Hardware Definition - What it is, Meaning and Concept

The etymological origin of the term hardware that we are now going to analyze in depth is clearly found in English, and that is that it is made up of the union of two words of the Anglo-Saxon language: hard that can translate as "hard" and ware which is synonymous with "things".

The Spanish Royal Academy defines the hardware like the set of components that make up the material part ( physics ) of a computer, unlike the software which refers to the logical components ( intangibles ).However, the concept is usually understood more broadly and is used to name all the physical components of a technology.

In the case of informatica and personal computers, the hardware allows to define not only the internal physical components (hard disk, motherboard, microprocessor, circuits , cables, etc.), but also to the peripherals (scanners, printers).

The hardware is usually distinguished between basic (the necessary devices for start the operation of a computer) and complementary (perform certain specific functions).

As for the hardware types , the input peripherals can be mentioned (they allow information to be entered into the system, such as the keyboard and mouse), the output peripherals (show the user the result of various operations performed on the computer.Example: monitor, printer), the input/output peripherals (modems, network cards, memories USB), the central processing unit or CPU (the components that interpret the instructions and process the data) and the random access memory or RAM (used for temporary storage of information).

In the case of what RAM is, we also have to underline that there is a classification of it in two broad categories.If, on the one hand, we have what is known as dynamic, the set of cards that in the Computers are connected to the memory bus of the motherboard, and on the other hand there are the special ones.The latter, unlike the previous ones, are not used in computers as central memory.

Among the latter, VRAM (Video Random Access Memory), SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) and NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory) should be highlighted.

The history of hardware development, on the other hand, marks several milestones and stages.There is talk of a first generation (with glass tubes that housed electrical circuits), a second generation (with transistors), a third generation (which allowed to pack hundreds of transistors in an integrated circuit of a silicon chip) and a fourth generation (with the advent of the microprocessor).The progress in the studies on nanotechnology allows to anticipate the appearance of more advanced hardware in the coming years.

In addition to all the information exposed so far neither We can ignore what is known as free hardware.This is a concept of great importance in the sector because it refers to the set of devices that are characterized by the fact that any person, either for free or by paying a certain amount, can acc publicly publish what your specifications are.

Specifically, this type of hardware can be classified taking as its starting point its nature, which will give rise to two categories (static or reconfigurable), or according to its philosophy.In this last case we will find, for example, the free hardware design or with open source hardware.