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Chapter Profile
                                                                                         Chapter Profile
                  1                                                                  Hardware

                                                                                       Software
                                                                                                   How does a Computer Work?

                                A Computer


                                       System













                 A computer is an electronic machine. It is made up of various devices like keyboard, mouse,
                 monitor and CPU. These devices help you to enter the data (input) through keyboard or
                 mouse, process the data using CPU and display the results (output) on the monitor or

                 printer.


                        HARDWARE


                 All the physical components of a computer system are called hardware. These are the
                 parts which we can see or touch. Hardware devices are further classified as shown:


                                                             Hardware





                            Input                Processing                Output                  Storage
                           devices                  device                 devices                 devices


                 Input Devices

                 A computer accepts data and instructions through input devices. Some of the input devices

                 are keyboard, mouse, scanner, joystick, microphone, etc.

                 Keyboard

                 A keyboard is used to enter words, numbers and special
                 characters.

                                 Mouse

                                 A  mouse is a pointing device  that inputs  data by  pointing,  clicking  and
                                 dragging.




                                                                                                 A Computer System   7
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