Hardware

Computer hardware is any processing machine that accepts and translates input symbols and executes an action. The inputs are processed according to a sequence of instructions called software. In a computer, hardware includes all of the equipment that comprises the physical body of the computer, its electronic circuitry, and peripheral items such as keyboards, mice, readers, scanners, and printers. Such hardware is of limited value without software. It is the software that produces a given result, such as outputting symbols or performing an action. The input symbols as well as the output symbols can represent, among other things, numbers, characters in a word editing software, pictures in an email, images stored in your laptop as desktop backgrounds, or video and audio stored in your computer’s video editing software.