mouse send commands to the computer. They are input devices, the computer takes input from them.

Others

There are lots of different input/output devices that can be connected to the computer: cameras, speakers, microphones, printers, scanners, etc. They all work on the same principle, they can input, output, or both.

Interaction

As I said before, all these devices are tied in together by the computer. For example, the user moves the mouse to the right. The mouse is an input device, so as soon as the user does that, the mouse sends a signal to the computer that it moved to the right. The computer then process that input and decides to display it on the monitor. It recalculates the picture and tells the monitor to redraw a new picture where the mouse has moved to the right.

Other computer systems

Of course, not all computer systems have that kind of separation of devices – computer, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. But they all work on the same basic principle. For example, a Smartphone also has a computer, a display, and a keyboard – or a touch display and no keyboard. Only instead of physically being separate they are all connected together. If you took a Smartphone apart you would still see that they are separate devices, but they have been put together into the same box.

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