Hardware

Input Hardware

All computer hardware components which are used to feed raw and other data to a computer set are categorized under input hardware.

• Keyboards
• Pointing devices:

Mouse
Touchpad
Touchscreen
Multi touch screen
Pen input
Motion sensor
Graphics tablet
Interactive smartboard

• Game controller devices:

Joystick
Gamepad
Steering wheel

• Audio input devices:

Microphone
Midi keyboard

• Visual and Imaging devices:

Webcam
Digital camera
Digital camcorder
Tv capture card
Scanner
Barcode reader

Processing Hardware

Computer hardware components that manipulate raw and other data, into information are referred to as processing devices.

Processing hardware is not as populated as other categories of hardware parts. Typically, the microprocessor is the major processing devices in the computer. It is also important to note that the microprocessor works closely with computer memory devices during its operations.

The microprocessor is subdivided into three important units which work together in order to accomplish all processing activities. The units are:

• Control unit
• Arithmetic and logic unit
• Register and cache
• The Control Unit

The control unit manages and supervises the operations of the processor and other components that are crucial in data manipulation.

• Arithmetic And Logic Unit (ALU)

The ALU is responsible for all arithmetic and logic operations like additions, multiplications, subtractions and division, and comparison logic operations.

• Registers And Cache Memory

Registers and cache are storage locations inside the processor, which respond to the instructions of the control unit by moving relevant data around.

• Computer Processing Devices

That hardware part of the computer where data processing occurs is referred to as microprocessor. It is also called the central processing unit (CPU), or lately and especially in AMD systems, accelerated processing unit (APU).

Output Hardware

Hardware components that disseminate and display both data and information are of the output category. All computer output forms are the culmination of the purpose the computer is tasked to accomplish.

Output devices are categorized under softcopy output and hardcopy output. Softcopy output is usually related to the experience the user derives from interacting with the computer.