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The boundary between hardware and software is slightly blurry— firmware is software that is "built-in" to the hardware, but such firmware is usually the province of computer programmers and computer engineers in any case and not an issue that computer users need to concern themselves with.

A typical computer ( Personal Computer, PC) contains in a desktop or tower case ( chassis) 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 controllerGeForce 4 4200-based graphics card A graphics card or video card is a component of a computer which is designed to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for a display medium, most often a monit that produces the output for the monitor
• the hard disk, floppy disk and other drives for mass storage
• computer busIn computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data or power between computer components inside a computer or between computers. Unlike a point-to-point connection, a bus can logically connect several peripherals over the same set of wires. controllers ( parallelIn computing, a parallel port is an interface from a computer system where data is transferred in or out in parallel, that is, on more than one wire. A parallel port carries one bit on each wire thus multiplying the transfer rate obtainable over a single, serialmale DB-9 serial port on the rear panel of a PC In computing, a serial port is an interface on a computer system with which information is transferred in or out one bit at a time (contrast parallel port). Throughout most of the history of personal compute, USBNote: USB may also mean upper sideband in radio. Universal Serial Bus USB provides a serial bus standard for connecting devices, usually to a computer, but it also is in use on other devices such as set-top boxes, game consoles and PDAs. Overview A USB sy, Firewire) to connect the computer to external peripheralFor an account of the word "periphery" as it is used in biology, sociology, politics, computer hardware, and other fields, see the periphery disambiguation page. A peripheral is a type of computer hardware that is added to a host computer, in order to exp devices such as printers or scanners

• Computer architecture
  • Central Processing Unit (CPU)
  • Motherboard
    • PCI Bus
    • ISA Bus
    • USB
    • AGP
• peripheral