Key Features: Mechanical button push that activates a sensor beneath each key to alert the computer that a button has been pressed. A minimum pressure is required to activate the key.

Uses: To input Text (Characters)/ functions

Key Features: The mouse ball (8) moves freely in all directions. X-axis and Y-axis sensors are free to move in only one dimension (6 and 7) which give the mouse ball tracking of X and Y axis coordinates, which translate to position on a screen.

In Laser mice, a focused light provides the X and Y coordinates to the computer.

Uses: To move the onscreen cursor.

Key Features: Pivoting Stick, Base, sometimes a button on top or in the case of consoles a click when the stick is pushed down

Uses: Found on game-pads, allows a method to input motion similar to the mouse

Key Features: A Scanner has CCDs (charge-coupled-device). The CCD converts light into an electrical charge which is sent to the computer at data. The source of the light is from the inside of the scanner usually from a xenon or cold cathode light source bounces off the paper and is sent around a series of mirrors until it reaches an array of CCDs. This Is the sent to the computer for processing.

This is all possible due to lights property to bounce off in different intensities according to the darkness of surface that the light hit. But what happens when there is colour? When scanning in colour the light is passed through Red, Green and Blue colour filters which is all combined to approximate the colour in the scan.

It is also important to note that the higher density of CCDs in the arrays the higher the resolution of the scan, much like monitors and pixel density. Resolution of scanners is measured in dpi (dots per inch). There is also a cheaper solution to CCDs called CISs (Contact image sensors) which essentially take a photo of the scan but they are of lower resolution to CCDs.

Uses: To convert the face of a physical page into data in a computer.

Key Features: Battery powered, store images on memory card/s, zoom in when taking photos, flash light, timers, LCD screen, own menu system.

Uses: To capture one or a series of light and store it as data, more commonly known as photos or videos.

Key Features: Buttons, Joystick(s)

Uses: A game pad is a type of Input device with it's traditional/popular use is both as for PC and console use. This is an alternative from a keyboard and mouse controller and allows for more accessible and user-friendly for users to operate.

Key features - Includes things like, native resolution (displaying things well, specifically for the resolution they’ve been designed for), viewing angles (are designed to have wider viewing angles), Brightness/Luminance (amount of light produced by the LCD), contrast ratio (ability of panel to produce light whites & dark blacks), response rate ( how fast pixels can switch colours), and adjustability (refers to how they are more flexible in comparison to CRT monitors, in terms of positioning the screen how you want it.

Uses - Used as the main display technology for things like notebooks, and other small computers. Actual LCD technology has a range of uses, from watches, to large, high-definition televisions. LCD screens can also work alone, or with touch screen technology such as that in smart-phone devices & touch-capable computers. Other uses include their presence in many digital camera screens, and even the Nintendo 3DS. LCD displays were also quite common in every household, in the form of digital clocks, basic calculators, and watches, even before LCD-Display TVs.

Key Features: LEDs, Buttons, frame, power supply, host controller

Uses: Used as a flat panel display that emits light from LED (light-emitting diodes) lights as pixels. Mainly used outdoors from their bright, vibrant colours that are visible in the sun.

Uses : Monitors work as the screen of notebooks, laptops, mobile phones and other handheld technology as they work as a touch screen.

Key Features: Longer life (than the Cathode Ray Tube/ CRT), reduced radiation, not as heavy, reduces strain in the eyes, better screen privacy.

Future development: Screens that can be bent & outdoor 3D screen.

A devices that accepts text and graphic output from a computer and transfers the information to paper.

Uses: In arcades when there is a steering wheel controlling a car in a game to simulate the force and weight of turning a car.

Key Features: These are similar to Haptic feedback units however uses a peripheral that the user controls to simulate movement.

Future development: Holographic Projections, More authentic simulations of real world vehicles (cars, planes etc).

Key Features: Haptics uses an I/O system with the computer and user using physical contact such as a joystick or touchscreen to sense the body's movement and act corresponding to it.

Uses: To create the feeling of touch, vibrations and motions. An example being a phone vibrating a little when an application is pressed.

Key Features: The user can control the bass and treble controls. The speakers on computers have a subwoofer enclosure that amplifies the sounds from the left and right speaker.

Uses: They are made to produce audio output to be heard by the listener, this is included with all of the designs of speakers.

Key Features:

• Disc(s) covered with tiny magnets

• HDD head (reading and writing data on the disc(s))

Uses: Original way to store audio data to be played back.

Key Features: Flash memory Controller, SSD flash memory modules, SSD interface (SATA, PCIE, M.2)

Uses: Memory used in a computer, integrated in microcontrollers for smart cards and remote keyless systems, and other electronic devices to store small amounts of data

• Data is stored as pits and it is burnt into a spiral track circulating outwards from the centre.

• The laser flashes up onto the shiny (underneath) side of the CD bouncing of pattern of pits and lands on the disc

Uses: The ALU handles the arithmetic and logical operations and the Control Unit extracts instruction from its memory, decodes, and executes them

Key Features: The CPU does most of the processing inside a computer and to do this; it relies heavily on a chip set, which is a group of microchips located on the motherboard. Most of the time, a CPU will consist of 2 components: The Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), and the Control Unit

Uses: Loads and stores data within the computer.

Key Features: High speed storage locations available to computers in the CPU. Design to accessed at a higher speed than conventional memory. There some with different functions such as a read-only or a write-only.

Key Features: The ALU handles the arithmetic and logical and is apart of the CPU.

Uses: The ALU handles the arithmetic and logical operations

Key Features: L1 and L2 cache is a specialised type of memory that is built into the CPU to compensate for the slow data transfer speeds of typical RAM modules to the CPU. Due to the ever increasing speeds of CPU's, CPU's demand faster data transfer speeds to limit the possibilities of bottlenecks on the CPU.

Uses: Static RAM (SRAM) compared to Dynamic RAM (DRAM) is much faster but it usually slower. Typical CPU Cache is used to predict or store information the CPU is most likely needed to use next, often determined by sophisticated algorithms and assumptions by programming code.

Uses:

• Rendering graphics

• Heavy number crunching (And Therefore Cryptocurrency mining)

Key Features: A GPU or Graphics Processing Unit is a specialized silicon processing unit in a computer with the primary objective of rendering graphics and also excels at heavy number crunching due to the raw throughput it can provide. A GPU's micro-architecture features a tremendous amount of compute units in order to solve the similar mathematical functions tasked by the CPU

Future development: Future developments from companies such as Nvidia and AMD is to simply refine and minimize the size of the micro-architecture of the GPU. This is due to the lower heat output of a theoretically smaller GPU chip, leading to higher speed thresholds and faster computing.

Uses: The accelerated processing unit is a series of 64 bit micro processing unit designed to act as both a CPU and a GPU on a single die.

Key Features:

Commonly used in gaming consoles, laptops and computers, it acts as both a CPU and a GPU in a single die.

It is important to note that many APU's use system RAM as VRAM to account for their lack of a physical card with VRAM on it.

Key Features: The Motherboard is a large circuit board that allows various components of the computer to interact with each other. This is done via buses that connect each hardware system and is how it communicates

Uses: Used in one form or another in all computer systems.

Has main functions;

• Manage computer’s resources

• Establish UI

• Carries out & gives services for software of application

Enables the simultaneous running of multiple programs

Manages system resources like processors, memory, data storage etc.

Defragging is the process of reducing the fragmentation of a file by linking parts stored in separate locations on a disk.

Disk Defragmentation: When files are deleted, the unused clusters have free storage and are available for reuse. The files can then be distributed across the drive.

Defragmentation involves rearranging the information on a disk so that the files are continuous sequence of clusters. Defragmentation will also improve file access times. Most modern operating systems will run this process automatically.

The translations of different programming languages is processed or translated into the targeted language (human language or machine code), this is done by a translator or programming language processor. Translations is essential in order to make us humans and machines understand the instructions of the translated code and enable us to interact with computer successfully.

1. First a compiler analyzes statements and languages syntactically.

2. Then the compiler converts the source code.

3. To an object code the machine can read, which is usually written in binary form (0’s and 1’s).

Currently there are 5 generations of programming languages. These are in respective order:

• Machine code

• Assembly language

• Imperative/procedural language

• Non-procedural

• Constraint-based programming