Input, Output And Storage

peripheral device that can accept data, presented in the appropriate machine-readable form, decode it and transmit it as electrical pulses to the CPU

peripheral device that translates signals from the computer into a human-readable form or into a form suitable for reprocessing by the computer at a later stage

medium (optical, magnetic, solid state and even paper which holds data or programs

medium which uses surfaces coated with a layer of magnetic material on which data can be stored by magnetically setting the arrangement of the magnetic material. This is done by electromagnetic read/write heads

memory chips that is controlled by its own software to make the collection of chips act like a disk drive

medium that uses plastic discs on which the data is stored as patterns on the surface in pits and lands.

Main memory is volatile, meaning once the power supply is shut off all data that was stored there is lost. RAM is directly written and read by the processor. This takes time, so the faster the transfer rate the better; this is where frequency comes in

permanent area of storage for special programs and data that have been installed during the process of computer manufacture. The contents cannot be altered by software because the data has been written onto a ROM chip which cannot be removed either. However, unlike RAM, ROM retains its contents even when the computer is turned off. This is why ROM is referred to as being non-volatile, whereas RAM is volatile.

parently extending main storage by using backing storage (such as a hard disk) as if it were main memory

Basic Input Output System