COMPUTER COMPONENTS

Motherboard (ROM) The Motherboard is the central piece that all the other components connect (or eventually connect) to. In order to be able to successfully put your computer together, you must know what all the slots, ports, and plugs are for.

Power Supply A power supply is a device that supplies electrical energy to one or more electric loads.

Drive Bays A drive bay is a standard-sized area for adding hardware to a computer. Most drive bays are fixed to the inside of a case, but some can be removed.

Central processing unit the part of a computer (a microprocessor chip) that does most of the data processing; "the CPU and the memory form the central part of a computer to which the peripherals are attached"

RAM (random access memory) A form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time

Hard Drive a device for storing and retrieving digital information, primarily computer data. It consists of one or more rigid (hence "hard") rapidly rotating discs (often referred to as platters), coated with magnetic material and with magnetic heads)arranged to write data to the surfaces and read it from them.

FAN Any fan inside, or attached to, a computer case used for active cooling, and may refer to fans that draw cooler air into the case from the outside, expel warm air from inside, or move air across a heat sink to cool a particular component.

Expansion slots/cards are specific slots on a PC motherboard that facilitate the placement of expansion cards

Ports and Connectors The various connectors and ports on the computer allow it to communicate with the many different devices and peripherals attached

Computer notes Any files that are in the memory of the computer are lost when the power is turned off.   That is not as scary as it sounds because what you usually have in memory is only a temporary copy of the file,  the original stays on the hard drive or floppy or wherever it is usually kept.   Pretty well the only time the original is in memory is when you are creating a new file and haven't saved it yet.

Computer notes continued.. The computers main job is to run programs.   Programs are instructions in a language that computers and programmers understand.   A programmer, or a team of programmers writes a program and saves it on a long term storage device like a floppy drive, a hard disk or a CD-ROM. Then, when you want to run that program, you type its name and the computer goes and gets the program off the hard drive, or wherever it is stored, and brings it into its short term storage, called RAM, and runs the program.

RESOURCES www.wikipedia.com http://dragon.ep.usm.edu/~it365/module/Basics/system.htm http://www.kids-online.net/learn/click/table.html