COMPONENTS OF A COMPUTER SYSTEM

Posted by Golden on August 18th, 2010

A typical computer consists of central processing unit (CPU) and the peripherals. The CPU is responsible for carrying out all necessary actions or instructions required to solve a problem. The peripheral is responsible for accepting input and producing output.

The CPU consists of the main storage, Arithmetic and logical unit (ALU) and control unit. The main storage stores both data and instructions specifying actions to be carried out. The ALU is the unit responsible for actually carrying out instructions. The control unit fetches, interprets, and supervises the sequence of executing the instruction stored in the storage.

The peripherals consist of the input devices (e.g. terminal keyboard, card reader etc.), the output devices (e.g. visual display unit VDU, line printer est.) and the auxiliary storage devices (e.g. tapes, laser disks etc.) than input device produces the output or result from the computer in form of information on the computer screen.

The auxiliary storage is used for storing information on longer basis and can be used as input device output device or both. The total storage capacity of a computer is called memory size. The memory size is large enough to be housed in a CPU. An auxiliary storage device is also available to back up the memory size. When an auxiliary storage device is linked to the CPU for supplementary storage, the CPU maintains control.