Parts of a computer

Everything inside the computer is connected to a circuit board called the 'motherboard'. The
motherboard has sockets for low-level programming (BIOS), the computer's brain, called a
CPU; the computer's memory (RAM, ROM and CMOS); and for add-on cards to control the
video (picture), audio (sound), printer and anything else that might be connected to the
computer. You may also find a modem inside on an add-on card.
CPU: stands for 'Central Processing Unit' and is the 'brain' of the computer. Most CPU's today
are made by Intel and bear such names as 'Pentium', 'Pentium Pro' and 'Pentium II'. Older
Intel CPU's include the 80486 and 80386 families. Other manufacturers also make CPU's:
Motorola for the Macintosh, AMD and Cirrus for PC's and others. The 'speed' of a CPU's
processing is measured in megahertz. The CPU is the place that holds info about the
operating system (DOS or Windows, for example).
RAM: RAM is what you know as Memory, as in how much memory does your computer
have? It is not permanent memory - the RAM is erased when the computer turns off.
Permanent memory is stored on the hard drive. Memory is measured in increments of bits
and bytes. Generally the least memory you should ever have with a Pentium computer is 64
MB (megabytes: look up kilo-, mega-, and giga- for more info), and more is much better.
There are places on the motherboard (called slots) for memory modules. The memory
modules are small printed circuit boards with memory chips on them and are usually either
SIMMs (Single Inline Memory Modules) or DIMMs (Dual Inline Memory Module).
Don't confuse this with ROM.
The video card controls what you see on the monitor. It determines how many dots across
the screen and down the screen the computer can look after. The more dots, the more
information or the more detail you can see. The video card also controls how many colors
you can see. Most computers today can show anywhere from 256 colors to many millions of
colors. The sound card controls the sound. Most computers come with pretty cheap
speakers, and the sound card can probably produce much better sound than the speakers
can. With good speakers, today's sound cards can make your computer sound as good as a
stereo!
The hard drive uses disks that are made of aluminum or glass (and therefore 'hard'). Each
disk can store much more information than either a floppy or CD-ROM. Sometimes, there
may be several disks in a hard drive. However, the disks in a normal hard drive can not be
removed or replaced. Today, hard drives are measured in gigabytes. That's one thousand
million bytes. 1 gigabyte is about 11/3 CD-ROM disks. Sometimes a special cache is used for
quick retrieval of often-used information (such as web pages). This is just a separate
directory on the hard drive.
Generally when we talk about a floppy disk drive we are talking about the drive that uses
the 3.5 inch 1.44Mb floppy disk in it. There have been other types that have come and
gone.
CD-ROM stands for Compact Disk Read Only Memory. The original name was WORM drive,
which meant Write Once Read Many. So the term CD-ROM is not really very accurate, but it
is the name that has stuck.

At one time there was the PC keyboard, the AT keyboard, and the 101 key enhanced
keyboard, which had F9 through F12 keys and a separate numeric keypad. Now the 101 key
enhanced keyboard is the standard type and keyboards are named according to the type of
connection it makes to the computer. The two common types of connectors that go from the
keyboard to the computer motherboard are the AT and the PS/2. The AT is the larger older
type, and the PS/2 is a newer type and communicates better with he computer.
There are a lot of varieties of mice in use today. Some have two buttons, some have 3
buttons, and some have a roller ball on top and don't require you to actually move the
mouse on the desktop. There are also programmable mice, touch pads that substitute for a
mouse, etc.. The standard types are the Serial, and the PS/2. The Serial mouse plugs into
one of the 9 pin serial port of your computer (COM1), and the PS/2 mouse plugs into a
special PS/2 port on your computer.
A modem allows your computer to connect to another computer using the normal telephone
line. It converts data from a computer format, which requires many wires, into a format that
can be sent using only the two wires of a telephone line. At the other end of the telephone
wires the process is reversed. Data transfer rates from the modem vary from 14.4Kbs to
56Kbs. (14.4Kbs, 28.8Kbs, 33.6Kbs, 56Kbs) There are special types of modems such as cable
modems that can communicate at much higher data rates.

The USB (Universal Serial Bus) connector is the newest type port (connector) on the PC. It
is extremely easy to use. You just plug in a USB compatible device and the computer
automatically configures itself to use the device. The computer does not have to be turned
off or rebooted. As many as 127 USB peripherals can be plugged into a computer at one
time. At 12Mbits per second it is more than 100 times as fast as a serial port. The next
generation USB motherboards will communicate at 480Mbits per secondIn particular, when
viewing the movies you should look for two things:

The progression in hardware representation of a bit of data:

Vacuum Tubes (1950s) - one bit on the size of a thumb;
Transistors (1950s and 1960s) - one bit on the size of a fingernail;
Integrated Circuits (1960s and 70s) - thousands of bits on the size of a hand
Silicon computer chips (1970s and on) - millions of bits on the size of a finger nail.

The progression of the ease of use of computers:

Almost impossible to use except by very patient geniuses (1950s);
Programmable by highly trained people only (1960s and 1970s);

Useable by just about anyone (1980s and on).

to see how computers got smaller, cheaper, and easier to use..