The Computer - An Overview

Before we begin in earnest, it's important to have an insight into the components of a modern computer.  Here's a rundown of the parts of a PC-Compatible machine, together with a brief look at their purpose.

Case
This is, as the name suggests, simply a case used to hold all the main parts of the computer together.  Traditionally, all cases were uniform beige boxes, but recently more interesting designs have become available.  They all tend to retain a basic rectangular shape, except for Apple's range of Macintosh computers, which usually look like a dalek or an aquarium or something.

Case Modifications
A necessary part of any modern computer, case modifications perform the invaluable task of making the case look pretty.  Typical examples are transparent windows, flashing lights, LCD readouts, dials to control fan speed and little signs reminding you to stop being such a ponce.

Electronic Gubbins
The heart of any computer, the gubbins consists of wires, microchips, green printed circuit boards, funny looking cables, heatsinks, more wires and little cooling fans.  The gubbins is capable of processing information, displaying pictures on the monitor, passing information to and from the internet, storing pornography and becoming obsolete very quickly.

CD-ROM
The CD-ROM drive is basically a CD player which is used to load programs in to the computer.  The CD-ROM was a huge breakthrough in computing as it created a means to store a considerable amount of data which could be read quickly and produced cheaply.  At one fell stroke, the CD-ROM removed the restrictions caused by the older formats of data storage such as floppy disks, cassette tapes, gramophone records, wax cylinders and remembering huge strings of binary code.

Keyboard
The keyboard is used to enter text and control various functions of the computer.  It is based on exactly the same design as a "QWERTY" typewriter, with a few extra buttons.  The layout of the keyboard has remained basically unchanged since the early 1980's, except for three useless extra buttons which Microsoft forced everyone to add in 1995 just because they could.

Mouse
A mouse is a small handheld device used to interact visually with a computer.  A pointer on the screen follows the mouse's movements.  Early models worked by sensing the movement of a small ball with rollers, whereas more recent mice sense their position using an infra-red optical system.  Hopefully we will soon be able to control most Windows computers by waving our hands about in front of a screen like in "Minority Report".

Monitor
Essentially a high-definition television, a monitor is used to view the functions and programs the computer processes.  Recently, space-saving flat screen TFT monitors have become popular.  These combine the benefits of making all movement blurry and costing three times as much as a standard cathode ray tube monitor.

Speakers
A computer's speakers perform the same task as the speakers of a hi-fi system:  Simply, they produce sound.  These days, speakers are mainly used to play illegally downloaded copies of the song "Can you dig it?" by The Mock Turtles.