External Computer Hardware

Keyboard
The device on the outside of your PC that looks a little like a typewriter. Used to insert text. Follows the QWERTY key layout, which is standard for most keyboards.

Monitor
The device used to view your PC, which is similar to a TV in its function. This is where all your actions will be displayed, using the display on your computer.

Also known as a display or screen. LCD flatscreen (the smaller, sleeker ones) monitors are most common these days and fairly cheap to buy, but some older users may still use CRT monitors (the big ones). Generally, an LCD monitor is sharper and clearer than a CRT.

Mouse
This is the little device that bears little likeness to an actual mouse, but is used to move about that arrow around the monitor.

A device under the mouse (either a tracking ball or an optical laser) tracks motion, and allows the user to rest their hand on the top of the mouse and move the on-screen arrow about easily.

Printer
A device that is used to print what you see on your monitor, or other text and images that you ask it to print.

Printers come in varieties, with the most popular and cheapest being ink-jet printers, but the quality suffers. Laser-jet printers up the quality, but also the price.

Software (also known as drivers) is usually needed to get your computer to "talk" to the printer.

Router
The part that links you to the Internet! The router cleverly finds the best route from your PC to the Internet. Think of it as a route-finder, constantly searching for the best and quickest route through the internet.

They're also used to provide a link to the phone line so that the router can provide the bridge between the Internet and the computer.

Routers can provide the internet connection to more than one pc using a LAN.

Scanner
Used to translate an outside picture, like a photo, into a copy onto your PC. Other things can be scanned too, but most people use it to scan pictures.

They have become more popular since they have got cheaper over the last couple of years.

On the technical side of things, the work by converting visual information into digital data.