From the oldest times people have counted, measured things and communicated to others these things. These things can be the number of sheep, the weight of a child or the intensity of an earthquake. People have used different tools and techniques to help the count better or their measures to be more precise. Also, they tried to store different information that that thought they will used on a later time. The computer is the newest machine that can help people do these things better.

They can calculate, measure and record data with the help of the computer. All we do enter some data and it makes the calculations for us. We don’t see what happens behind these facts. We don’t know that a computer can make millions of operations per second.



Many years ago the computer was used just commercial activities. It had the size of a small room with conditional air because it got very hot, there was always a team of specialist that worked with it and it braked very often. Also, the amount of energy that was consumed by a computer was enormous. Nowadays computer are much smaller than back then and mush faster in the speed they process data. Back then, a computer was as big as a room and fitted in a medium large room nowadays it fits in small box. Computers nowadays can store a lot of data. They consume less energy and they are easier to manage. You don’t need anymore a team of people to stay with you when you open it, when you shut it down or when you are simply using it.



When we look at a computer we see what is on the outside: a monitor, a mouse, a keyboard and a PC unit. Inside this PC unit we have: the hardware, which is the most important part of a computer; it shelters the processor, different types of memories and the electronic part responsible for the control of the rest of the components. It also contains a cooler for the processor and ventilator for the source. The main board is the main component of the computer. On it there are mounted all the cards (video, audio and modem), the processor and the memory. When we turn on the computer we can see all the components that are configured by the main board’s BIOS. The processor is the core of the computer. It is measured in hertz and the bigger the number the better the computer’s speed is and it can do more operations per second.

The source of the computer is the one that gives power to the main board so the other components can work. The memory of the computer is linked to the computer storage. Computer storage is a function of the computer that allows data to be stored and kept for further use.

The conclusion is that a computer is build from more components that we know. Some of them we can see and others we can’t. The important thing is that these components combined create a device that can make our work much easier.