| The five classic components of a computer are (i) input, (ii) output, (iii) memory, (iv) datapath, which performs arithmetic operations, and (v) control, which commands the other components according to the instructions of a program, with the last two combined and called the processor. The processor gets instructions and data from memory. |
| Input writes data to memory, and output reads data from memory. Control sends the signals that determine the operations of the datapath, memory, input, and output. In the desktop computer below, the liquid crystal display (LCD) screen is the primary output device, and the keyboard and mouse are the primary input devices. |
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| An Ethernet cable is usually connected the computer to the network. Ethernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LAN). |
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