he hardware is the material support allowing the computer to work and its operations to process. The set of devices composing the hardware is the place where all electric impulses occur, telling the computer what to do or what to reproduce. This set is composed of electrical and electromechanical devices on the one hand, cables, circuits and cards; on the other hand, hard disk, processor, CD player, etc.

The hardware is divided into basic and additional. This must be taken into account when buying your computer. When we talk about fairly powerful computers, we are talking about computers having more hardware components or more advanced ones. Except for the license to use Windows operating system, hardware is what you are charged for when paying for the computer. For more details about hardware components and for you to know its functions and features in deep, we have devoted a whole section to the most important ones. In this section, we will just take care of this conceptual explanation and just talk about some names composing the set called hardware.

As we have said before, hardware is divided into basic and additional. Basic is the one absolutely necessary for the computer to work and perform its basic functions. We must make clear that this word (“basic”) does not mean "poor" at all: most homemade computers only work with basic hardware and they do it perfectly. The additional is the one used to improve one or various computer functions. This is done by people needing to carry out a very specific task such as a designer or game tester. Additional hardware can be added to the computer when purchasing it or later since it just implies putting a device on the appropriate available place in the computer compartment (framework containing computer components). Many items of additional hardware are quite popular and not for professional use. Of course, talking about additional hardware is difficult because that is the way not basic components are called, but sometimes they are already included in the computers. For example, we could mention CD recorders, DVD players and recorders, Web cams and scanners.

According to the information flow the components are made for, they are divided into:

Input peripherals: they are the ones allowing the user to enter information into the computer. The most well-known ones are mousse, keyboards, etc.

Output peripherals: they reproduce the results of computer operations: Among them, there are monitor, speakers, printer, etc.

Input and output peripherals: they perform both functions. They can transmit information to the user as well as getting it from him. The hard disk is the best example of this kind of device.