The wonderful world of Hardware! Physical elements that make the Computer work

Hardware is a word in the English language that denotes the physical components of the computer. The basic hardware is composed of the monitor, keyboard, CPU, mouse and peripheral cabinet.

The hardware also includes all the peripheral devices (which are connected around the computer) and those that improve their memory and speed. We can mention as part of the hardware the coprocessors (secondary processors) that help to increase the speed of the CPU, the additional memory cards, the digitizers (Process of images and audio to computer files), video cards, printers (daisy, laser , ink jet).

The history of the microprocessors starts from the development that Texas Instruments made of the integrated circuit in 1976. The applications of the microprocessors were for scientific calculators. The first computers of application in the home and small businesses arose at the end of the Seventies, with models like Apple II, Commodore 16, Tandy Radio Shack, Atari, among others. Each brand had its own program loading system and its peripherals were incompatible with other brands. IBM PC (personal computer). The first IBM had an 8088 processor and a clock speed (millions of cycles per second) of 4.77 MHz.

The 80286 AT processor (advanced technology) worked two to three times faster than an 8088 PC.

The 80386 appeared approximately in 1989 and in its fastest version (40 MHz) exceeded 22 times the speed of 8088. The change not only contributed to make personal computers faster, it also helped the development of programs with more features and ease of use.

With the development of the 80486 the speed with respect to a basic system was increased 100 times (66 MHz), the main memory was expanded and data, voice, sound and video management became common.

The next step in 1.994 was the appearance of the 80586 microprocessors (Pentium) with speeds that exceed 180 times the 8088 processors, used mostly in medium-sized companies.

The RISC chips jointly developed by IBM, Motorola and Apple, have been a great generation whose technological advancement in personal computers is wonderful.

Monitors are the part of the hardware that outputs information through video. There are monochromatic (amber or green tones) and chromatic monitors. The resolution is the number of pixels or luminous points per square inch. The higher the resolution, the better the image.

The first CGA monitors support a graphics resolution of 320 x 200 points with two colors.

The EGA monitors handle a resolution of 640 x 350 points, support four colors.

With the VGA (Video Graphics Array) the resolution is 640 x 480 points and support up to 16 colors, depending on the video memory integrated to the specialized card in that area. In the Super VGA format, the resolution is 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 with 16 256 and up to 16 million colors.

In this way the resolution to advanced in a surprising way leading to the enjoyment of a high visual quality.

To protect our eyes, some manufacturers incorporate screens with opaque coatings. There are also glass screens that are placed in front of the monitor and reduce the brightness and radiation it produces. Additionally there are amber-colored glasses that significantly reduce eyestrain. The monitors should be worked mainly in rooms lit with natural light.

The keyboard is a data entry unit. The keyboard is part of the hardware. The layout of the keys is called QWERTY because these letters are together on the keyboard. The QWERTY solved the problem by separating the most used keys. Modern computers do not need QWERTY because they do not get stuck, but so many generations of people learned with QWERTY that it was not possible to modify it.

The most common keyboard has 101 keys. The most important key is INTRO, ENTER or RETURN. The INTRO is used to enter a series of instructions or commands, it also serves to change to the next line in the points and apart.

The CAPITAL LETTERS help us to provide the characters (letters, numbers or signs) that are marked on the top of a key or the alphabet in uppercase.

The Caps Lock key when pressed lights up with a led that indicates that everything that is written will appear in upper case; if it is pressed again, it is deactivated.

The space bar is used to leave blank spaces.

<b<The ESC key cancels some action or helps to exit a program.

The TAB key is used to give tabs or spaces anywhere in a line.

The Backspace key helps us to erase characters when we make mistakes when typing.

The ALT keys are combined with others to perform functions indicated by a program.

The Control keys are also combined to perform predetermined actions.

The F1 to F12 keys take different functions according to the program being worked on. In general F1 is the help key that provides information about what is expected to happen when typing a command.

The Insert key helps insert spaces in text.

The Start key takes you to the beginning of a line if it is used with a word processor.

The End key brings a line in the word processor to the end.

The Page Up and Page Down keys move to a forward or backward record in a database if combined with the Control key.

The cursor arrows are positioned anywhere on the screen we want.

The mouse is another unit of data entry. With it we can select actions or information management tools. The mouse moves on a flat surface and has a movement action in the monitps that triggers the cursor. The cursor can be an arrow, a small rectangle or a line that helps us to manage the computer. Generally and for administrative applications the mouse has two buttons, when making a clock on one of them an action is performed or a menu of tools is chosen. Mice with three or more buttons are generally used for industrial and artistic drawing applications in three dimensions (3D CAD).

How to know which mouse is better? To select a mouse it is important to know its displacement in DPI (points per square inch, with higher resolution, better response will offer to the movement of the hand.) It is necessary to test the displacement of a mouse before acquiring it as this will help to make a better choice.

Printers are <b<data output devices on paper. The printers are connected to the computer through a special port called parallel.

The technology used by printers determines their degree of sharpness and speed. When a large print volume is required, dot matrix printers are used with several copies. Dot matrix printers use a needle head that when printing on the ribbon prints characters or graphics.

Inkjet printers are used in jobs that require the use of color at low cost; They are slow compared to laser technology, but they provide good quality at a much lower price. The ink jet is injected by a special head that dries instantly avoiding run-off.

Laser printers provide high quality letters with a mechanism similar to a photocopier.

Other elements of the hardware are the digitizers (they capture images and sound in digital files that can be edited by the computer).

Memory cards are printed circuit boards that contain chips with additional memory for the system. Some programs require the use of more memory to work.

Disk drives are part of the hardware. There are drives for 5 ¼ inch, 3 ½ inch drives, hard drives and CD - ROM CD - ROMs. Currently rewritable compact disks are used in cartridge form to store large amounts of data removably.

What is the hard drive? It is a massive data storage unit that is permanently located in the computer. The hard disk can have varied data storage capacities according to the number of heads and cylinders that compose it. A computer can start your operating system automatically and put your data files at your disposal thanks to hard or fixed disk.