Types of Computer Systems 1

1. Personal Computers

A personal computer is a general purpose computing device that is small and cheap enough for it to be used by individuals. When we refer to personal computers we usually are talking about desktops and laptops.

These types of digital devices are capable of performing most common computing tasks. That’s why we refer to them as being ‘general purpose’. By installing a new software application our computer becomes capable of performing a completely new function.

Internal Components

Personal computers will all have a motherboard. This is a printed circuit board that we can connect all of our other components to. The motherboard will allow all these components to communicate between each other.

All PC’s (all computers) will have a Central Processing Unit (CPU). This is the brains of the computer. This will connect to the CPU Socket on the motherboard. Different motherboards will have different sockets, so it needs to be compatible with your CPU.

In the memory slots of the motherboard, we will connect our RAM. This is where the software and files are kept while they’re in use. We usually use DDR ram on personal computers.

Of course, we also want to have storage to store all our software & files when they’re not in use. Storage devices are not connected directly on the motherboard, but a data cable will run between the motherboard & storage devices.

For a long time, hard disk drives were the most common form of storage on personal computers, but solid-state drives have recently become very popular, particularly in laptops. We’ll learn more about the differences between these later in the course.

Our motherboard will also contain expansion slots where we can connect expansion cards. This adds additional, more specialist, capabilities to our computer. The most common of these is a graphics card.

The graphics card contains a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and VRAM (Video RAM) to take away the tasks involved with rendering graphics. Graphics cards are particularly popular for people who play video games and those who create digital art.

With a desktop PC all of these components are removable and replaceable, so we can upgrade our device bit by bit. This isn’t as easy on laptops as often certain components (commonly CPU, RAM & GPU) are soldered onto the motherboard and so cannot be removed.

2. Multi-Functional Devices

A multifunctional device is a device that is capable of performing more than one specific function. Printers are common examples of multifunctional devices as they often combine several functions, such as printing, scanning, faxing and photocopying.

Other examples include smartphones which combine a phone, camera, computer, touchscreen, etc. all into one device. This saves us on having to carry these separate devices around with us all the time.

A multi-functional device could really be anything and so could have all kinds of internal components. For example, smartphones are multi-functional devices and we look at mobile device internal components in the next lesson.