Parts of a Computer

By Caitlin Fegan

Mouse pg 5

MENU

 All monitors have a thing called pixels. Pixels are small dots on the screen that is lit up by electrons hitting a glass screen coated with a chemical called Phosphorus. One pixel can be lit to different intensities of the three primary colours, red, blue and green. This makes up different patterns we then recognize as text and graphics.

Monitor

 The tracking ball mouse uses a tracking ball and rollers. As the mouse moves, the tracking ball transmits the movement of the mouse to the rollers. As the wheels on the rollers turn, they break a beam of light which generates an electrical signal that goes to the CPU as input.

Mouse

 When you press a key, it pushes 2 pieces of film together, closing an electrical circuit. To make sense of which key was pressed, and what signal needs to be sent to the computer, the keyboard has an in-built chip of its own.

Keyboard

 The mother board is home to a lot of the important components of the computer. Its organised a bit like a large city, with all the main parts connected by roads. Like cars, information travels along the main board on tracks that go everywhere, from one component to another.

Motherboard

 The Hard Drive (also known as the Hard Disk Drive), is where programs and files are stored permanently, meaning they dont disappear when you turn off the computer. When we save a file, the program sends it to the Hard Drive.

Hard Drive

 DVDs are like CDs except that they can store more data. DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disk.

DVD Drive

 CD stands for compact disk. ROM stands for Read only Memory. This means we cant change whats stored on the disk.

CD ROM Drive

 RAM stands for Random Access Memory. The computer uses RAM to store instructions and data while its running.

RAM

 Every part of the computer runs on it. The main supply plugs into the back. The power supply also has a fan. All the wires go into different parts in the main board that require different voltages. Beetween three and a half and twelve volt

Power Supply

USB/Headphone connections

Microphone Connections