GElect1: [HARDWARE]

LESSON 4:
HARDWARE

Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the student is expected to:
✓ Have a thorough understanding of the definition of hardware
✓ Identify specific hardware according to workings or functions in relation to the basic
operations of computer
✓ Describe the categories of input device and identify sample device that compose a
particular category
✓ Describe the functions of the different output device available in the market
✓ Be familiar with the Central Processing Unit(CPU), its components and the operations
its performs
✓ Describe Secondary Storage and the processes associated with it

INTRODUCTION

R egardless of size, modern digital computers are all conceptually similar. Nevertheless, they can be divided into
several categories on the basis of cost and performance. Also, issue pertaining hardware is always a matter of
consideration.

HARDWARE

All the physical equipment and machinery associated with the computer system is called the hardware. We are
able to perform numerous tasks and finish various projects using a particular application because hardware
exists. Some may not be aware of this, but in layman’s term, the hardware is the part of the computer you can
see or touch. It is the computer itself.

Enumerated below are specific hardware’s that corresponds to the four phases of data processing.

In general, computer hardware falls into

five categories: Peripheral Device – any piece of hardware that
▪ Input Hardware is connected to a computer.
▪ Output Hardware
▪ Processing and Memory
▪ Secondary Storage Hardware
▪ Communications Hardware

FIVE MAJOR CATEGORIES OF HARDWARE

1. INPUT HARDWARE – consists of devices that allow people to put data into the computer in a form that the
computer can use.

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1.1 KEYBOARD – originally used for all user control, they are now used mainly for
text entry, menu accelerators, modifying mouse controls and visually impaired
users.

Composition of Keyboard

Standard typewriter keys – Typewriter keys are the same familiar

QWERTY arrangement of letter, number and punctuation keys found
in any typewriter. The space bar and shift, tab, and Caps lock keys do
the same things on the computer that they do on a typewriter. The
enter key sometimes called the return key is used to enter commands
in the computer.

Cursor movement keys – The cursor is the symbol on the display screen that shows where data maybe
entered next. The cursor movement keys, or arrow keys are
used to move around the text area on the screen.
QWERTY – refers to the order of alphabet
Numeric Keys – A separate set of keys, 0 to 9, known as the keys in the top left row on a
numeric keypad, is laid out like the keys on a calculator. The standard typewriter keyboard
numeric keypad has two purposes: First, When Numlock Key
is off, The numeric keys may be used as arrow keys for cursor Delete – to erase characters at the right of
movement. Second, When the Numlock Key is on, the keys the insertion point
may be used for typing numbers, as on a calculator.
Backspace – to erase characters at the left
Function Keys – are the keys labeled with an F and a number,
of the insertion point
such as F1 and F2 that are used for tasks that occur
frequently.
Escape (ESC).- to cancel a given command
Special Purpose Keys – Special purpose keys include
Backspace, Del., Ins., Esc., Ctrl., Alt., Windows key & etc.

1.2 POINTING DEVICES – used to move objects on screen.

Common Pointing Devices

Mouse – is a device that can be rolled on a desktop to direct a pointer (cursor) on the
computers display screen. This was invented by Douglas Engelbart.

Trackball – is a movable ball, on top of a stationary device, that is rotated with a finger
or the palm of the hand to move the cursor.

Joystick – is a small lever that can be moved in any direction to move

an object on-screen.

Touchpad – A small, touch-sensitive pad used as a pointing device on some

portable computers. By moving a finger or other object along the pad, you
can move the pointer on the display screen. And you click by tapping the pad.

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Stylus and Touch Screen – is a video display that has been sensitized to receive input from the
touch of a screen

Light pen – is a light sensitive stylus o r pen-like device connected by a wire

1.3 DIRECT INPUT DEVICES

Digital Cameras and Digital Video VCR – convert the

captured photograph directly into a digital image and store it
locally inside the camera for later download to a computer.

They are a bit like a hand held video camera, except they can
only take a limited number of frames. Some cameras support multiple frames. The
number of pictures that can be stored depends upon the memory available within the camera and the
size of each image.

1.4 SCANNING DEVICES – translates images of texts, drawings, photos and the like into digital form.

Common Scanning Devices

Image Scanners – converts a printed or photographic image on paper into

electronic signals. These signals can then be stored in a computer and
manipulated.

Bar code readers – photo electronic scanners that interpret the bar code symbols
into digital forms

Bar Code – are the vertical

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition zebra-striped marks
(MICR) – reads the strange looking numbers printed at you can see on most
the bottom of checks. manufactured retail
products.

Optical-mark Recognition (OMR) – uses a device that reads pencil marks and
converts them into computer-usable form.

Optical-character Recognition (OCR) – uses a device that reads special

preprinted characters and converts them into machine-readable form.

Fax machines – scans an image and sends it as electronic signals over telephone
lines to a receiving fax machine

1.5 SMART AND OPTICAL CARDS – smart cards look like a credit card but contain a
microprocessor and a memory chip. Optical card is a plastic, laser-recordable card used
with an optical card reader

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1.6 VOICE-RECOGNITION DEVICES – converts a person’s speech into digital code

1.7 AUDIO-INPUT DEVICES – records or plays analog/digital sound and translates it for digital storage and
processing

1.8 VIDEO-INPUT DEVICES – videos are in analog forms, video card is used to convert it in digital form

1.9 SENSORS – is a type of input device that collects specific kinds of data directly from environment

1.10 HUMAN-BIOLOGY INPUT DEVICES – characteristics and movements of the human body can be used as
input
Biometric Systems Or Biometric Security – devices identify a person
through a fingerprint, retina, voice information, or other biological
characteristics

Line-Of-Sight Systems – enable a person to use his or her eyes

“point” at the screen, used by physically handicapped people

Cyber Gloves And Body Suits – used in “virtual reality”, uses sensors
to detect body movements

2. PROCESSING & MEMORY HARDWARE – hardware that retrieves,

interprets and executes software instructions

2.1 CENTRAL PROCESING UNIT (CPU) - It controls and manipulates data

to produce information. In a microcomputer the CPU is usually
contained on a single integrated circuit or chip. This single chip is called a
microprocessor.

Components of CPU
Arithmetic/Logic Unit (ALU) – This is where operations such as addition, subtraction, division and
multiplication are performed. This is also where logical operations are done such as the comparison of
two or more numbers.

Main Memory or Primary Storage Unit – This is where

instructions and data are stored while processing is
The processing or calculating function takes
done. The main memory in the CPU is called the
place in the Central Processing Unit
“working memory of the computer”.
(CPU).
Control Unit – The control unit acts as the supervisor
of all operations within the computer based on the It is here that raw data are transformed into
program instructions given. meaningful information.

The CPU is known as the brain or the nerve center

2.2 MEMORY – the computer’s “workspace”, where data and of the computer
programs for immediate processing are held. The memory is
contained on one or more chips on the motherboard.
This is sometimes called primary storage.

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3. OUTPUT HARDWARE – consists of computer components/devices that convey information to a user.

3.1 PRINTER – An output device that produces text and graphics on a physical medium such as paper or
transparency film.

Classification of Printer
Hardcopy – refers to printed output
3.1.1 Impact Printer – the print head mechanism strikes
an inked ribbon located between the print head and the Softcopy – refers to output that is in the form of
paper. sound or displayed on a computer
screen
Types of Impact Printer

Dot-matrix printers – form letters, numbers, and other images out of dots, using pins to strike
an inked ribbon against a paper

Line printers – Prints an entire line at a time

3.1.2 Non-Impact – the print head does not make contact with the paper, and no inked ribbon is
necessary

Types of Non Impact Printer

Laser printers – use a laser-beam source to create dot-like images on

a drum. These images are then treated with magnetically charged
ink-like toner and transferred from drum to paper. It operates much
like a copy machine. It has a very high quality resolution which ranges
from 300dpi to 1,200 dpi

Ink-jet printers – sprays one or more colors of small droplets of ink at

high speed onto paper.

Thermal Printers - Thermal printers are generally used in low cost

printers and fax machines. Some types use a silvery grey paper,
which is an aluminum surface coating. When the print head burns
away this layer, it exposes a dyed layer underneath. One application
for thermal printers is the production of bar codes.

Plotters and Large Format Printers - Used for high-quality drawings such as blueprints, maps,
circuit diagrams, and signs

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Special-purpose printers
Snapshot printer Media – refers to the material that stores data
-Photo lab quality pictures
Label printer

Major features of the Two Classifications of Printer

Impact Printer Non-Impact Printer

▪ uses force by applying hammer pins to ▪ print head does not make contact with
strike the paper the paper
▪ slow speed in characters per second ▪ higher speed in characters per second is
▪ prints on most paper types possible
▪ transparencies not supported ▪ prints on most paper types but better
▪ multiple copies may be printed at once quality obtained with better paper
▪ transparencies usually supported

3.2 DISPLAY SCREENS – also called as monitors

.
Cathode Ray Tube/Video Display Terminal- is the display area of the computer
that uses an electron gun to emit a beam of electrons that illuminate phosphors
on-screen as the beam sweeps across the screed repeatedly.

LCD display – a flat panel display which is used by handheld

computers, digital watches and calculators.

Gas plasma - Large displays of up to 42” of viewable area; Gas glows that produce pixels that form an
image

Data/Multimedia Projectors - Allows an audience to view output

3.3 AUDIO OUTPUT DEVICES – Many computers emit chirps and beeps. Some go beyond those noises and
contain sound processors and speakers that can play digital music or human like speech.
Stereo Speakers and Woofers; Head Sets

4. SECONDARY STORAGE HARDWARE – consists of devices that store data and programs permanently on disk
or tape.

4.1 FLOPPY DISK – is a removable round, flexible disk that store data as magnetized
spots. The disk is contained in a square paper enveloped or plastic case to prevent the
disk from being touch by human hands. Two sizes of disk are commonly used for
microcomputers. The older and larger size is 5 ¼ inches in diameter. The smaller size,
now the most popular is 3 ½ inches. Disk drive- is a device that holds, spins, and reads
data from and writes data to a floppy disk.
Read- means that the data represented in the magnetized spots on the disk (or
tape) is converted to electronic signals and transmitted to the memory in the computer.

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Write- means that the electronic information processed by the computer is recorded magnetically onto
disk.

4.2 HIGH-CAPACITY DISKS – A disk drive that uses disks with capacities of 100 MB and greater

4.3 HARD DISK – is a non-removable disk made

out of metal and covered with a magnetic
recording surface. It holds data in the form of
magnetized spots. There are three significant
differences between a hard disk and a floppy disk.
First, Hard disk holds more data than floppy disk
do. Second, hard-disk drives are usually built into the system cabinet and
are not removable. Third, hard disks are faster than floppy disk. The hard-
disk drive is usually referred to as Drive C.

4.4 OPTICAL DISK- CD-ROM – is a flat, round, portable, metal storage medium that usually is 4.75 inches in
diameter and less than one-twentieth of an inch thick. It stands for Compact Disc Read Only Memory. It is an
optical disk format that is used to hold text, graphics, and sound.

4.5 MAGNETIC TAPES – is made of flexible plastic coated on one side with a magnetic material; data is
represented by magnetized spots. The magnetic tape used for computers is made from the same material used
for audio tape and videotape.

4.6 MAGNETIC DISKS – are circular platters coated with a substance that can be magnetized.

4.7 MINIATURE MOBILE STORAGE MEDIA - Handheld devices use miniature mobile storage media to augment
internal storage (e.g. Flash Drives)

5. COMMUNICATION HARDWARE – compose of devices that sends data, information or programs from one
computer or storage device to another

5.1 MODEM - allow you to communicate with other computers using a phone line.
Modem speeds are in bits per second (14.4, 28.8 and 56 thousand bits per second
are standard).

5.2 CABLE WIRES

5.3 FAX MODEM – Is a modem with fax capability that enables you to send signals directly from your computer
to someone else’s fax machines or complex fax modem

UNITS OF MEASUREMENT FOR CAPACITY

Computers represent data in terms of 0s and 1s called bits.

Unit Abbreviation Approximate Value (bytes) Actual Value (bytes)

Kilobyte KB 1,000 (1 thousand) 1, 024
Megabyte MB 1,000,000 (1 million) 1,048,576
Gigabyte GB 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) 1,073,741,824
Terabyte TB 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) 1,099,511,627,776

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Bit – the smallest unit of data that can be used by a computer represented by a 1 and 0.
Byte – comprised of 8 bits.

THE SYSTEM UNIT

A system unit, also known as a base unit, is the main body of a desktop computer, typically consisting of a metal or
(rarely) plastic enclosure containing the motherboard, power supply, cooling fans, internal disk drives, and the
memory modules and expansion cards that are plugged into the motherboard, such as video and network cards.

The system unit or the base unit is just a container box before the PC has been assembled. Assembling of the PC refers
to the connecting of various required peripherals, electronic circuits or expansion cards.

COMPONENTS OF SYSTEM UNIT

MOTHERBOARD - It is the "body" or mainframe of the computer, through which all other components interface.
A motherboard is the central or primary printed circuit board (PCB) making up a complex electronic system,
such as a modern computer. It is also known as a main board, baseboard, system board, planar board.

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COMPUTER FAN – Used to lower the temperature of the computer; a fan is

almost always attached to the CPU, and the computer case will generally have
several fans to maintain a constant airflow. Liquid cooling can also be used to
cool a computer, though it focuses more on individual parts rather than the
overall temperature inside the chassis.

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) – Fast – access memory that is cleared when the computer is powered-
down. RAM attaches directly to the motherboard, and is used to store programs that are currently running.
RAM is a memory that the microprocessor uses to store data during processing. This memory is volatile (loses
its contents at power-down). When a software application is launched, the executable program is loaded from
hard drive to the RAM. The microprocessor supplies address into the RAM to read instructions and data from it.
RAM is needed because hard drives are too slow to operate with the speed of a microprocessor.

Types of RAM

SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory)

which is a type of solid state computer memory.
SDRAM

DDRAM I (Double Data Rate-Synchronous Dram) – Supports data transfers on both edges of each clock
cycle (the rising and falling edges), effectively doubling the memory chip's data throughput. DDR-
SDRAM also consumes less power, which makes it
well-suited to notebook computers. DDR-SDRAM is
also called SDRAM II and DDRAM.
DDRAM

DDRAM II (Double-Data-Rate Two Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) - is a random

access memory technology used in electronic engineering for high speed storage of the working data
of a computer or other digital electronic device.

PCI (PERIPHERAL COMPONENT INTERCONNECT) – Specifies a computer bus for attaching peripheral devices to
a computer motherboard. The PCI bus is the most commonly used and found bus in computers today.

Typical PCI cards used in PCs include:

Network cards, Sound

cards, Modems, extra ports
such as USB or serial, TV
Tuner cards and Disk
Controllers.

PCI Slots Sound Card

Network Card

LAN CARDS A network card, network adapter, LAN Adapter or NIC (network interface card) is a piece
of computer hardware designed to allow computers to communicate over a computer network.

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Sound Card (also known as an audio card) is a computer expansion card that facilitates the input and
output of audio signals to/from a computer under control of computer programs. Typical uses of sound
cards include providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition,
editing video or audio, presentation/education, and entertainment (games). Many computers have
sound capabilities built in, while others require additional expansion cards to provide for audio
capability.

AGP Cards - or a video card, also referred to as a graphics accelerator card, display adapter, graphics
card, and numerous other terms, is an item of personal computer hardware whose function is to
generate and output images to a display. Also known as Accelerated Graphics Port Card.

UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS (USB) – is a serial bus standard to interface devices. USB was designed to allow many
peripherals to be connected using a single standardized interface socket and to improve the plug-and-play
capabilities by allowing devices to be connected and disconnected without rebooting the computer (hot
swapping). Other convenient features include providing power to low-consumption devices without the need
for an external power supply and allowing many devices to be used without requiring manufacturer specific,
individual device drivers to be installed. It has been used for storage devices, printers, sound, mice, keyboards,
cameras, and even networking.

USB Connector in Desktop USB Connector in Laptop USB Add-in Card (PCI)
Computers

PS/2 – is used for connecting some keyboards and mice to a PC compatible

computer system. Its name comes from the IBM Personal System/2 series of
personal computers, with which it was introduced in 1987. The PS/2 mouse
connector generally replaced the older DE-9 RS-232 "serial mouse" connector,
while the keyboard connector replaced the larger 5-pin DIN used in the IBM
PC/AT design.
The color-coded PS/2
connection ports (purple for
keyboards and green for mice)

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POWER SUPPLY – is a reference to a source of electrical power. A device

or system that supplies electrical or other types of energy to an output
load or group of loads is called a power supply unit or PSU.

IDE (INTEGRATED DRIVE ELECTRONICS) - is a standard electronic

interface used between a computer motherboard's data paths or bus and the computer's disk storage devices.
The IDE interface is based on the IBM PC Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) 16-bit bus standard, but it is also
used in computers that use other bus standards. Most computers sold today use an enhanced version of IDE
called Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE). In today's computers, the IDE controller is often built into
the motherboard.

IDE CABLES – These cables are used by hard drives and optical drives to transfer data to and from the
motherboard Serial ATA (SATA)

IDE Cable on the left, with two motherboard IDE connectors on the center and IDE Cable and a Power
Cable connected to IDE Hard Drive.

SERIAL ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY ATTACHMENT (SATA) – is a computer bus primarily designed for transfer of
data between a computer and mass storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives.

SATA Cables connected on

SATA Ports on Motherboard SATA Cable SATA Hard Drive

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