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Anatomy Of A Computer: The Motherboard

The Motherboard is the heart of the computer; it’s the number one, the most important part of the computer. Now, don’t get the wrong idea, no part of the computer can function without any part of it.  If the Motherboard is missing, it won’t function. If the CPU is missing, won’t function. The list goes on and on, but I don’t want to spoil anything. The Motherboard connects all of the parts together. If you ever build a computer, you would notice that you never connect individual pieces together, you instead put each piece into the motherboard or connect it to the Motherboard and when it boots, it works.

Why do they call this, the Motherboard? Well, initially it was called a Main Board because it is the main and most important board, however, in the term, Main Board does not allow for multiple boards easily. So, they changed the terminology to Mother and Daughter boards, Motherboards being Mainboards, and Daughter Boards being the less important boards. Many computer parts use Terminology related to humans and life, The plugs and ports you say Male for the plug and Female for the port.. The Motherboard was first released by IBM in 1981, with there first publicly available PC. At first, they called it a Planar board, but other companies gave their boards their own names.

The Motherboard is a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that acts as a High-way for electronic components of a computer; every component on the computer is in some way connected to the motherboard. Now, some things connect directly into the Motherboard, RAM (Random Access Memory) goes into the Motherboard as small rectangular sticks. The CPU (Central Processing Unit) connects to the Motherboard by clipping into a socket, the Hard Drive is connected with a SATA Cable, and the Graphics Card is slid into a slot.

To bring an end to the article, I will give you some information that would be useful to anyone who would like to use it, and build a computer. Motherboards have 3 different sizes, Mini ITX, Micro ATX, and ATX. The average cost of a motherboard varies from the lowest being $100, all the way up to the highest being around $350. Obviously these numbers will change over time, and obviously, there are many outliers, for example, the Intel Desktop Board DZ77BH55K Socket 1155 DDR3 ATX Motherboard, which cost $450.

I hope you have great adventures with computers and/or building computers. There have been two articles before this, the first being about the display, and second being about the CPU, it may be quite hard to find them now, since it has been over a year, but if you can, please enjoy them as well.