hardware

Computer hardware is the collection of all the parts you can physically touch. In information technology, hardware is the physical aspect of computers, telecommunications, and other devices. The term arose as a way to distinguish the "box" and the electronic circuitry and components of a computer from the program you put in it to make it do things.

Refers to objects that you can actually touch, like disks, disk drives, display screens, keyboards, printers, boards, and chips. In contrast, software is untouchable. Software exists as ideas, concepts, and symbols, but it has no substance.

A typical computer (Personal Computer, PC) contains in a desktop or tower case the following parts:

• Motherboard which holds the CPU, main memory and other parts, and has slots for expansion cards;

• power supply – a case that holds a transformer, voltage control and fan;

• storage controllers, of IDE, SCSI or other type, that control hard disk , floppy disk, CD-ROM and other drives; the controllers sit directly on the motherboard (on-board) or on expansion cards;

• graphics controller that produces the output for the monitor;

• the hard disk, floppy disk and other drives for mass storage;

• interface controllers (parallel, serial, USB, Firewire) to connect the computer to external peripheral devices such as printers or scanners.