What is the term for the physical equipment of a computer?

What is the term for the physical equipment of a computer?

• A. Hardware
• B. Software
• C. Firmware
• D. Network

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is telling apart what you can physically touch on a computer from things that aren’t physical. The physical parts you can touch—like the motherboard, CPU, memory sticks, hard drive, graphics card, power supply, cables, and even external devices such as a keyboard and monitor—are called hardware. They make up the tangible, mechanical side of the computer. Software, on the other hand, refers to the programs and data that run on those physical parts, such as the operating system, applications, and saved files. Firmware sits in between: it’s software that’s embedded in hardware to control basic functions, stored in non-volatile memory on chips like BIOS/UEFI, so it’s not the overall physical equipment, but a specialized software layer on it. The term network describes how devices connect and communicate; it’s about connectivity rather than the computer’s internal components. So the best match for the term “physical equipment” is hardware.

The main idea here is telling apart what you can physically touch on a computer from things that aren’t physical. The physical parts you can touch—like the motherboard, CPU, memory sticks, hard drive, graphics card, power supply, cables, and even external devices such as a keyboard and monitor—are called hardware. They make up the tangible, mechanical side of the computer.

Software, on the other hand, refers to the programs and data that run on those physical parts, such as the operating system, applications, and saved files. Firmware sits in between: it’s software that’s embedded in hardware to control basic functions, stored in non-volatile memory on chips like BIOS/UEFI, so it’s not the overall physical equipment, but a specialized software layer on it. The term network describes how devices connect and communicate; it’s about connectivity rather than the computer’s internal components. So the best match for the term “physical equipment” is hardware.