HARDWARE

Micro-computers are structurally similar to large computers in that they have the same basic components – CPU main memory, secondary memory and input/output devices. The most popular secondary memory device are floppy disk drives and fixed disks. Floppy disks store between 140 K Bytes to 1 Mega Byte = 1024 K Bytes (MB) while hard disks store 10 MB to 40 MB.

 

The main memory is made from several chips. These may be ROM or RAM chips.  ROM (Read Only Memory) chips contain instructions permanently written in the memory. The contents of these chips cannot be altered. RAM (Random Access Memory) Chips provide the memory that can be read from, written into and cleared.

 

Most micro-computers have between 16 K bytes and IMB memory. The typical word-size of micro-computers when they were introduced in business in the late seventies was B-bits. Today, the most common word-size is 16-bits. It is virtually certain that in the next few years 32-bit micro-computers will be very common although today their numbers are somewhat limited due to cost and scarcity of software. Dot matrix and daisy-wheel printers are popular printing devices on micro-computers.