Components

• As with most products, computers are designed in a variety of ways. There are, however, major similarities  regardless of the brand (e.g. Dell, Gateway, IBM) of the computer.
• A computer system accepts data as an input: processes that data and provides data as output. During the processing  the data must be stored. The processing is controlled by a sequence of instructions - the program - which is stored in the computer.
• The basic components of a computer system are therefore input devices, processor, backing storage  devices and output devices.
• This fit together as depicted in the following figures as a schematic representation, as well as the actual  representation of a computer.